At the last Board meeting, one of the matters that was briefly discussed what where the AGM in Jan/Feb should be held.
London would seem an obvious option for me - although not geographically central, it is easy to get to from all parts of the country,
Oxford would also be a good choice, as its the location for our Wikimania 2010 bid so would be a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the city (and have some experience organising an event - albeit much smaller event - there)
I guess other cities that are fairly central could be candidates too - Birmingham was mentioned as was Manchester which is fairly central when looking at the whole of the UK rather than just England.
Has anyone got any views on this?
This probably wont be decide for a few weeks yet, but would be good to get peoples' views.
Thanks
Andrew
If you want to meet in Manchester I may be able to provide meeting space for up to 200 people in our student union/university depending on time of day.
Dev
2008/11/30 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk
At the last Board meeting, one of the matters that was briefly discussed what where the AGM in Jan/Feb should be held.
London would seem an obvious option for me - although not geographically central, it is easy to get to from all parts of the country,
Oxford would also be a good choice, as its the location for our Wikimania 2010 bid so would be a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the city (and have some experience organising an event
- albeit much smaller event - there)
I guess other cities that are fairly central could be candidates too - Birmingham was mentioned as was Manchester which is fairly central when looking at the whole of the UK rather than just England.
Has anyone got any views on this?
This probably wont be decide for a few weeks yet, but would be good to get peoples' views.
Thanks
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
On Nov 30, 11:03 pm, "Sarah McCulloch" sarahmccull...@gmail.com wrote:
If you want to meet in Manchester I may be able to provide meeting space for up to 200 people in our student union/university depending on time of day.
Many thanks for the offer! Let's see what people say about location and we may contact you later to follow this up. Would there be a charge for this or would it be free?
Andrew
If you do it during the day it will definitely be free - but my student union closes to non-members at 5 (to get round alcohol licencing laws) and I'm not sure just how many "guests" they'd let me bring in. :-) For other times I shall enquire.
Dev
2008/11/30 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk
On Nov 30, 11:03 pm, "Sarah McCulloch" sarahmccull...@gmail.com wrote:
If you want to meet in Manchester I may be able to provide meeting space
for
up to 200 people in our student union/university depending on time of
day.
Many thanks for the offer! Let's see what people say about location and we may contact you later to follow this up. Would there be a charge for this or would it be free?
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central to the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
James Humphreys
From: Sarah McCulloch Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:03 PM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM
If you want to meet in Manchester I may be able to provide meeting space for up to 200 people in our student union/university depending on time of day.
Dev
2008/11/30 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk
At the last Board meeting, one of the matters that was briefly discussed what where the AGM in Jan/Feb should be held.
London would seem an obvious option for me - although not geographically central, it is easy to get to from all parts of the country,
Oxford would also be a good choice, as its the location for our Wikimania 2010 bid so would be a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the city (and have some experience organising an event - albeit much smaller event - there)
I guess other cities that are fairly central could be candidates too - Birmingham was mentioned as was Manchester which is fairly central when looking at the whole of the UK rather than just England.
Has anyone got any views on this?
This probably wont be decide for a few weeks yet, but would be good to get peoples' views.
Thanks
Andrew
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
On Mon, December 1, 2008 08:03, James wrote:
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central to the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
Locations can be so problematic though. I went to the founding meeting of a national organisation years ago which was held in Manchester (Salford, in fact) because "it was central and fairer to people attending from all over the UK".
Turned out though that *everyone* attending had come up on the train from Euston (though I'd got on at Watford) which meant that after the time that had been booked at the venue we carried on on the return train to London and then in the facilities at Euston for another few hours too!
Whilst not wishing to suggest that London would 'automatically' be the best venue on the grounds of easy and fast access from all directions, getting a pre-indication of who might be most likely to attend and how their finances / timings are for getting to the possible locations might be useful (the graph exercise in reducing the overall cost by selection of location is left as an exercise for the student).
Alison
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Dev
2008/12/1 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com
On Mon, December 1, 2008 08:03, James wrote:
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central
to
the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
Locations can be so problematic though. I went to the founding meeting of a national organisation years ago which was held in Manchester (Salford, in fact) because "it was central and fairer to people attending from all over the UK".
