ESEAP Preparatory Council/Meeting Notes/18 September 2023

ESEAP Preparatory Council Meeting #1

• Date: 18th September 2023
• Attendees: Agus, Athikhun, Belinda, Dody, Irvin, Johnny, Reke, Robert, Vanj
• Support: Vivien

Agenda

• Interim Committee recap & outstanding items
• Goals of ESEAP Preparatory Council (EPC) & Gaps, and possible timeline
• Meeting logistics, EPC's internal decision making process, and support needs
• In-person Meeting for 2024
• Any other business

Notes

• Interim Committee recap & outstanding items
  • Theory of Change open for internal comments; Belinda is leading on this.
  • Roles and Responsibilities Document
  • Grant Proposal

• Goals of ESEAP Preparatory Council (EPC) & Gaps, and possible timeline
  • Tasks and Timeline brainstorming by EPC:
    • A- Need to review and refine the Theory of Change document. Also needs Community consultation and feedback.
    • B- Need some time to discuss the draft plan, and whether we should put forward either a plan for 1 year (then review), or a longer-term plan.
    • C- Review prior outcomes of the IHC before it was dissolved, to determine what else we should decide on, or identify gaps to work on.
    • D- Need some days to ask local communities to organize consensus meetings.
    • E- Clearly define our ESEAP Hub position (i.e. who we are) in relation with WMF and ESEAP affiliates/communities (e.g. workflow; authority level; intermediary function, etc.)
    • F- Taking care (nurture) of the non/under-represented ESEAP communities (especially those without affiliation).
    • G- Synchronize local outreach events (especially ESEAP Summit 2024) with ESEAP Hub, so that both sides are always in coordination.
    • H- Define the full role of the future ESEAP Hub Committee (in which most of the roles should already be run by the ESEAP Preparatory Committee by now - on a "trial" basis).
    • I- Clearly define the criteria of Wikimedia Community (non-affiliate), so that dispute during the Wikimania 2023 (ESEAP Summit) election shall never happen again.
    • J- Decide where (and how) to have an ESEAP Hub office in any ESEAP Hub country (e.g. can co-share office space if the office is in a country which has a chapter, e.g. WMID (Indonesia) office in Jakarta or WMTW (Taiwan) office in Taipei)
    • K- To be the Center of role model for affiliates and communities within ESEAP region (e.g. center of rules/regulation pertaining WMF outreach movement, be the role model, be the center for help to ESEAP affiliates & community, be the nurturing/incubator center for ESEAP affiliates and community to grow (e.g. community to user group, user group to chapter, cross-country/affiliate/community collaboration)
    • L- Create different EPC working committees for the outstanding tasks as an easier way to finish things.
    • M- Define what a Community or [c]ommunity is: a recognized Wikimedia project; an organized geography-based community of contributors, or any organized Wikimedia group without duplication.
    • N- Clarify the limitations of ESEAP Hub in terms of engagement with the stakeholders (Affiliates, c/Communities and individuals).
    • O- Conduct a visioning process for ESEAP on what it aims to achieve by 2030
    • P- Research data or documents of other hubs as references for decision-making
    • Q- Consolidate our bargaining position: between our ESEAP stakeholders and WMF. (Do we have a differentiating purpose for being, or are we just functioning as a facilitator and communications hub for affiliates and organized communities to work with each other?)
    • R- We also need to decide to prioritise language translation, for use in our communication channel other than in the English language, especially for non-bilingual countries.
    • S- A visual representation of R&R (draft)
    • T- Trial period for the final draft
    • U- Define our ESEAP Hub persona (i.e. who we are, what we do, to whom we do this for, why we do it, how we do it, where to find us.)

• Meeting logistics, EPC's internal decision making process, and support needs
  • Decisions:
    • To meet Bi-Weekly (once every two weeks), and to have smaller working group meetings in between the two weeks when needed.
    • Decision making:
      • 1) Super majority for crucial decisions (7 out of 9 members) : relating to key docs - R&R, grants (budget), theory of change, agreement with WMF, with ESEAP Con 2024, Hub office
      • 2) Simple majority (5 out of 9) : for all other decisions + meeting threshold
    • EPC Working Group/Subcommittee Structure: for the first phase to have three working groups: one to recap discussions from past meetings & history; another to list the stakeholders in the region; and another to study the operation of other regional hubs like CEE and other regional cooperation. In addition, to have a support group supporting the host of ESEAP Conference 2024.
      • G1- Identity working group (Document review & ESEAP history/past challenges): Robert, Belinda
      • G2- Stakeholder Mapping working group: Vanj, Athikhun, Johnny
      • G3- Research on regional hub & collaboration cases working group: Irvin, Reke
      • G4- Support group to the 2024 ESEAP Conference host: Dody, Agus

• In-person Meeting for 2024
  • Dody as the organizer of the 2024 ESEAP Conference proposed a potential EPC In-Person Meeting in 2024; to be discussed and explored whether it is feasible budget wise for having it before the next ESEAP Conference as a preparation meeting to achieve ESEAP's next milestone and to sync between the interim ESEAP governance body (EPC) and the local host (Malaysian UG) to ensure smooth planning and operation.
  • Proposal: 3 working days + 1-2 extra days for members who can stay longer
  • Funding request action items: members to explore options of revising/incorporating into the the ESEAP Con 2024 proposal or to be funded by relevant affiliates.

• Any other business
  • Proposal to have further definition on what is community:
    • Project communities
    • A group of people working on the same thing
    • Formal communities: not formally recoganized strcutured groups
    • Proposals:
      • Can defer the definition of a community or the creation of a working group in another meeting
      • To define who we are first (purpose of our creation)