Talk:Chapters meeting 2009/Schedule

Comment about the chapters committee

I'll try to make some time to talk about chapters in the making, and how the process goes, as well as what existing chapters could do to help future chapters. (in name of the Chapters committee) notafish }<';> 20:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Audit committee meeting

The Audit Committee will probably hold its first ever IRL meeting in Berlin alongside board and chapters meeting. I'm a non board community member of the Audit Committee. While in Berlin and although not an official chapters representative I would like to attend the funding & fundraising part of the chapters meeting (as well as some informal parts of the program.) Dedalus 19:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I think this might indeed be useful :) Especially where discussing the earmarked things and all that might come in handy to have an accounting expert around! Effeietsanders 13:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dedalus. I think it might be a good idea. I'll ask the chapters and see if anyone opposes. guillom 11:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Clashes

Hi Guillaume, looks like a good start. I will be interested to see more info about the different sessions. My only comment so far is that I am surprised that Relationships between the chapters and the foundation (discussion) and Chapter agreements and trademark policy (M. Godwin) are split sessions. I would have thought that all chapters would want to attend those two. --pfctdayelise 11:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I agree the topics are very interesting. However, there are many interesting topics imho, and all chapters have their own priorities. This parallellity ensures that chapters can make decisions to focus on their most important topics, and this should not be a huge problem, since most chapters should be able to send two representatives. Effeietsanders 13:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, as effe said, having split sessions doesn't mean that not all chapters will be able to attend, it means that not all representatives will. In the revised schedule (now available), we moved the "Relationships with the foundation" to a plenary session. guillom 11:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Sue

The schedule looks good, and I very much appreciate you working with the chapters and Foundation staff to try to figure out what would be the best use of everybody's time. But! I think it is really too tight. It's hard for me to justify flying Foundation staff halfway around the world to stage a one-hour workshop that will be attended by (I'm guessing) a dozen people. I believe the meeting would be more useful for everyone --and the expense easier for me to swallow-- if the parallel tracks were cancelled, and everybody attended the same sessions.

Also - it looks like there are some sessions that Wikimedia Foundation board members are expected to attend. If that's the case, someone will need to coordinate with me and/or Michael Snow to ensure the schedules synch up okay, since the board is having its own meeting those same days.

Thanks for everything you have done for this meeting; I am looking forward to it :-) Sue Gardner 01:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Sue and thanks for the feedback :) See my answer below. I hope it addresses most of your concerns. About the joint session with the board, I sent an e-mail to you about it on Friday, 06 March. Perhaps it didn't go through, I'll send it again. guillom 11:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Mike Godwin

Mike thinks he needs 2 hours to talk and discuss the "Chapters agreements and trademark policy". guillom 09:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If you do a new version

I hope that you keep the parallell tracks, also most of the program for ~Friday as stated. If you need to prioritize attandence of WMF staff, I belive Mike is the most important person to attend. Anders Wennersten 18:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

very good schedule

many thanks for the schedule! we are very happy that the main topics:

• getting to know each other
• working together (organisation)
• income
• spending/doing

are nicely fit into the three days, along with admin and legal. may i ask if the below contents is important and would somehow does fit into this agenda:

organisation: international growth - chapters, and their working together

--> does this fit into "relationships between chapters" on friday afternoon? or split it up into the various groups? or not at all?

as more and more chapters and chapter board people come on board, we might need some discusison about cultures and decision processes. we noticed some side effects now when (s)electing somebody for the wmf board. it would be great to understand what was difficult, and how to get an efficient decision process for the future, maybe also involving the chapter members?

another topic in this area might be: how do we find persons to talk to, say, a tv station to "free knowledge". how is this handled on a multinational level, like the european union (or the similar thing in other regions).

and another topic in this area would be: who applies for a grant? do we need somebody for this? is it important at all? where would we ask and if yes, who?