Turned out though that *everyone* attending had come up on the train from Euston (though I'd got on at Watford) which meant that after the time that had been booked at the venue we carried on on the return train to London and then in the facilities at Euston for another few hours too!
Whilst not wishing to suggest that London would 'automatically' be the best venue on the grounds of easy and fast access from all directions, getting a pre-indication of who might be most likely to attend and how their finances / timings are for getting to the possible locations might be useful (the graph exercise in reducing the overall cost by selection of location is left as an exercise for the student).
Alison
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
I said that because I suspect all the Londoners didn't realise the unhelpful location of Salford and made the effort, and those nearer didn't bother.
2008/12/1 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better
criterion.
:)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
I have never commented here before, but why the need for a physical AGM? Incorporated companies have been having online AGMs for years now. It may be necessary for a small group of people to be sitting in a room together, but the voting members don't necessarily need to be. There may be a hugely compelling reason why this is necessary, but that's just my thoughts,
MJS
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better
criterion.
:)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/1 Michael Shilliday mjshilliday@googlemail.com:
I have never commented here before, but why the need for a physical AGM? Incorporated companies have been having online AGMs for years now. It may be necessary for a small group of people to be sitting in a room together, but the voting members don't necessarily need to be. There may be a hugely compelling reason why this is necessary, but that's just my thoughts, MJS
Online meetings of large groups of people aren't practical. If we wanted members to just vote and that's it, then it would be fine, but we would like to actually get people involved in discussion and debate. It's pretty much impossible to maintain order in an IRC channel with dozens of people talking at once.
Meetings with a large number of online or teleconferencing participants are practical, provided those in the aether are receiving but not sending (except maybe one at a time - for example Email the chair in advance if you want to pose a question and have the chair dial you in when your slot comes up).
Regards
Jonathan Cardy (WereSpielChequers)
dahsun@yahoo.com
--- On Sun, 14/12/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, 14 December, 2008, 2:10 PM 2008/12/1 Michael Shilliday mjshilliday@googlemail.com:
I have never commented here before, but why the need
for a physical AGM?
Incorporated companies have been having online AGMs
for years now. It may
be necessary for a small group of people to be sitting
in a room together,
but the voting members don't necessarily need to
be.
There may be a hugely compelling reason why this is
necessary, but that's
just my thoughts, MJS
Online meetings of large groups of people aren't practical. If we wanted members to just vote and that's it, then it would be fine, but we would like to actually get people involved in discussion and debate. It's pretty much impossible to maintain order in an IRC channel with dozens of people talking at once.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/14 jonathan cardy dahsun@yahoo.com:
Meetings with a large number of online or teleconferencing participants are practical, provided those in the aether are receiving but not sending (except maybe one at a time - for example Email the chair in advance if you want to pose a question and have the chair dial you in when your slot comes up).
Indeed. As I said in another thread, you can do a Q&A session that way, but not a discussion. I would hope WMUK AGMs will be more than just the membership quizing the board and will actually involve the membership having a say in how the charity is run (and not just by getting to vote for the board).
On Dec 14, 10:01 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
... I would hope WMUK AGMs will be more than just the membership quizing the board and will actually involve the membership having a say in how the charity is run (and not just by getting to vote for the board).
Which opens another question: what should be on the agenda for the first AGM? Of course we will have formal business, such as the resolutions that need passing and the election of the new Board - but I can't imagine that will take longer than half an hour. Given that people will have travelled for up to 3 hours to get there, I think we should have a bit more.
My thoughts are:
a) Hustings where candidates for the Board can make speeches and answer Q&As? b) Debate on the priorities of the chapter? c) Report from the interim Board on the acheivements to date? d) Presentations from various people on possible events to be held? e.g. - Wikipedia Loves Art at the V&A - get someone from mySociety to talk about lobbying - get a techie to talk about squid servers and what we can do to help that
a) Hustings where candidates for the Board can make speeches and answer Q&As?
Absolutely.
b) Debate on the priorities of the chapter?
I was thinking along similar lines.
c) Report from the interim Board on the acheivements to date?
I think that may even be a legal requirement (it's certainly a standard part of an AGM).
d) Presentations from various people on possible events to be held? e.g.
