On 21 May 2014 14:39, rexx <[email protected]> wrote: <snip>
> > Taken as a whole, it is clearly part of Sue Gardner's agenda to get rid of > chapters - or at least reduce them to impotence. She has never been able to > accept that chapters can often do jobs better than a centralised WMF. > Despite the hollow words she has uttered over the years, when it comes to > practical matters, she makes decisions based on increasing her own little > empire at WMF to the detriment of those working for the Wikimedia movement > throughout the rest of the world. > > <[email protected]> > > Well, hardly, as shown by the history (at least for those who have paid detailed attention in the past). By going into the Signpost archive for 2011, and undeleting a redirect that had been officiously deleted on meta, I have pulled up Sue's working document on this issue from 23 March 2011: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles/Feedback/Sue_Gardner Which happens to be timed almost to the day to the end of the time my contract ended with WMUK (i.e. the moment when I was paying most attention to chapter matters, and was in immediate touch with WMUK's technical fundraising efforts, and governance). I had had only had some summary version of Sue's thinking, up till just now. I thought then, and still think now, that WMUK was a good example of what she was thinking about. There is a point about Gift Aid, for sure, but there are a number of ways in which the WMF could add about 2% to their annual income. WMUK has indeed issues with communicating with potential donors; but it has had greater issues, IMX, with communicating with members (who theoretically run it, though how they were supposed to do that on scanty information remains a mystery to me). If the Board hadn't binned the comms strategy I'd have a bit more sympathy. The bottom line for me is that I saw WMUK shooting itself in the foot, at least to the point where a biped would have no feet left. So I'd advise not also shooting the messenger, but trying to formulate a case for the next time round, with the new CEO, that actually deals with the history, and what has been done about it. Charles
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