Hi, There are just 3 days left for community members to nominate themselves as candidates in the upcoming Board election. <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/en>
Stu West, who is the Board's Treasurer and has served on the board since April 2008, wrote this piece, below, about why serving on the Board is rewarding and he has kindly said I can share it more widely. I hope that it may serve as some inspiration for any potential Board candidates who are considering running but having trouble answering "...Why?" Please think of who you know in our communities that may be a good candidate and encourage them to consider standing. Let us support candidates that are as truly diverse as the communities themselves. cheers, Brianna =================== Brianna's request got me thinking about why 15 months ago I was excited to join the board and why now I'm still enjoying it. Of course I'm intent on supporting the projects in general, and think the community is accomplishing amazing things with our free knowledge projects and having an incredibly positive impact on the entire globe. And just being around the energy, idealism and internationalism of our community is positive for me and balances a world that seems too full of recession and war and other negatives. On top of these general interests that many get by participating in our community, serving on the board is worth it for me personally for a few reasons: - I have a strong interest in organizational development and sustainability. Serving at the board level allows me to focus on policy development, organizational structure and other high-level issues to help ensure our projects are still thriving and pursuing the mission in 100 years. I'm also intellectually interested in the challenge of maintaining a community's culture even as it grows and succeeds (my day job at Silicon Valley startups is also about this). - I believe my particular skills (organizational development, finance, operations, negotiating) are really useful to the foundation right now and being able to put those to work -- and to see impact -- is very satisfying. - I'm one of those people who typically prefers the big picture view and enjoys understanding how all the different pieces tie together (again, this also applies to my day job). For example, I think my edit count is highest on meta. This is a natural fit with a board role. - I'm really passionate about a few things related to our community (including developing world education, usability, and operational efficiencies), and the Board gives me a position to understand these and at times advocate for them. ================= -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l