WM NYC Board of Directors Meeting Notes

Details

Type of meeting: In person with remote hookup
Date: Sunday, November 11, 2018
Time: 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST
Place: Board Room, Ace Hotel

Attendees

In person:

Remote:

BlaueBlüte
FULBERT
Jeremyb
User H
Windblown29 (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agenda

Welcome to new board members. Please review chapter by-laws: meta:Wikimedia_New_York_City/Bylaws
Communication channels.
1. Currently we have email, Slack, board meetings, etc. How do we want to continue so as to be less diffused and more focused in communicating with each other? What will work for all? (Open-ended question left unresolved for now.)
2. Do we want to continue with regular office hours? In addition to board meetings (we have not yet set attendance for board meetings), our regular office hours would be in the Slack channel and provide updates for whatever anyone was working on. They have been on Tuesday evenings but that doesn't work for all members so we'll determine a more advantageous time.
Board meeting attendance. Those present felt that attendance at half of the board meetings should be required. That's about 6 out of 12 board meetings. The context for this is fixing scheduling as well as having board members that don’t attend nearly at all.
Other board stuff:
1. Scheduling: The president will send out Doodle poll to schedule board meetings.
2. Office hours: regularly scheduled but nevertheless optional.
3. To be discussed: how the board should communicate to the rest of the membership
Membership. We're on track to meeting our goal of building membership. (Membership meaning paid members.) We need at least 5 members to meet goal stated in the 2017-2018 report. Suggestions for increasing members:
1. Provide an opportunity to join and become members on Wikipedia Day;
2. At editathons, add a button to the WP page to enable those interested to join;
3. Chapter language: current phrasing is “join us”; might be better to say “join us as a member”;
4. June should be labeled "membership solicitation month"; or at least provide more reminders;
5. The president showed a a prototype membership button that could be worn as a source of chapter pride.
Work continues with support on safety; work continues on Code of Conduct (there was a helpful feedback session at WikiConference North America) . Next step would be training to address harassment when it happens. The date of Sunday December 9 was floated as a possible day.
Editathons.
1. We're working toward having an editathon in each of the five boroughs.
2. H volunteered to help with Staten Island.
3. Bronx: Maybe something with Fordham? There are other institutions with whom we could work, such as Bronx Community College.
4. The La Guardia translate-a-thon will deal with New York City neighborhoods, including Bronx.
5. Next week Frenezulo will have an editathon at a nursing home. It's a chance to work with a new community.
6. The president announced that we’re on track to meeting our stated goals in last year's report. The dashboard being used so the mid-term report should not be so onerous as in previous years. Those who want an event should view the dashboard as the primary tool so we can collect data in a consistent manner.
7. Photographs are an important part of documenting editathons. DrX expressed concern about people who don't want to be photographed at ediathons. Perhaps different colored lanyards or name-tags.
AfroCrowd: Check sent.
Committees.
1. WMF Recommendations. At the end of June 2018, Winifred Olliff (Grants Officer at WMF) visited us for a fiscal review. WMF gave a number of recommendations for how to scale up our processes. There's too much to discuss at the present meeting. People felt there should be a committee tasked with reviewing recommendations from WMF. If there was such a committee, that committee would be responsible for delegating tasks to others. Kosboot volunteered to be on that committee. (The document of WMF recommendations will be sent to new board members asap.)
2. Meta-issue: Why have the proposed committees not materialized? Members discussed possible reasons why committees did not materialize. All understood to be mindful of assigning too much work to execute at committees, board meetings, offices hours, etc. as it might be too much pressure for our volunteer organization. Also, while scheduling issues are a problem, consistency makes it easier on everyone.
3. New members asked about the purpose of committees. The president and others responded that here are some tasks which are inappropriate for the entire board and which may give the board too many things to work on. Communication is another issue; one wants to have a single voice when communicating with external partners. Committees also provide opportunities for membership to get involved if they so choose.
4. Taking a different approach from last year, the board was queried as to What committees would we like to see. After discussion, members coalesced around five proposed committees (all names tentative):
  1. Big Events Committee (tentative name). The charge would be to handle major events such as Wikipedia Day, and possibly scholarships. Members: User:Rhododendrites, User:Pharos, User:Heathart and User:User:Emjackson42
  2. Finance Committee - User:Becksguy, User:Kosboot
  3. Community Engagement (this was felt to appropriate for the committee handling memberships). This committee would be charged with dealing with memberships, setting up WikiWednesdays (involves scheduling, programming, etc.). Members: User:Rhododendrites, User:Pharos, User:Windblown29
  4. Reports Committee - charged with reporting the midpoint and annual reports. The question arouse as to whether we should we add quarterly reports. It could be used as a means of enhancing our communication with the public and a means to raise our profile. Members: User:Doctorxgc, User:Becksguy
  5. Partnerships Commitee - The creation of this committee is in part due to our committment to WMF to perform a partnership survey. In addition, the charge includes with working with our external partners and possibly enhancing those relationships, as well as seeking out additional partnerships. Members: User:Doctorxgc, User:Kosboot, User:Pharos, User:Windblown29
5. As a result of discussion, the board also proposed the following working group:
  1. Safe Space working group - charged to be clarified after training in December.
Board officers
1. President: User:Megs
2. Treasurer: User:Becksguy
3. Secretary: User:Pharos
4. Vice-president. For the past couple of years WMNYC has operated by making most other board members vice-presidents. Upon the recommendation of WMF we are going forward having a single vice-president whose role would be to serve as back-up to the president, taking on other roles as desired. Such as person functions in a training role should they want to succeed as president. At the meeting no one came forward as a candidate for vice-president.
Wikipedia Day. There is a planning document, but plans (including setting a date) are on hold until contracts have been finalized.

There will be a Doodle poll to determine the next board meeting.