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Chapters meeting 2009/Brainstorming

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Below is a list of general topics to get started. Feel free to list specific issues, workshops, resolutions, you would like to discuss one way or another

List of topics
collaboration between chapters, fundraising, political lobbying, current activities of chapters, business, press & PR, legal issues, working with volunteers, cooperation with institutions & governments, public outreach...

Brainstorming

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Relationship with Foundation

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Just to be specific, we are still not talking about appointing board members FROM the chapters... the chapters get to appoint two board members. These could be chapter members, non chapter members or whatever. Remember that these seats do NOT represent the chapters but are intended to allow you to enrich the board with skills/people which we did not identify ourselves :) (Jan-Bart, posting anonymous ;)
Big support for this - perfect time to resolve it or at least finalise it --pfctdayelise 06:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The board of trustees will hold a meeting in Berlin at the same time as the chapter meeting. They expressed interest in a joint session about "the development of the chapters". guillom 14:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chapters meetings

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  • I see a need of some coordinating body/person between the chapters meetup. This is not to have authority but to act as a communaction/contact body. I would suggest three persons active in chapter boards to take on this role, being replaced each meetup, perhaps one from the board organisting the last meetup and one from the next one. Anders Wennersten 14:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chapters co-ordination

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Chapters comparisons and best practice

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  • short history of chapters
    I'd prefer to have this as much as possible prepared on paper by all attendees. Then we only need Q&A. Otherwise, this will take way too much time I'm afraid. Effeietsanders 12:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As long as we have a short discussion about this, I agree. I wasn't proposing anything big here. But if the suggestion was to drop the matter totally, I disagree for several reasons:
a) as more and more new chapters come into these meetings, we need to update them so they won't have to reinvent the wheel each and everyone
b) not all chapters write good and/or detailed chapter histories - and even if they do, some people won't read them, and it's often the ones who don't read them, that most need the information, since they ask for this during the other sessions
c) even a good and detailed report can't be beat by discussions and the ability to quickly get answers to your questions.
But it appears that we see this matter in a similar way, so this was only a way to give a few reasons why this should not get overlooked ;-) //svHannibal 12:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please see the corresponding section "Proposal for a possible Public Outreach Track" below for more information. --Frank Schulenburg 01:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funding & fundraising

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  • What breakdown of money do you have from membership fees/donations/grants/merchandise sales/events/other???
  • Do you run concerted fundraising drives? How do you avoid leaning too heavily on your membership?
  • Discussion about the WMF fundraiser and chapters' participation
  • Discussion about localization of the fundraiser to help people donate easier. Effeietsanders 13:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dead chapter and how to avoid it

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  • Just a thought, when a new chapter is initiated everyone is excited, is there anyone at all appointed both WMF or by volunteer basis to check on chapters? Are they still alive, comatose, or need some kind of moral or emotional support (he he)Serenity.id 10:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    We have discussed this issue in ChapCom and if and how we could adress this issue with an aim to inform the board if a cancellation of a chaper is wanted. So this issue would then probably lead to a dicussion of the role etc of ChpaCom which could or could not be a good idea. Anders Wennersten 06:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More ideas here!

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  • Perhaps a tech discussion would be interesting. Not so much "hosting" but rather oriented "improvement of mediawiki software" or "toolserver" (how to make it better, more organised, more useful...) or even "sharing tools between languages" (in particular related to some very useful bots... which might disappear if the user maintaining them disappear, or which might be useful in other languages). It may be a "contest for the most useful bot in your language", which may lead to a discussion on how chapters may help support such initiatives. Anthere 10:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Medium to big interest in this. Also: how can chapters encourage the growth of the [local] MediaWiki developer community? --pfctdayelise 06:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Communication (or rather lack of it) between Foundation Board, Officers, Committies and Chapters. How to improve it. How to integrate all small, closed groups working "somwhere in the corner" - back into general Wikimedia community. Creating "Foundation FAQ for typical queries" and "service paths" for typical office actions. Polimerek 23:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relationship of National Chapters to Sub-national chapters. The legal and community framework underpinning that relationship. Witty lama 11:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • We could have a wrap-up / announcement session on Sunday morning (open to the public) & possibly invite the press (-> Catrin). guillom 15:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was suggested that a few non-attendees could take notes, to allow the attendees to focus on the meeting. guillom 13:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WMF staff member's proposals

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Fundraising

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  • Rand Montoya offered to take part in discussions/workshops about
    • the Annual Fundraiser. What worked, what didn't, how to improve on the next years.
    • Chapter Fundraising. What the foundation expects, what kind of help we offer to chapters, how chapters can fund-raise better. guillom 08:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Public Outreach Track

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Why Public Outreach?
  • Introduction:
    • What is "public outreach"? - fs
    • How does public outreach fit into our shared goals? - fs, sg
    • Why should the chapters do public outreach? What is the role of the Wikimedia Foundation? - fs, sg, chapters
How to do Public Outreach
  • Outreach tools:
    • Giving an overview of existing outreach tools (mainly related to events: Wikipedia workshops, classes, Academies) - fs
    • Which tool for which purpose? (recommendations based on our experiences so far) - fs and chapters
    • Sharing experiences and best practices - chapters
  • Building the "bookshelf":
    • Introduction to the bookshelf idea and our strategy concerning educational materials - fs
    • Presentation of selected bookshelf items, the idea behind and our plans in the related field of educational materials ("Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure, video tutorials, target group specific materials, presentation slides for Wikipedia evangelists, train-the-trainer materials, etc.) - fs
    • Discussion: How to help people to understand Wikipedia - chapters and fs

Communications/Marketing Track

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Some items that might be of interest or are on my mind based on interactions with the chapters over the last year. JayWalsh

Communications
  • Big questions...
    • Best practices in a global public relations practice (JAW and chapters)
    • How important is it for all of us to be aware of our collective PR and media work? (JAW and chapters)
    • How can WMF help the chapters in their communications work? How would you change how WMF works? (JAW and chapters)
    • What do you think are the simplest and most important messages to share with your audiences?
  • Media work
    • A short media relations training opportunity (JAW and chapters)
    • How we manage potentially complex issues, or issues that might be perceived to be negative by the press (JAW)
  • Brand awareness (possibly with business development)
    • Why our brand matters / brand integrity / brand is about ideas, not trademarks (JAW, Kul/Mike, chapters)
  • Design
    • Building a visual identity guide - discussion about design standards and how to share our products (JAW and chapters)
    • Why print - how public outreach/participation/fundraising and others all rely on print products (JAW / Frank)
    • Our official face online: the role of our chapter/foundation wikis to communicate our work (chapters)

Volunteering / Community Relations track

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Volunteering
  • Identifying valuable contributors and putting them to good work
  • Demonstrating appreciation for contributions
Community
  • Relationship between the Chapters and the Community
  • Integrating volunteer efforts on the projects with volunteer efforts with the chapters
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Relations between a chapter and its country's local Wikipedian/Wikimedian community

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  • How to avoid possible tension between a chapter and a local community of Wikipedian or other Wikimedia projects' editors?
  • What is the best way to achieve cooperation between the chapter and the local editors' community?

Regional cooperation/Chapter blocks

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  • Strengthening connections for cooperation between chapters with potential common interests. Such common interests may result from being in the same geographical region (e.g. Oceania, the Mediterranean), from having similar legal system (e.g. chapters from common-law countries), or from having similar issues to deal with (low outreach, multilingualism etc.)

I added these two last paragraphs. Dror_K 13:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]