Grants:TPS/Maor X/Wikimania/2014/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2014!

Participant

Maor X

Ladino Wikipedia, Spanish Wikipedia, Wikimedia Venezuela, Wikimedia Israel, AffCom

Outcome

Option 1: Shared Experience: What is one way you shared something from your experience with your community (either locally or globally), after the event?

Add a link here to a blog post or newsletter you wrote about your participation afterwards, or to a meet-up you organized to share your experience with your local community.

I used a more or less chunk of of my time at Wikimania to meet with people from across the movement. As the current Chair of the Affiliations Committee, I had the chance to meet (formally and not so formally) with member of our affiliates, not just those whom I serve as their liaison and other existing ones (Armenia, Tunisia, New England, Nepal, India, Philippines, Indonesia) but also with potential affiliates (Algeria, Kirghizstan, Uzebkistan, Ecuador) as well as with staff members and WMF Board members. Some of them applied for affiliation as soon as they got back to their countries after Wikimania, which is great!

Also, I had the opportunity to participate in a Board Training Workshop organized by Wikimedia UK, intended to help acquire better practices for all affiliate Board members, which did not just give me tools to improve my own chapter but also working practices in the AffCom and got to interact more with Board members of different chapters who attended the workshop.

I also had the opportunity to represent my home chapter (Wikimedia Venezuela, of which I am its current Vice-president) in a meeting of affiliates with Lila Tretikov, the new WMF Executve Director; I was also introduced to her personally on another occasion and we had a brief talk. From the first meeting with her I think she was able to see more in detail what the affiliates represent, need from and can contribute to the Wikimedia movement, which I personally think is a great big step and a sign of goodwill from her side and a token of appreciation for us in the network of affiiates. From the second, more in-person conversation, this time a but more as an AffCom member, we could know each other more and see how we can work together for the future of the movement.