Yes, it is part of the "relationships between chapters" sessions (discussion and workgroups). guillom 12:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

income: how to get the second pillar "corporate donations / big spenders"

--> does this fit into "fundraising" on saturday morning?

we always talk about four pillars of income: (1) online/small donations, (2) big donations, (3) grants, and (4) business development. online is working very good (in our opinion only "earmarking" is missing as major incentive), for business development we used a considerable time slot last year with a financial outcome of 0. we would appreciate to somehow activate pillar 2 and/or 3. goal: a real try beginning this summer.

The Funding & fundraising track was moved to Friday afternoon, but yes, these topics will be covered during this track. guillom 12:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

spending: projects

--> does this fit into "common projects"?

how can the chapters and wmf work together in spending money? project ideas and their feasibility. like a "knowledge summer of XX", with 5000 eur bounties for freeing some knowledge or developing some software. if we want to discuss mentoring software development a la google summer of code, we probably would need technical people as well.

--ThurnerRupert 13:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The "Common projects" track is more about common projects between chapters, but staff members are invited to participate as well. Erik will also present the WMF grants projects. guillom 12:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Revised schedule

Hi everyone. After much thought about various feedback from many people, I am happy to propose a revised version of the schedule. I hope it addresses most of the concerns raised, while keeping the advantages. A detailed rationale / FAQ follows. guillom 11:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Parallel sessions

Most of the chapters will send two representatives; there will be around 50 participants overall. One of the reasons why it was decided to invite 2 representatives per chapter is that it would allow for more topics to be discussed. It would be a waste of time and money to remove all parallel sessions now that all these people are flying to Berlin. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

WMF staff

Sue was worried that it would be hard for [her] to justify flying Foundation staff halfway around the world to stage a one-hour workshop that will be attended by [...] a dozen people. Even in the first schedule, 3 (out of 4) staff members were planned to participate to a whole 2-hour track composed of both a presentation/discussion and workgroups. Not counting, of course, all the informal discussions. Besides, as I said above, there will be around 50 participants at the meeting, so even half of them still makes about 25 people, not a dozen :)

In the revised schedule, 3 (out of 3) staff members will still participate to whole 2-hour workshops that are not simultaneous any more. Moreover, the staff members will be part of appropriate committees that will meet several times during the meeting (see What are these "committees"?). I believe that what they will bring to and learn from the meeting is undeniably worth their attendance, as much for the chapters as for the foundation.

Some chapters expressed concerns about the fact that the WMF staff would come to "teach the chapters how to work". This is clearly not the goal. This meeting is a chance to learn from each other. The WMF offered to send a few people to help with specific topics. If the aim had been to hold courses, we could have just hired a few German experts in fundraising or outreach. Instead, we invited a few members of the staff of the WMF. Not only are they experts in their field, but they already have the experience of the Wikimedia universe. Last but not least, it is also an opportunity for the chapters to show all the good stuff they're doing, and for the staff to learn from the chapters. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Where did the morning coffee breaks go?

The first schedule had coffee breaks both in the morning and in the afternoon, whereas the revised schedule only shows coffee breaks in the afternoon. Don't worry, we'll have coffee breaks in the morning too :) but they'll be shorter, and adding them to the table was overly complicated. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Where did the workgroups sharing sessions go?

The workgroups sharing sessions were supposed to be plenary sessions where the various workgroups would present their results. We had to remove them from the schedule in order to free some slots. However, all the workgroups sessions are followed by breaks that allow for informal discussions between participants: lunch, coffee break, dinner, etc. I hope that the workgroups will take advantage of these breaks to share the outcome of their discussions. Besides, all the sessions will be thoroughly documented in order to provide all the participants with a full report of the meeting. Most of the discussions won't be confidential, so the report will probably even be publicly available on meta. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What are these "committees"?

The committees are an opportunity to hold discussions in small persistent groups on specific topics. Committees will meet several times during the meeting at pre-arranged or other times. They may continue after the meeting if their assignment wasn't completed. Topics may include: preparing the next fundraiser, discussing trademarks, etc. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

See also Chapters_meeting_2009/Committees. guillom 17:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Half the sessions are still not described!

Revising the schedule according to the feedback and various expectations has taken a lot of time. All the descriptions will be available before Friday 13, 15:30 CET. guillom 12:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Should be done now. guillom 12:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)