- Wikipedia Loves Art at the V&A
- get someone from mySociety to talk about lobbying
- get a techie to talk about squid servers and what we can do to help
that
If we can find a speaker or two, that would be great. I'd like it if it were a short talk followed by questions and discussion - let's try and get the membership involved as much as possible. It's a meeting, not a conference, after all (although I do think it should be a conference in future years).
On Dec 1, 12:37 pm, "Michael Shilliday" mjshilli...@googlemail.com wrote:
I have never commented here before, but why the need for a physical AGM? Incorporated companies have been having online AGMs for years now. It may be necessary for a small group of people to be sitting in a room together, but the voting members don't necessarily need to be. There may be a hugely compelling reason why this is necessary, but that's just my thoughts,
MJS
First, welcome, and thanks for your contribution! Hope it will be the first of many :)
All members will get an opportunity to vote electronically on all the resolutions and voting for the new Board members, even if they can't physically turn up on the day. I hope we can find some way of involving people remotely in the meeting as well - perhaps through a videocam - does anyone know what Wikimania does for this?
There are advantages in having in person meetings as well, though - it gives us an opportunity to discuss things more informally and get to know each other more that you can with an online meeting.
Andrew
I hope we can find some way of involving people remotely in the meeting as well - perhaps through a videocam - does anyone know what Wikimania does for this?
If such AV equipment is available at the chosen venue, we could try and live stream video of the meeting (I think that would dependant on the venue being willing to assist us in that). Any kind of 2-way communication would be impractical, though. If people can't attend in person they'll have to chose a proxy, attending remotely is just asking for trouble.
2008/12/14 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
There are advantages in having in person meetings as well, though - it gives us an opportunity to discuss things more informally and get to know each other more that you can with an online meeting.
For an AGM, a meeting in person may be appropriate, for all the social reasons you describe.
For getting stuff done, IRC meetings are very nicely practical things IME. The chair needs to ride herd on them firmly and everyone needs to keep to the agenda, but they work quite well enough. And of course you have the log to hand.
- d.
2008/12/14 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2008/12/14 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
There are advantages in having in person meetings as well, though - it gives us an opportunity to discuss things more informally and get to know each other more that you can with an online meeting.
For an AGM, a meeting in person may be appropriate, for all the social reasons you describe.
For getting stuff done, IRC meetings are very nicely practical things IME. The chair needs to ride herd on them firmly and everyone needs to keep to the agenda, but they work quite well enough. And of course you have the log to hand.
The key thing about an AGM that makes IRC impractical is the size. A board meeting with less than 10 people works great online (as long as you have a decent chair). An AGM with 20+ people is another matter and no chair could handle that well. You would end up with people talking over each other too much and everything would get confused. You can hold a Q&A with those kind of numbers online (people PM the chair with their questions), but not an actual discussion.
2008/12/14 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2008/12/14 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2008/12/14 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
There are advantages in having in person meetings as well, though - it gives us an opportunity to discuss things more informally and get to know each other more that you can with an online meeting.
For an AGM, a meeting in person may be appropriate, for all the social reasons you describe.
For getting stuff done, IRC meetings are very nicely practical things IME. The chair needs to ride herd on them firmly and everyone needs to keep to the agenda, but they work quite well enough. And of course you have the log to hand.
The key thing about an AGM that makes IRC impractical is the size. A board meeting with less than 10 people works great online (as long as you have a decent chair). An AGM with 20+ people is another matter and no chair could handle that well. You would end up with people talking over each other too much and everything would get confused. You can hold a Q&A with those kind of numbers online (people PM the chair with their questions), but not an actual discussion.
Umm, +m? And sure you can hold actual discussions, it's just all moderated through the Chair. I generally find, if anything, that the meetings are more effective and efficient.
J.
Umm, +m? And sure you can hold actual discussions, it's just all moderated through the Chair. I generally find, if anything, that the meetings are more effective and efficient.
Do you know how long that would take? The chair having to either forward every message or voice and unvoice people constantly would add several seconds of delay to every single message. And there's a good chance someone will have already said what you wanted to say by the time the chair gets to you. It's not at all practical to have a proper discussion between a large group of people in real time online.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better
criterion.
