[Wikimedia-l] Outcome of Wikimedia board discussion on the Chapters Association

[Charles Andrès]

After carefully reading the WMF Board of Trustees letter and evaluating the first months of existence of the WCA, Wikimedia CH wants to make the following statement:
Wikimedia CH has been supporting the idea of a Chapters Council since its beginning. Our support is even stronger in these troubled times.
Since the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, a lot of work has been accomplished to make the WCA a successful and helpful organization for the Wikimedia Chapters and the whole movement. It has to be said though that along with this hard work some aspects have been lost, like what our real priorities are.
For almost a year, Wikimedia Chapters have worked to build a strong organization, trying to prevent all possible problems from an administrative point of view. We believe it was important to think about all the organizational problems the WCA would have to face in order to reach its goals but by doing this we first lost the enthusiasm of lots of chapter representatives and then the dynamics to actually create a helpful structure for the movement.
Considering this, we, Wikimedia CH, encourage the Wikimedia Chapters to go back to the blue print and develop the list of tasks and goals the WCA should achieve: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Tasks.
It is important to build an association where all chapters are equal, to start over designing an association without focusing on needed staff, focusing instead on the expected outcomes. We realize that in order for an international organization like the WCA to exist in the long term, we will need paid employees to do the routine work, and to prevent volunteer burnout. We feel that the necessity of staff will arise by activities. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.
To assure the equality of all chapters, we believe in a system where the chairman or president is a coordinator, not a decision-making power. Only this way we will ensure every chapter stays engaged with the Chapters Association.
We also believe the first task of the Chapters Association should be to produce a manifesto which defines the goals of the Chapters Association and how we think we will carry out our duties. This manifesto should also respect the expectations of movement actors like the project communities and the WMF Board of Trustees. Their expectations are important and require actions from the chapters. We are ready to face them.
For WMCH, --Charles Andrès (WMCH) 09:56, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association#Wikimedia_CH_statement

___________________________________________________________


Charles ANDRES, Chairman
"Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
www.wikimedia.ch
Skype: charles.andres.wmch
IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch

Le 5 févr. 2013 à 06:29, Kat Walsh <kat at wikimedia.org> a écrit :

> Those of you who have been following the discussion of the Chapters
> Association may wish to read the statement written by the WMF board at our
> recent meeting, which is now posted on the Meta talk page for the
> Association; we encourage comments and discussion to take place on the wiki.
> 
> Link:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association#WMF_Board_letter_regarding_the_Chapters_Association
> 
> For the Wikimedia board,
> Kat Walsh
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