Hi all,
Just to clarify a couple of things in my initial email on this subject.
Liam and Brian are both in the UK but only Brian is attending the Wikimedia
Foundation's fundraising meeting while Liam is doing other Wikimedia-related
work and unfortunately won't be able to attend the fundraising meeting. My
apologies for any confusion I introduced by saying they were both at the WMF
UK meeting.
Also, to shed a little more light on the issue of the treasurer seat. The
teleconference on Sunday night was very short and only dealt with Brianna's
resignation and we haven't even begun to discuss the treasurer seat in
anything but superficial terms. With Liam ad Brian both overseas it is is
going to be difficult for us to form a quorum within the next week or two so
this is something that is very unlikely to be resolved in the immediate
future. For the time being, Steve is effectively both treasurer and
president and it wasn't really accurate of me to say that we have a vacant
seat. We are down a member in numbers but technically there isn't a vacant
seat yet.
Regards,
Sarah
On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:47 PM, Sarah Ewart <sarahew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> On Saturday May 8 Brianna informed the committee of her intention to resign
> as president of Wikimedia Australia. As a result, we convened a special
> purpose teleconference on Sunday night and, with deep regret, the committee
> reluctantly accepted Brianna's resignation.
>
> Brianna has been a president of integrity and her dedication and leadership
> will be greatly missed by all members of the committee. She has served on
> Wikimedia Australia's committee since its inception and her work was
> especially significant and important in the early history of the chapter. I
> don't think it's an overstatement to say that without her, the chapter would
> not have been successfully established at that time. As secretary of an
> interim committee that had no president or vice president, she played a
> critical role in ensuring Wikimedia Australia was established and recognised
> as an official chapter and legal entity by both the government of Victoria
> and the Wikimedia Foundation. She is very highly regarded and respected in
> the international community and I was staggered by the number of people who
> approached me at the Wikimedia Foundation meeting in Germany last month to
> ask after her. I hope that she will continue to be a significant presence in
> the both the global and local Wikimedia and free culture communities. We
> sincerely thank her for the tremendously valuable and important contribution
> she has made over the last four years to the chapter, the committee and to
> the free culture movement in Australia and we wish her all the best for her
> future endeavours.
>
> During the committee's teleconference on Sunday night, nominations for the
> seat of president were opened. Steve Peters, our sitting treasurer, accepted
> a nomination from me for president. No further nominations were received and
> Steve's nomination was unanimously endorsed and supported. Steve will take
> the seat of president effective immediately and lead us into the next Annual
> General Meeting. This, of course, means that we now have a vacant seat on
> the committee. The Rules of the Association allows the committee to appoint
> a financial chapter member from outside the committee to a vacant
> non-executive/ordinary member* *seat. Two committee members (Brian and
> Liam) are currently in the UK attending the Wikimedia Foundation's
> fundraising meeting, which has made it very difficult to organise a proper
> meeting but we are continuing to discuss these issues internally and will
> decide whether to leave the seat vacant until the AGM or seek to fill it
> under the Association Rules.The membership will be advised as soon as any
> decisions are made in regard to these issues.
>
> I hope Wikimedia Australia's membership, friends and supporters will join
> with the committee in thanking Brianna for her dedication and hard work over
> the last four years and in wishing her all the best for the futuer.
>
> Regards,
> Sarah Ewart
> Secretary
> Wikimedia Australia
>
>
> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:31 PM, Brianna Laugher <
> brianna.laug...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Some news: on Sunday I resigned as president of Wikimedia Australia.
>> The ctte accepted my resignation and as per our Rules, appointed one
>> of the committee members to the office, who will serve until the next
>> AGM.
>>
>> I guess this news may come as a shock or it may not. It's something
>> I've been thinking about for quite a while and not something that I
>> decided lightly or in haste. If anything, I probably decided too
>> slowly.
>>
>> There's no bad blood with any of the ctte members, and it's not about
>> anything that has happened in Wikimedia land. Rather, it's about what
>> goes on in Brianna land (aka "personal reasons"), and whether or not I
>> can do any useful work in the role. I don't feel able to any more, and
>> I think my standing aside will be a good catalyst for the chapter to
>> get visibly moving again.
>>
>> I'm sorry to let you down by not fulfilling my term with full efforts.
>> Sometimes reality does not quite stretch far enough to meet the
>> dreams. And being on a committee like ours ("distributed" you might
>> say) requires a lot of stretching.
>> The committee members have been very supportive of me while I was in
>> the role, and in my decision now as well. It actually gives me great
>> peace of mind to know that I am leaving the chapter in such good
>> hands. They are all very capable and have great ideas, and want to
>> support members, and if members are able to support them back, I know
>> awesome things will happen.
>>
>> I am not sure how involved in Wikimedia things I will be in the
>> future. Chapter business has been my main Wikimedia business for a
>> while now. I hope to take a bit of breathing space and then see how
>> things go. Having said that, I am booked up to go to Wikimania in
>> July. :)
>>
>>
>> Yours in boldness,
>>
>> Brianna Laugher
>> no longer
>> WMAU President.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
>>
>
>
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