:)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Yes, but if everyone is travelling there via Euston, then somewhere near Euston would be a far better venue.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Yes, but if everyone is travelling there via Euston, then somewhere near Euston would be a far better venue.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
In that case, can I restate a vote for Birmingham?
2008/12/1 J.A. Humphreys u7z44@students.keele.ac.uk:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Yes, but if everyone is travelling there via Euston, then somewhere near Euston would be a far better venue.
In that case, can I restate a vote for Birmingham?
In what case? The case being discussed was a meeting Alison attended and has nothing to do with our AGM, it was just an example of one of the issues that needs to be considered. There is nothing wrong with Manchester, per se, it's just a bad venue if all the attendees are nearer to somewhere else. We don't know where are attendees are (although we should probably try and find out - there are sites that make maps of such things for you, although I don't remember what any of them are called), so we don't know if Manchester is a good choice or not.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2008/12/1 J.A. Humphreys u7z44@students.keele.ac.uk:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Yes, but if everyone is travelling there via Euston, then somewhere near Euston would be a far better venue.
In that case, can I restate a vote for Birmingham?
In what case? The case being discussed was a meeting Alison attended and has nothing to do with our AGM, it was just an example of one of the issues that needs to be considered. There is nothing wrong with Manchester, per se, it's just a bad venue if all the attendees are nearer to somewhere else. We don't know where are attendees are (although we should probably try and find out - there are sites that make maps of such things for you, although I don't remember what any of them are called), so we don't know if Manchester is a good choice or not.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
In case of Manchester not being good for people - I just think that having everyone travel down to London every time is a bit of a mission, particularly for those of us that don't drive - for me, coming down from Keele, for instance, it's pretty much a complete weekend that'd need to be assigned.
Just because everyone turned up from Euston in this case simply confirms what I was saying - Londoners thought it was worth making the trip, people from say, Bolton, would have decided Salford was difficult to get to and stayed at home. When considering cities the ease with which the station can be reached from everywhere should be the priority, be it Manchester Piccadilly or London Liverpool Street.
2008/12/1 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Yes, but if everyone is travelling there via Euston, then somewhere near Euston would be a far better venue.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
Just because everyone turned up from Euston in this case simply confirms what I was saying - Londoners thought it was worth making the trip, people from say, Bolton, would have decided Salford was difficult to get to and stayed at home. When considering cities the ease with which the station can be reached from everywhere should be the priority, be it Manchester Piccadilly or London Liverpool Street.
You're assuming there were people that were meant to come but didn't, we don't know that. Alison was just giving an example of a time when choosing a geographically central location turned out not to be a particularly good choice. The exact reasons why it went wrong that time aren't really important, the point was that you need to consider more than just centrality in the country.
I'm not considering centrality - I'm considering that if you all come to Manchester I'll be able go to the AGM :P
2008/12/1 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
Just because everyone turned up from Euston in this case simply confirms what I was saying - Londoners thought it was worth making the trip,
people
from say, Bolton, would have decided Salford was difficult to get to and stayed at home. When considering cities the ease with which the station
can
be reached from everywhere should be the priority, be it Manchester Piccadilly or London Liverpool Street.
You're assuming there were people that were meant to come but didn't, we don't know that. Alison was just giving an example of a time when choosing a geographically central location turned out not to be a particularly good choice. The exact reasons why it went wrong that time aren't really important, the point was that you need to consider more than just centrality in the country.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
I'm not considering centrality - I'm considering that if you all come to Manchester I'll be able go to the AGM :P
Maybe but what else is there to do in Manchester wikipedia wise? Oxford has pitt rivers. While there is the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester I don't know much about it.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 5:58 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
I'm not considering centrality - I'm considering that if you all come to Manchester I'll be able go to the AGM :P
Maybe but what else is there to do in Manchester wikipedia wise? Oxford has pitt rivers. While there is the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester I don't know much about it.
-- geni
Quite a few museums actually, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Museums_in_Manchester - also art galleries.
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 5:58 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe but what else is there to do in Manchester wikipedia wise? Oxford has pitt rivers. While there is the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester I don't know much about it.
-- geni
Quite a few museums actually, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Museums_in_Manchester - also art galleries.
