Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Wikimedia-l] Thank you, Jan-Bart and Stu

While we have long discussions on this list about board composition, we seem to almost ignore the fact that two long time veterans are leaving the Wikimedia Foundation board, as scheduled. Jan-Bart de Vreede and Stu West have been around longer than many regular editors nowadays, and I think there are not many people who can recall the days that the board didn't have them on it. I have never had the pleasure to serve on the board with them, but a little thank-you from our community side, would seem in place. Stu joined the board already in 2008 (filling Michael Davis' seat), and has been a solid power on the board's audit responsibilities (I believe he chaired the audit committee for quite a while) and was a force behind the accountability of movement affiliates. While we often strongly disagreed on affiliate issues, I appreciate the fact that he always remained constructive and wanted to think about solutions rather than problems. He served both as treasurer and vice chair. Jan-Bart was on the board even longer, since early 2007, and I recall already working with him through Kennisnet (a Dutch foundation for education and IT) before that. Jan-Bart is one of those rare people who went to ALL wikimania conferences, and can be easily recognised there with his big smile. I can't remember a theme Jan-Bart didn't work on in the past years (Affiliates, HR, searching a new Executive Director) and he served the board in many positions, including as chair. I'm sure that the WMF communications staff and/or board has a nice thankyou coming up - with a more accurate description of the awesome work they did, that I now made up from the top of my head. But in the mean time, I'd like to do it myself: Thank you Jan-Bart and Stu for all the time, energy and effort that you poured into our movement. I know that not all of us appreciate this as much as we perhaps should, and sometimes you may even have perceived us as hostile. I do sincerely hope that you had fun with us though, and I'm confident that you made a big dent in our impossible mission of sharing the sum of all knowledge with everyone. I hope to meet you again soon, at least in Italy at Wikimania, and I hope to see you around in our movement in many different ways. Best, Lodewijk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,<mailto:wikimed…