Volunteer Supporters Network/2015 04 26

Minutes Volunteer Supporters Network Skype Call - April 26, 2015

Participants: Muriel, Veronika, Raimund, Fabian

Description of our session at the Wikimedia Conference

The Volunteer Supporters Network (VSN) is a new working group of individuals from Wikimedia organizations dealing with volunteer/community support. Within the past six months, the VSN created a hub page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network) and a mailing list in order to institutionalize the inter-organizational dialogue on volunteer/community support.

The sessions consists of two parts. Firstly, members of the VSN present their work and discuss their role within the movement. The session participants can find out if and how they can participate in, collaborate with and/or benefit from the new group. The second part of the session is dedicated to the preparation of a working paper on important issues concerning volunteer support. The working paper will contain thoughts on the motivation and experiences of people who volunteer to Wikimedia/Wikipedia as well as possible expectations and needs of volunteers towards volunteer supporters.

The course of action for the session

20 min PRESENTATION (Raimund & Nahid)

• Presentation: who – what – why – since when etc.
• Presentation: resources page / conferences page / past discussions.
• Invitation to participate/collaborate.

20-25 min “WORKSHOP“ (Veronika in the lead, Nahid managing papers etc., Raimund taking notes and join the discussion etc.)

• Each participant gets three small slips of paper and writes down his/her answers to these questions in note form (10 min):
  • “Why do people volunteer to Wikimedia/Wikipedia?“
  • “What are volunteers taking from their experience in Wikimedia/Wikipedia?“
  • “What should they take away?“

The papers are collected, put on a wall, read out loud and discussed if necessary. (We takes notes of the discussion.)

15-20 min DISCUSSION (Veronika, Raimund, Nahid)

Discussing the question: “What are expectations and needs of volunteers towards volunteer supporters?“ – We take notes.

After the session: summarizing and elaborating the results of the workshop/discussion and publishing it on Meta.

Targets of the session

• To reach out to our target group of volunteer supporters and rise the awareness of the network in the Wikimedia Movement
• To hopefully motivate others to participate

TO DO'S

• Muriel: Add information on Meta and especially input for the Conference Page
• Raimund, Veronika & Muriel will follow up on Andys questions
• In case you miss something in the outline of the Wikimedia Session, let Veronika and Raimund know

NEXT STEPS

• Next Call on May 31 to share the experience and gains of our Wikimedia Conference Session
• If necessary, Veronika & Raimund will reach out to us for another Call before the Wikimedia Conference