In the Italian chapter we often have the same problem, of finding a place that can be convenient for as many people as possible and have some rotation, so that it isn't always inconvenient for the same people. Like GB, some places are easier to reach than others, particularly East-West links are quite scarce and slow. In this sense, London is the best place, because there are direct train from many more places than any other city. We had our last AGM near Naples, because we had an enthusiast member who organised it, and because we wanted to reach out in the South (our members are concentrated in the North, AFAIK you can count the members living south of Rome on one hand's fingers). The result, sadly, was that there were more "established" people from the North willing to travel 600 km than "new" people from the South willing to travel 100 km. And when this happens, the response of the members is: Never again.
For an AGM, I believe the priority should go to having as many people as possible, particularly this being the first one. If the group of "Londoners" doesn't mind sharing a car or a bunch of seats on the train from Euston, hoping that the Liverpudlians or the Scottish decide to get at least to Manchester (while they wouldn't go to London), than Manchester is the best place (or Birmingham, for example). Regarding the things to see in the place, if this is likely to motivate someone to come, than take it into consideration, but the point is that an AGM is something different from a normal meetup.
Cruccone
2008/12/1 Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com:
For an AGM, I believe the priority should go to having as many people as possible, particularly this being the first one.
Hear, hear. (sorry, this was just to prove to Thomas that I do manage, when I'm sitting in front of a real computer)
In Switzerland, we held the founding assembly in Olten which is a traditional transport hub in Switzerland - in fact, in the restaurant of the train station, probably more associations have been founded (including the Swiss Alpine Club) than anywhere else. We chose the restaurant both for this "record of history" and because it is very central for many parts of Switzerland (granted, not all).
The first annual assembly was then held in Lucerne, which is literally the centre of Switzerland (or rather, the town closest is).
For the second annual assembly, we then chose Lausanne in the French-speaking west of Switzerland, which was also done to "make a point", as we have had several events in German-speaking (central/eastern) Switzerland, one big event in Italian-speaking (south) Switzerland but none really in the Romandie. Notably, there were then quite many people from the French-speaking region attending, even a couple who were not yet members, while also many of our German-speaking members (and yes, they are still by large a majority) attended.
Conclusion/Suggestion: Try to find a transport hub (there I know too less about UK public transport to make a specific suggestion), which needn't necessarily be London, just a place where most people can get to by train / bus in the least amount of time and with the best connections. Try then to find for the second AGM (I know, this is far away...) again a central place, but somewhere else than the first time (well, okay, 2010 is special, if you do have a Wikimania in Oxford you might strongly consider just holding the AGM during Wikimania at Oxford) and after the third year, you can really get started with "regionalising", i.e. having AGMs somewhere not technically central in order to attract members from regions where you don't have a strong membership base yet (Edinburgh, Cardiff, why not Belfast...). You might want to stop somewhere, though, before you hold AGMs on the Channel Islands ;-)
Regards, Michael
2008/12/2 Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com:
2008/12/1 Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com:
For an AGM, I believe the priority should go to having as many people as possible, particularly this being the first one.
Hear, hear. (sorry, this was just to prove to Thomas that I do manage, when I'm sitting in front of a real computer)
Yeah, yeah...
The first annual assembly was then held in Lucerne, which is literally the centre of Switzerland (or rather, the town closest is).
And has a travel museum which I visited pretty much every day it rained during my childhood holidays in Switzerland.
Conclusion/Suggestion: Try to find a transport hub (there I know too less about UK public transport to make a specific suggestion), which needn't necessarily be London, just a place where most people can get to by train / bus in the least amount of time and with the best connections.
Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. Oxford may require people to change trains an extra time, although it does have the benefit of allowing us to combine it with Wikimania bid work which at least partially compensates.
