headers
AndrewRT | 1 Apr 14:50
Gravatar

Becoming a Board member

We had a chat at the Board meeting last night and there was a bit of
nervousness at the fewness of people who have expressed an interest in
standing for the Board. The applications are going straight to the
tellers so the current Board members won't actually know who's applied
until they're anounced in about a week's time (so that they dont get
an unfair advantage over other candidates) but from discussions it
looked like only two of the five interim Board members have applied
and the other three are looking to retire; two non-Board members are
also interested in applying and we don't know of anyone else who has
come forward.

One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and
length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial
Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often
for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're
getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has
shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for
no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a
burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At
the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight"
role, and do more "organising" work outside.

It's surprising what you can acheive when working to a strict
deadline, and our productivity does tend to dive after a couple of
hours.

Hopefully this will also encourage people who are thinking of putting
their names forward but are put off by the commitment of meetings.

What do others think?
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 3 comments |
headers
Ian A. Holton | 1 Apr 17:23
Picon

Re: Becoming a Board member

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 2:50 PM, AndrewRT <andrewrturvey <at> googlemail.com> wrote:
[...]
One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and
length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial
Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often
for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're
getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has
shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for
no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a
burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At
the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight"
role, and do more "organising" work outside.

If the situation requires frequent and long board meetings, that is what must be done. However, once everything is up and running one can hope that board meetings may be less frequent and shorter. Still, if they are required to meet more often then though be it. I wouldn't like to see the board limit it's meetings to a certain frequency and duration out of convenience and then leave things open for discussion until the next meeting. Anybody standing for a board should be aware of that.
 


It's surprising what you can acheive when working to a strict
deadline, and our productivity does tend to dive after a couple of
hours.

That is true!
 
Hopefully this will also encourage people who are thinking of putting
their names forward but are put off by the commitment of meetings.

I hope that such measures don't have to be taken to encourage to stand for the board of an organisation and that the level of commitment needed is known in advance.
 

What do others think?

It's ashame when an organisation has sufficient members, but not enough who are willing to commit to standing for the board. I am currently not (yet!) a member of the UK chapter, mainly due to geographic location and time in sorting out the paper work. From past experience in working and organising in other non-profit organisations I can say that often there are enough members who would be willing to stand, but many don't put themselves forward for such a position themselves and need to be asked. I'm not too sure why this is, but maybe the existing board members could contact and talk to a few potential candidates.
 

Ian


_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
James Farrar | 1 Apr 20:01
Picon

Re: Becoming a Board member

2009/4/1 AndrewRT <andrewrturvey <at> googlemail.com>:

> One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and
> length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial
> Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often
> for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're
> getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has
> shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for
> no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a
> burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At
> the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight"
> role, and do more "organising" work outside.

My experience of starting up a voluntary organisation is that the
workload in getting it running is far, far greater than actually
running it. In the first year, our Committee (the executive) met eight
times, I think, with an average length of about 4 hours, and the
longest meeting running to over six hours. Since then, the Committee
has never had more than five full meetings in a year, and the longest
meeting has been three and a half hours.

The other thing, from observing some meetings on IRC, is that it seems
bloody difficult to chair - the chairman cannot easily shut up people
talking when they shouldn't, and it takes longer to conclude that
everything has been contributed on a topic and he can move on. I
understand that IRC meetings are necessary, but they're inherently
inefficient.

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Thomas Dalton | 1 Apr 20:28
Picon

Re: Becoming a Board member

2009/4/1 AndrewRT <andrewrturvey <at> googlemail.com>:
> One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and
> length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial
> Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often
> for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're
> getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has
> shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for
> no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a
> burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At
> the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight"
> role, and do more "organising" work outside.

I think 2 hours a month is unduely optimistic. We should certainly be
able to reduce the amount of time spent in meetings, but not that
much. At the momemt we have around 15 hours a month of meetings,
cutting that down to 2 seems very unlikely to me. I think monthly
meetings, with emergency meetings when necessary, is a good idea, but
we have to accept that those monthly meetings are likely to be quite
long (although hopefully not as long as some of the past meetings!). I
think some face-to-face meetings would also be good, since you can
cover quite a lot more by getting together for a day. I believe there
was some support for 2 face-to-face meetings a year (one at the AGM
and one other) - depending on the geographical distribution of the
board we may even be able to increase that.

I think we need some greater dedication from board members during
online meetings. At the moment members are often doing other things
during a meeting, which slows everything down. That's understandable
when meetings are so frequent, you can't dedicate an entire evening to
just the meeting, but if we make them monthly hopefully people can pay
attention more. When I was chairing the meeting last night I found I
had a great deal of difficulty knowing when to move on to the next
item - I'd ask if anyone else had any more comments, but I didn't know
how long to wait for responses. I often tried to move on only to
discover that somebody had been typing another comment. In a
face-to-face meeting, the chair would go round the room making eye
contact with people and would know if they wanted to say something,
but that isn't possible on IRC. We need to work on that. Perhaps
simply moving to something like Skype, which tells you when people are
typing, would help.

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Andrew Gray | 2 Apr 00:53
Picon
Andrew Gray <shimgray <at> gmail.com>

Parliamentary edits (yet again)

I spotted this today - "Somewhat less excitingly: Stephen O'Brien, an
MP with far too much time on his hands, had been asking Parliamentary
Questions about whether government department staff have edited
Wikipedia ..."

http://news.ansible.co.uk/a261.html

Huh, I thought. Interesting. It turns out the question was asked a
little over a year ago, but you might like to see the responses -

* The Ministry of Defence (who have blocked write access since
November 2007), and the Department for Transport both name names. [1]

* Health give us a little graph of their activity, month-by-month
(using our data - 1500 edits or so), but don't name articles. [2]

* Children, Schools and Families admit that "a Minister" has edited
one article, and Culture, Media & Sport have edited 103 articles, but
neither will say what they were.

* Wales & the FCO are definite they haven't done any, but most other
departments just gave the traditional ritual incantation of "this
information is not held centrally and could only be provided at
disproportionate cost". (One department helpfully explains that they'd
have to comb through all their records of individual access to the
internet to find out, which is fair enough, but then say this is
impractical because it's not held online. One wonders how they do
store this data!) About a quarter of the departments, it seems,
explain in their response that IP addresses pass through a central
government system and so are effectively anonymised at the Wikipedia
end. I'm not sure if the person writing the response for the others
didn't know this, or just omitted it.

The two best non-responses were from the Leader of the House, who
sternly informed us that "Officials in this Office are not responsible
for the creation of, or amendment to, Wikipedia entries and there are
no plans for them to become so." [3]

&, best of all... the Prime Minister himself, who denies everything:
"I know of no instance where my Office has either created or amended
any records on Wikipedia." [4]

(Isn't seeing that sort of thing said by him a bit scary? Huh. How far
we have come, and all that.)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray <at> dunelm.org.uk

[1] -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080317/text/80317w0018.htm#0803174004526
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080516/text/80516w0003.htm#08051640003189
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080403/text/80403w0014.htm#08040393002970

[2] -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080421/text/80421w0101.htm#08042337002300
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080115/text/80115w0022.htm#0801165001061

[3] -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080218/text/80218w0002.htm#08021824000117

[4] -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080403/text/80403w0003.htm#08040376000376

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
joseph seddon | 2 Apr 22:20
Picon

Wikimania Bid - Local Team

Following the IRC meeting, it was recommended by the Jury that we try and differentiate between our supporters and the local team of volunteers. I know that many people have offered thier assistance and are willing volunteer but we need to make it clear how many volunteers there are.
 
If you will be willing to Volunteer in some way please indicate here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford/Team.
 
Many Thanks
 
Seddon
 

" Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 Optimised for MSN. " Download Now 
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 5 comments |
headers
Sean Whitton | 2 Apr 22:44
Gravatar

Re: Wikimania Bid - Local Team

Hi,

2009/4/2 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>:
> Following the IRC meeting, it was recommended by the Jury that we try and
> differentiate between our supporters and the local team of volunteers. I
> know that many people have offered thier assistance and are willing
> volunteer but we need to make it clear how many volunteers there are.
>
> If you will be willing to Volunteer in some way please indicate here
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford/Team.

Could you define local team a bit better? I'm in the UK, and in fact
I'll be at Oxford University from October (assuming I don't utterly
mess up my exams) so I intend to volunteer for physical assistance at
the actual conference should the bid be successful. But I'm not sure
if this is precisely what you mean by local team since I'm not there
yet and haven't been properly involved in the bid thus far.

