Hi all, The committee is having a bit of strategic planning 'retreat' meeting this weekend.[1] Liam is joining Sarah, Brian and I in Melbourne. John, Nathan, Gideon and Andrew[2] are unable to attend but we will take note of their input
As a member or interested observer your opinions are also needed. As a member organisation and one reliant on volunteers we must give due weight to projects and ideas favoured by members. Therefore, your input would be appreciated in this brief survey: <https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cGkyT3UycWYwT0RyZzdVOWlRRFROTXc6MA.> The survey is anonymous unless you choose to provide your name and email (useful if you want to volunteer for some particular project :)) In the survey I have listed 11 reasonably "big" projects that have been suggested over the past few months. They are: # Support a bid for hosting Wikimania 2011 # Host a WikiConf in Canberra in late 2009 # Run Wikipedia Academy events for the general public # Run Wikipedia Academy events for academics # Run events (e.g. talks) for educators # Develop and sell Wikimedia-related merchandise # Create a 'Wikimedia for Australian schools' selection # Create classroom kit for teaching Wikipedia on the NSW HSC syllabus # Organise "backstage pass" style tours of organisations such as museums # Concentrate on cultivating positive and broad press, and develop more promotional material (press kits) for the Wikimedia projects # Host regular meetups in as many cities as possible, and online events such as editing competitions for members and IRC meetings There is also a section for other "big" ideas, or you can always reply here. :) During the retreat, The idea is not to decide *EVERYTHING* WMAU will do during 2009, which would be impossible - mainly because much of what we will do will be member-driven, not ctte-driven - but to at least choose some direction, choose which projects to concentrate on and which to put aside for now, and figure out our reasoning for these decisions. Then hopefully we will feel a bit more purposeful, and not overwhelmed by the possibilities and pushed about like grass in the wind. 2009 is also a fairly short term for this ctte - 10 months at most as our next AGM must be between July and November. It is worth having big ideas. The Wikimedia Foundation has introduced a grants funding process for chapters <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants> and there are organisations in Australia such as the auDA Foundation which I certainly believe we could gain funding from, having joint funding from WMF and another org would give us quite a good position indeed. But I think it is proper to choose your plans and then find funds accordingly, rather than vice versa. We will talk about money issues at the retreat but it will be in tandem with making plans. Anyway I look forward to seeing what everyone thinks, so please do take a minute to fill out the survey <https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cGkyT3UycWYwT0RyZzdVOWlRRFROTXc6MA.> and comment on it here or in private email if you like. cheers, Brianna [1] I note that ctte members have chosen to cover their own costs for participating in this retreat. [2] I'm not sure we took the time to announce this properly - see <http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Meeting:Committee_(2009_January_15)#Inviting_non-voting_participants_to_committee_discussions> - in mid January we chose to invite Gideon and Andrew as non-voting participants in the committee. So thanks to them for accepting these positions :) and I count their input equally as with other ctte members. -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/ _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
