[Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?

[Fae]

On 24 February 2013 11:14, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Balázs Viczián, 24/02/2013 11:27:
>
>> Maybe I wasn't clear enough, imo chapters are NOT part of the communities
>> (nor the global community), just a tool for them to achieve certain goals
>> that otherwise would be much more difficult or (almost) impossible to
>> reach.
>
> Here we are, this is one of the things I wanted to point out (maybe one by
> one it's easier): a "chapter" is not a person, of course it's not a
> "community member"... but (IMHO) *of course* chapter members are Wikimedia
> community members.
> Logical consequence: the "chapter" meant as "set of the chapter members" is
> a subset of the community and hence a "part of the community".
>
> The /structure/ of the chapter (assembly, board, president, ...) may work
> well or not, "represent" some obscure interests of the chapter members or
> not, further the (mysterious) "interests" of "the"* community at large or
> not, etc. etc. etc. But that's an entirely different matter.
>
> Nemo

Yes, organizations are composed of people and those people that
contribute to Chapters are part of the community. However the point
being made, I think, was that these organizations we create together
are just tools to achieve a desirable outcome. If we don't understand
or cannot measure the outcome, then the tool is not fit for purpose.
This does not mean that we abandon the people involved, we just might
re-form the organization or change its scope and priorities to create
a new tool.

In my case, as a volunteer, I was democratically elected to be a
charity trustee for the UK Chapter and I was elected to be the
Chairperson for the Chapters Association. This gives me an unenviable
responsibility to not only represent that part of the community that
wanted to vote for me to fulfil these roles, but also to consider the
views of the wider movement. Conceptually I am much happier with the
idea that we have community members that are pushed forward to help
provide a voice in decision making or trusted with administrative
tasks (such as the burden of being a signatory to the bank account or
interviewing staff and contractors), rather than the idea that the
voter supports a particular bureaucracy or the fine wording of a
particular role definition.

In summary, I would say our community (at least that subset interested
in how donated funds are best deployed, rather than getting on with
the real business of getting elbow deep in creating open knowledge
content) votes for the outcomes and priorities they would like to see,
rather than the organizations of the moment and the transient roles
within them.

Cheers,
Fae
-- 
Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) faewik at gmail.com
Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA
Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae