The board seems to have cultivated a mostly apathetic membership, which
nicely preserves the status quo and thus the board has little to gain from
actually members what it's doing beyond the legal requirements. One of the
many reasons I'm glad I'm no longer a member. I never begrudged the
membership fee, but legal membership implies a level of responsibility I'm
not comfortable with considering how little scope the membership has to
change anything. But I enjoy reading the highly sanitised reports that
confirm that the deckchairs are in order on the Titanic.
As for membership and the wider community, the latter is inherently a more
ephemeral group. It's unrealistic to expect that all or even the majority
of them will become members of the organisation. Those who want to get
involved in the politics and the decision-making (to the extent that it
doesn't interfere with the status quo) will always be a subset, and having
a large and healthy community with interests broader than those of the
chapter is a good thing. The charity and company limited by guarantee can
be part of a broader ecosystem.
Harry Mitchell
+44 (0) 7507 536 971
Skype: harry_j_mitchell
On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
lucy.crompton-reid(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Gordo, you're right that the volunteer community
is larger than the member
base, and we really want to change that! I will be presenting an (early)
draft communications strategy to the board in June, and one of the issues
we will be looking at within the wider strategy is membership. Cheers, Lucy
On 13 May 2016 at 09:13, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
On 13/05/16 03:38, Rex X wrote:
Yes, I said that. So what's the answer to the
question I asked: how
else would
you do it?
By encouraging the wider community to become members, so that they get a
vote at the AGM.
The volunteer community is much larger than the membership of the
registered charity, and that body does indeed influence the activities
of WMUK.
But I am not happy with non members influencing change at the level of
Articles of Association. Non members become members who then get a vote
on these matters.
Wider engagement? How would I do it? Well communications strategy and
policy is always a good place to start.
Gordo
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Lucy Crompton-Reid
Chief Executive
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 207 065 0991
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent
non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility
for its contents.*
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