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

[Delphine Ménard]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 22:21, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>> Hoi,
>> I think it is not reasonable to judge others by how you do things. Please
>> remember that there are different cultures where things are done in
>> different ways. I am sure there are things in the history of the WMUK that
>> you do not wish onto others.. Everyone has to deal with the local
>> environment. This is one reason why we have different chapters ...
>
> Nonsense. If British Wikimedians can afford their own food, so can
> Portuguese Wikimedians. They can bring a packed lunch from home if
> they want - they would be eating anyway.

Once in a while does not harm, I have to agree with Thomas on this
one. As a matter of fact, the amount is irrelevant to me, it's the
whole idea of having face to face meetings 12 (twelve!) times in a
year that I find incredible.
In a country like Australia, or even the US where getting people
together even just once might cost that kind of money, I would have
found the expense justified. In a country like Portugal, I am sorry, I
don't.

Cultural differences may exist, but there is no chapter that I know of
which does a monthly face to face meeting of their board (heck, if
Wikimedia France had that kind of money, we would!). And if they do,
they manage to get the funds together, as Thomas puts it, especially
for the meals. If anything, this helps measure the commitment of
people to making the chapter work. What happened to volunteers eating
sandwiches and fruits while sitting in a café with free wifi?

So yeah, I must say that I would have brought down this grant to
around 1000 USD for a first face to face meeting in order to get
things going, and would have only included legal fees, renting rooms
and travel, for example.


Delphine




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