[Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community

[Austin Hair]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters.
>  >  I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it
>  >  would be on a different substance somehow.
>  >  However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share
>  >  interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants
>  >  ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from
>  >  Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of
>  >  reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
>
>  Where would that feedback take place? To my knowledge, there is no
>  structure in place for inter-chapter communications. Such a structure
>  needs to be put in place (by the central foundation, as the only body
>  able to do so - after asking the chapters individually for comment,
>  first, I'd hope) before the chapters can do anything.

There are, in fact, several channels for this.  A mailing list and
wiki exist for the "internal group," comprising board, staff, and
chapter officials; more specifically, the Chapters Committee exists in
large part to facilitate inter-chapter and WMF-chapter coordination.
WMF Inc. retains on staff Delphine Ménard as chapters coordinator, a
paid position with specifically that mandate.

I support the impression that chapter heads are still working to come
to grips with this announcement.  I chair the aforementioned
committee, and I learned about it when everyone else did.  Clearly
there's much work yet to be done.

Austin