Dear Greek Community members,

The 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election[1] is coming soon, this is the time when four seats of the Board of Trustees are elected. In September the Board is expected to appoint its new members.

The Board has asked us, the Board Election Facilitation Team, to take care that all communities in the movement are aware of the elections. Since the very beginning of Board elections in 2004, voter turnout has been always low, according to our data around 10%. The goal is to raise the globally somewhat low voter turnout significantly and to make the board more representative of the communities worldwide. With the help of more than 70 election volunteers from all over the world and some chapters, we are reaching out to many communities already. 

Regrettably, we were unable to find election volunteers in the Greek community. The Facilitation Team is striving to fill such gaps on its own, but due to language barriers, we are unable to serve the Greek community properly by ourselves. This is a pity, as the Greek community is among the Top 50 of the biggest communities at all and in 2017 had a voter turnout of only 8.70%. 

That is why we are getting to you: We kindly ask you for some basic support. A few of the coming messages are of the utmost importance. Right now it is about the Call for Candidates (June, 9 - June, 29). 

We would be glad if you could help out by translating the announcement on meta (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/2021-06-09/Call_for_Candidates) and spreading it along your channels and in the major channels of your communities (Village pumps, Telegram groups, etc.). We would appreciate it a lot, if we might get back to you with a similar request when voting starts on August 4th?

Though we do not expect this to take more than one hour, we know that we are asking a lot. Be assured, that we would not do this if it weren’t for our wish to make the Greek community a part of this as much as it deserves. We hope that you can agree on its importance and forgive us for our late and urgent approach. We kindly ask for your support and would be glad to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021