S

--

-- 
Sean Whitton / <sean <at> silentflame.com>
OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 4 comments |
headers
joseph seddon | 2 Apr 22:47
Picon

Re: Wikimania Bid - Local Team

Local team is essentially people based in the UK who are willing to volunteer to help plan, set up and run the conference.
 
> Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:44:22 +0100
> From: sean <at> silentflame.com
> To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team
>
> Hi,
>
> 2009/4/2 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>:
> > Following the IRC meeting, it was recommended by the Jury that we try and
> > differentiate between our supporters and the local team of volunteers. I
> > know that many people have offered thier assistance and are willing
> > volunteer but we need to make it clear how many volunteers there are.
> >
> > If you will be willing to Volunteer in some way please indicate here
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford/Team.
>
> Could you define local team a bit better? I'm in the UK, and in fact
> I'll be at Oxford University from October (assuming I don't utterly
> mess up my exams) so I intend to volunteer for physical assistance at
> the actual conference should the bid be successful. But I'm not sure
> if this is precisely what you mean by local team since I'm not there
> yet and haven't been properly involved in the bid thus far.
>
> S
>
> --
> Sean Whitton / <sean <at> silentflame.com>
> OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

" Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 Optimised for MSN. " Download Now 
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 3 comments |
headers
Andrew Turvey | 2 Apr 23:07
Gravatar

Re: Wikimania Bid - Local Team

At what time? During the run up and during the conference or does just during the conference count?

----- Original Message -----
From: "joseph seddon" <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>
To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Thursday, 2 April, 2009 21:47:36 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team

.hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { font-size: 10pt; font-family:Verdana } Local team is essentially people based in the UK who are willing to volunteer to help plan, set up and run the conference.
 
> Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:44:22 +0100
> From: sean <at> silentflame.com
> To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team
>
> Hi,
>
> 2009/4/2 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>:
> > Following the IRC meeting, it was recommended by the Jury that we try and
> > differentiate between our supporters and the local team of volunteers. I
> > know that many people have offered thier assistance and are willing
> > volunteer but we need to make it clear how many volunteers there are.
> >
> > If you will be willing to Volunteer in some way please indicate here
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford/Team.
>
> Could you define local team a bit better? I'm in the UK, and in fact
> I'll be at Oxford University from October (assuming I don't utterly
> mess up my exams) so I intend to volunteer for physical assistance at
> the actual conference should the bid be successful. But I'm not sure
> if this is precisely what you mean by local team since I'm not there
> yet and haven't been properly involved in the bid thus far.
>
> S
>
> --
> Sean Whitton / <sean <at> silentflame.com>
> OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

" Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 Optimised for MSN. " Download Now
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org 
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
joseph seddon | 2 Apr 23:20
Picon

Re: Wikimania Bid - Local Team

I suppose either is possible, both would be preferrable
 
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 22:07:15 +0100
From: andrewrturvey <at> googlemail.com
To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team

.ExternalClass p {;}
At what time? During the run up and during the conference or does just during the conference count?

----- Original Message -----
From: "joseph seddon" <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>
To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Thursday, 2 April, 2009 21:47:36 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team

.ExternalClass .EC_hmmessage P {padding:0px;} .ExternalClass body.EC_hmmessage {font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;} Local team is essentially people based in the UK who are willing to volunteer to help plan, set up and run the conference.
 
> Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:44:22 +0100
> From: sean <at> silentflame.com
> To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimania Bid - Local Team
>
> Hi,
>
> 2009/4/2 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet <at> hotmail.co.uk>:
> > Following the IRC meeting, it was recommended by the Jury that we try and
> > differentiate between our supporters and the local team of volunteers. I
> > know that many people have offered thier assistance and are willing
> > volunteer but we need to make it clear how many volunteers there are.
> >
> > If you will be willing to Volunteer in some way please indicate here
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford/Team.
>
> Could you define local team a bit better? I'm in the UK, and in fact
> I'll be at Oxford University from October (assuming I don't utterly
> mess up my exams) so I intend to volunteer for physical assistance at
> the actual conference should the bid be successful. But I'm not sure
> if this is precisely what you mean by local team since I'm not there
> yet and haven't been properly involved in the bid thus far.
>
> S
>
> --
> Sean Whitton / <sean <at> silentflame.com>
> OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

" Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 Optimised for MSN. " Download Now
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free. Try it Now! 
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l <at> wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |

Gmane