Try then to find for the second AGM (I know, this is far away...) again a central place, but somewhere else than the first time (well, okay, 2010 is special, if you do have a Wikimania in Oxford you might strongly consider just holding the AGM during Wikimania at Oxford)
The AGMs need to be pretty close to annual (hence the name!) so the 2010 AGM will be around January time, Wikimania will be in the summer, I don't think it is possible to combine them. I quite like having them around 6 months apart - it means if we go ahead with my idea of turning the AGMs into a one-day conference (with the AGM as just one event during the day) we would have evenly spaced conferences throughout the year - a UK conference in the winter and an international one (Wikimania) in the summer.
and after the third year, you can really get started with "regionalising", i.e. having AGMs somewhere not technically central in order to attract members from regions where you don't have a strong membership base yet (Edinburgh, Cardiff, why not Belfast...). You might want to stop somewhere, though, before you hold AGMs on the Channel Islands ;-)
I agree, that would be good. If we do the conference idea we can try and get sponsorship to enable us to subsidise travel (and maybe accommodation) for those travelling from further afield. We could even subsidise it out of the main charity funds if we can afford it (subsidising travel to the AGM would be questionable [legal, maybe, but it wouldn't look good when we made a pie chart of how much money has been spend on admin vs projects in the annual report], but subsidising travel to a conference would be fine).
On Dec 2, 1:45 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. <snip>
My only thoughts on Birmingham is that we don't seem to have any activists from there who could organise venues.
Andrew
As far as Birmingham is concerned, I'm at Uni in Keele and my home's in Shrewsbury, so that's fairly close, plus a load of folks in my RAF squadron go to Uni in the city itself, so I could easily ask them for advice as to the best places to look at.
James
-------------------------------------------------- From: "AndrewRT" raturvey@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:10 PM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM
On Dec 2, 1:45 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. <snip>
My only thoughts on Birmingham is that we don't seem to have any activists from there who could organise venues.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
If you could that'd be useful!
Thanks
On Dec 2, 7:18 pm, "James" u7...@students.keele.ac.uk wrote:
As far as Birmingham is concerned, I'm at Uni in Keele and my home's in Shrewsbury, so that's fairly close, plus a load of folks in my RAF squadron go to Uni in the city itself, so I could easily ask them for advice as to the best places to look at.
James
From: "AndrewRT" ratur...@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:10 PM To: wikimediau...@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM
On Dec 2, 1:45 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. <snip>
My only thoughts on Birmingham is that we don't seem to have any activists from there who could organise venues.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UKhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman...
As far as Manchester goes, I asked and there's no rule that says I can't randomly hold an AGM for a completely unrelated organisation if it's properly booked in a society's name. I'm sure Students Against ID (all two of us) will be happy to have you. :-)
Holding it on a Saturday will make it easiest for people to get in though. At 5 they start checking student ID, and while you can still get in for a specific event, it's a pain in the arse.
Dev
On Dec 2, 1:45 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. <snip>
My only thoughts on Birmingham is that we don't seem to have any activists from there who could organise venues.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UKhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
OK folks, I asked around at the sqn, and the general consensus of opinion was that the best place to meet would be Birmingham University itself - there's a railway station in the middle of the campus (a direct line from Birmingham New Street), plenty of rooms available for conference hire, and, of course, lots of cafés and bars around the place.
James Humphreys (Colds7ream)
-------------------------------------------------- From: "AndrewRT" raturvey@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:26 PM To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM
If you could that'd be useful!
Thanks
On Dec 2, 7:18 pm, "James" u7...@students.keele.ac.uk wrote:
As far as Birmingham is concerned, I'm at Uni in Keele and my home's in Shrewsbury, so that's fairly close, plus a load of folks in my RAF squadron go to Uni in the city itself, so I could easily ask them for advice as to the best places to look at.
James
From: "AndrewRT" ratur...@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:10 PM To: wikimediau...@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM
On Dec 2, 1:45 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Agreed. London, Birmingham or Manchester are all pretty accessible. <snip>
My only thoughts on Birmingham is that we don't seem to have any activists from there who could organise venues.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UKhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman...
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/7 James u7z44@students.keele.ac.uk:
OK folks, I asked around at the sqn, and the general consensus of opinion was that the best place to meet would be Birmingham University itself - there's a railway station in the middle of the campus (a direct line from Birmingham New Street), plenty of rooms available for conference hire, and, of course, lots of cafés and bars around the place.
Any chance of getting one of those rooms for free?
On 1 Dec 2008, at 18:00, Al Tally wrote:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 5:58 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: 2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
I'm not considering centrality - I'm considering that if you all
come to
Manchester I'll be able go to the AGM :P
Maybe but what else is there to do in Manchester wikipedia wise? Oxford has pitt rivers. While there is the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester I don't know much about it.
