[Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/9/11 Waldir Pimenta <waldir at email.com>:
> Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia Portugal's planned
> expenses.
>
> I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
> provide you with some information.

Thank you very much, I appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue.

> We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
> with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
> live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
> volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
> community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
> enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
> wikimediapt at lists.wikimedia.org), then we certainly will consider your
> advice.

I'll offer you some advice here - I'd rather not join a non-English
mailing list and I don't like to email a list I am not subscribed to.

WMUK has almost all its meetings on IRC (every week at first, now down
to once a fortnight usually), which are completely free. It is not
quite as efficient as face-to-face meetings, but it does work. We have
our Annual General Meeting (AGM - you may call it a General Assembly
or similar, a meeting of all members) in person (at the last one the
only cost was travel for the board, we got the room for free and I
think there was free tea and coffee, everything else people paid for
themselves - the next one will be part of a larger conference and we
are trying to get sponsorship for that). There is also a plan for one
board meeting a year in person in addition to the AGM, I expect the
only cost for that will be travel again.

We find people are generally happy to buy their own food when we meet
in a pub or similar, or eat before they arrive (we usually start
things around 1-2pm so people can get there since we are spread out
all over the country and have a terrible train system). The conference
we are planning will probably include a lunch, but it will either be
paid for by sponsorship or a registration fee for attendees, it won't
come out of general charity funds.

I wish you the best of luck and offer you whatever assistance and
advice I can - just ask.