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
http://enwp.org/User:HJ
+44 (0) 7507 536 971
Skype: harry_j_mitchell

On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Lucy Crompton-Reid <lucy.crompton-reid@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@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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