-- geni
Quite a few museums actually, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Category:Museums_in_Manchester - also art galleries.
Alex (User:Majorly)
There seems to be plenty enough around here for the Greater Manchester wikiproject (which has the largest number of FAs/GAs than any other UK-based wikiproject, I believe).
Have a look at en:Manchester ?
Mike
2008/12/1 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/1 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
If I may interject, Salford is quite hard to get to, even for locals. Proximity to Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria would be a better criterion. :)
Well, yes, but that doesn't affect Alison's point. Anywhere in Manchester would have been a bad choice of venue.
Not necessarily. You can get to anywhere in the world from Manchester Piccadilly.
Manchester Piccadilly famously houses the city's main attraction - the timetable of trains to other, less rainy, cities. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/aug/27/premierleague.manchesterunite... :)
J. (born Manchester)
The population center of Great Britain is currently a bit south of Appleby Parva ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_population#Great_Britain ), which is roughly halfway between Birmingham and Leicester:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Appleby%20Parva.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&a... ozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl
Given Birmingham's such a transport hub as well, it really is the natural location, all other things being equal. (Yes GB is not the whole of the UK, but anyone in NI would be flying anyway, so anywhere with an airport is basically equivalent for them.)
Cost potentially makes things unequal, so I'd suggest when comparing two places at which we can get free accommodation taking the distance to Appleby Parva would be a reasonable metric. Google's walking distance (which should be roughly the as-the-crow-flies distance) puts both Manchester and Oxford at around 71 miles.
Tom
2008/12/1 Tom Holden thomas.holden@gmail.com:
The population center of Great Britain is currently a bit south of Appleby Parva ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_population#Great_Britain ), which is roughly halfway between Birmingham and Leicester:
The population centre by distance, maybe, but as I said above, distance is irrelevant. It's time and cost which we want to minimise.
2008/12/1 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
On Mon, December 1, 2008 08:03, James wrote:
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central to the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
Locations can be so problematic though. I went to the founding meeting of a national organisation years ago which was held in Manchester (Salford, in fact) because "it was central and fairer to people attending from all over the UK".
Turned out though that *everyone* attending had come up on the train from Euston (though I'd got on at Watford) which meant that after the time that had been booked at the venue we carried on on the return train to London and then in the facilities at Euston for another few hours too!
Whilst not wishing to suggest that London would 'automatically' be the best venue on the grounds of easy and fast access from all directions, getting a pre-indication of who might be most likely to attend and how their finances / timings are for getting to the possible locations might be useful (the graph exercise in reducing the overall cost by selection of location is left as an exercise for the student).
The other issue to consider is that distance is not at all what we want to minimise. We want to minimise time and/or cost. For me in Durham, Manchester is 95 miles away and London 235 miles, as the crow flies. However, if I look at train tickets to both places for Saturday 24th January (a plausible date for the AGM), I find that Manchester will take about 2.5hrs each way and cost around £34. London on the other hand will take around 3hrs each way and cost around £67 (slightly less if we get a firm date and venue decided in the next couple of weeks so I can book advance tickets). So, in terms of distance, London is 150% further away, but in terms of time it's just 20% longer and in terms of cost it's about 100% more. So Manchester is a better choice for me, but not by anywhere near the amount you would expect from looking at a map.
2008/12/1 James u7z44@students.keele.ac.uk
Manchester or Birmingham would be a good bet I think - nice and central to the whole UK, so everyone can get there without travelling too far.
When you consider that Appleby Parva, Leicestershire was the [[centre of population]] in the UK in 2000 (http://www.applebymagna.org.uk/population_centre.htm), Manchester is as skewed from this centre as London is. Considering the geographic centre alone is pretty useless since the population densities of northern and western UK are fairly low. This has got to be balanced against places with good transport links. Since Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK and is close to the population centre, it might make a good place.
-- Oldak Quill (oldakquill@gmail.com)
mmmmm Wikipedian's aren't use this democratic type systems. Can't somebody right down some names of interesting towns in the UK and just pick one from a hat? Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and London all seem pretty reasonable and easy to get to.
m
Why don't you do the obvious and write down where everyone who definitely wants to come to the AGM is from?
