Dear all
Many thanks to those of you who have inputted into the two policies I circulated earlier this year for community consultation (about Diversity and Safeguarding). I'm in the process of revising those draft policies - according to the suggestions that have been made - for board review in March.
As I mentioned at the time, I'm updating a number of board-level policies and would welcome community feedback into the following working documents by Wednesday 1st March:
Volunteers Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hHZ-JIUhl0NAcS9kT3d-LNYH7DUW1Oz0Vyf6OrYm... Safe Space Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1vWJBFFn_dQ0nmXIINYHmp3fXSKrY3I5q4qfv7Y... Donation and Grants Acceptance Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnqR3V9-_mOMacEQo0xzTGn6aY9-HaC3jAC1Lk6y...
Please feel free to add comments directly to the document or to email me with your feedback.
Many thanks Lucy
Hi Lucy,
I've added a few comments to the google docs - sorry for not quite meeting your deadline.
I see that the new volunteers policy removes a key phrase that was often used in WMUK's past: "staff should only do things that volunteers either cannot do or do not want to do". That's OK - perhaps that phrase has now outlived its usefulness - but it might be useful to recall why that phrase started being used. Caveat that my memory has faded over the years, so if other have a different recollection then please share it!
Back then, we were starting to hire a number of new positions for the first time, working in areas that at the time were dominated by volunteer work (particularly GLAM, but also other outreach approaches), and we were worried that the staff might displace/discourage volunteers from contributing to those areas. That's not scalable, as there are always going to be a limited number of staff and a much larger base of volunteers, so it's much more effective for staff to support volunteers rather than trying to replace them. When we hired the new staff members we tried to focus them on being enablers that would scale up volunteer activity rather than replace it (e.g., coordination roles). Sadly, I think that worry was realised anyway, and staff did displace volunteer work in, e.g., talking to potential partners, at a time when there were still volunteers willing to do that work but they just weren't being invited to do so. I think that's part of what then led WMUK to become so London-centric, as that's where its staff was, even though its volunteers were distributed much more widely.
Things have changed quite a bit since then, but I hope that the principle (if not the phrase) survives in WMUK's approach to engaging volunteers, and leveraging its staff capacity to make the biggest possible impact.
Thanks, Mike
On 15 Feb 2017, at 11:26, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
Many thanks to those of you who have inputted into the two policies I circulated earlier this year for community consultation (about Diversity and Safeguarding). I'm in the process of revising those draft policies - according to the suggestions that have been made - for board review in March.
As I mentioned at the time, I'm updating a number of board-level policies and would welcome community feedback into the following working documents by Wednesday 1st March:
Volunteers Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hHZ-JIUhl0NAcS9kT3d-LNYH7DUW1Oz0Vyf6OrYm... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hHZ-JIUhl0NAcS9kT3d-LNYH7DUW1Oz0Vyf6OrYmiJU/edit?usp=sharing Safe Space Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1vWJBFFn_dQ0nmXIINYHmp3fXSKrY3I5q4qfv7Y... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1vWJBFFn_dQ0nmXIINYHmp3fXSKrY3I5q4qfv7Y4CQ/edit?usp=sharing Donation and Grants Acceptance Policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnqR3V9-_mOMacEQo0xzTGn6aY9-HaC3jAC1Lk6y... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnqR3V9-_mOMacEQo0xzTGn6aY9-HaC3jAC1Lk6yGsw/edit?usp=sharing
Please feel free to add comments directly to the document or to email me with your feedback.
Many thanks Lucy
-- 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.
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On 02 March 2017 at 00:11 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi Lucy, I've added a few comments to the google docs - sorry for not quite meetingyour deadline.
I see that the new volunteers policy removes a key phrase that was oftenused in WMUK's past: "staff should only do things that volunteers either cannot do or do not want to do".
<snip>
When we hired the new staff members we tried to focus them on beingenablers that would scale up volunteer activity rather than replace it (e.g., coordination roles). Sadly, I think that worry was realised anyway, and staff did displace volunteer work in, e.g., talking to potential partners, at a time when there were still volunteers willing to do that work but they just weren't being invited to do so.
The "either-or" thinking behind this argument was and is wrong-headed, anyway.
What I would call the "freelance" approach to institutional contacts gives no guarantee of continuity. We know that if it is one volunteer dealing with one person in an institution, the relationship can easily go up in smoke. If it is one contact in the office, ditto. These things are easy to illustrate from recent history. To use the word "displace" when there should be a properly understood division of labour is a reminder of past bad management, really.
I think that's part of what then led WMUK to become so London-centric, asthat's where its staff was, even though its volunteers were distributed much more widely.
Well, how about thinking instead in new terms, rather than this old blame game?
At the recent education conference we heard from Melissa Highton of the University of Edinburgh, in her keynote. about "getting the Wikimedian in Residence out of the library". GLAMs are more strongly concentrated around London than the university system; and learned societies even more so. I think it was fantastically unhelpful to slur over the difference between education policy and the WiR policy, as was done around 2014.
Anyway, the so-called "key phrase" never did much good, in my recollection, so I'm glad to see the back of it.
Charles
On 02/03/17 00:11, Michael Peel wrote:
I see that the new volunteers policy removes a key phrase that was often used in WMUK's past: "staff should only do things that volunteers either cannot do or do not want to do". That's OK - perhaps that phrase has now outlived its usefulness - but it might be useful to recall why that phrase started being used. Caveat that my memory has faded over the years, so if other have a different recollection then please share it!
Did not staff do (positive) things with a "volunteer hat" or a "staff hat" in the past, depending on the context?
And the same observation of many of the Trustees, who were very active as volunteers in the community as well captains and stewards of the WMUK ship?
Gordo
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