2008/12/2 michael west michawest@gmail.com
mmmmm Wikipedian's aren't use this democratic type systems. Can't somebody right down some names of interesting towns in the UK and just pick one from a hat? Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and London all seem pretty reasonable and easy to get to.
m
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/12/2 Sarah McCulloch sarahmcculloch@gmail.com:
Why don't you do the obvious and write down where everyone who definitely wants to come to the AGM is from?
That was the general idea with my map (although I decided not to specifically restrict it to people that wanted to come to the AGM because my hope is that if we choose a good location it will encourage people nearby to come even if they weren't planning on it).
On Dec 2, 10:08 pm, "michael west" michaw...@gmail.com wrote:
mmmmm Wikipedian's aren't use this democratic type systems. Can't somebody right down some names of interesting towns in the UK and just pick one from a hat? Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and London all seem pretty reasonable and easy to get to.
The actual decision will be taken by the Board, but we value everyones' input so far and will bear it all in mind when making the final decision. There seems to be four credible candidates here - London, Birmingham, Manchester and Oxford (in no particular order) - which all look like they could work. Who knows, perhaps the first four AGMs will be held in those four cities!
Andrew
2008/12/2 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
On Dec 2, 10:08 pm, "michael west" michaw...@gmail.com wrote:
mmmmm Wikipedian's aren't use this democratic type systems. Can't somebody right down some names of interesting towns in the UK and just pick one from a hat? Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and London all seem pretty reasonable and easy to get to.
The actual decision will be taken by the Board, but we value everyones' input so far and will bear it all in mind when making the final decision. There seems to be four credible candidates here - London, Birmingham, Manchester and Oxford (in no particular order) - which all look like they could work. Who knows, perhaps the first four AGMs will be held in those four cities!
We've been saying having the AGM is Oxford would be good because it would benefit the bid - perhaps we should be more optimistic: If the bid is successful then it would be good to have the January 2010 AGM in Oxford because it would benefit the conference. If Wikimania is going to be held in Oxford, we will need to make several trips to visit venues and accommodation and whatever else beforehand in order to get everything planned and prepared, the AGM would be a good opportunity for that. From that point of view, it might be good to go somewhere else this year so we have the option of going to Oxford next year.
This probably wont be decide for a few weeks yet, but would be good to get peoples' views.
If you want to get somewhere for free it needs to be decided sooner rather than later - getting freebies takes time since you have to get all the right signatures in all the right places, paying for stuff is easy, you just hand over the cash and you're done. If you want to hold the AGM in late January, it should be booked before xmas, I'd say.
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 10:56 PM, AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Oxford would also be a good choice, as its the location for our Wikimania 2010 bid so would be a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the city (and have some experience organising an event
- albeit much smaller event - there)
*snip*
Has anyone got any views on this?
Oxford seems to be a very good choice for this. It allows the team working on Wikimania 2010 to scout out locations for real, talk to local businesses, and hold meetings, as well as have another alterior motive for visiting the city - the AGM.
Informed by the discussion we've had here, I'm going to propose that the next Board meeting on tuesday decide the location of the AGM so that we can start organising it.
There seems to be a broad consensus that the location should be easily accessible by transport and should rotate around several places. Therefore I suggest:
- Oxford is chosen at the location for the Spring 2010 AGM in the run up to Wikimania - Given that London was the location for the Wikimedia v1 formation meeting, we go elsewhere for now - AGM 2009 is held in Birmingham, or, if we can't find a suitable venue, Manchester
How does that sound?
Then lets all get to work on the bid :)> Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:38:26 -0500> From: thomas.dalton@gmail.com> To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Location of AGM> > > - Oxford is chosen at the location for the Spring 2010 AGM in the run> > up to Wikimania> > That's only useful if we win the bid!> > _______________________________________________> Wikimedia UK mailing list> wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK%3E http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l _________________________________________________________________ Get Windows Live Messenger on your Mobile http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl0010000001ukm/direct/01/
On Dec 22, 12:53 am, AndrewRT ratur...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Informed by the discussion we've had here, I'm going to propose that the next Board meeting on tuesday
I should of course have said _next_ tuesday, i.e. 30th!
Just confusing myself again!
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org