I hope you are well, and managed to enjoy the summer despite the rather mixed weather, in the UK at least.
I wanted to get in touch about the development of Wikimedia UK's next three year strategy, and outline some ways in which contributors, volunteers and members can help to shape our future direction.
The chapter is halfway through the third year of our current three year strategy, which runs from February 2019 to January 2022. You can see our recently published progress report on the first half of this year here.
This autumn we will be developing our next strategy, which will cover the period 1st February 2022 to 31st January 2025. The process will start this month and finish with the formal sign-off of the new strategy at the March board meeting. Key milestones along the way will include board and staff away days, and the development of our annual funding proposal to the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm also keen to ensure that the wider Wikimedia UK community is able to contribute to the new strategy in a meaningful way. My current thinking (although I am open to feedback!) is that this might naturally fall into two key stages:
1. Gathering input and feedback from volunteers/stakeholders at an early stage of the planning process, both through asynchronous contributions to documents and an online community meeting in late September/early October (date and time tbc)
2. Feedback on the draft strategic framework, both through asynchronous contributions to documents and an online or in person meeting in December to discuss the draft strategy and develop ideas for implementation/delivery (date and time tbc)
I have an idea that the December meeting could be combined with a little festive gathering, probably in our offices in Southwark...but of course this will depend on the appetite at the time for travelling into London and gathering indoors.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about any of this, please do get in touch. In the meantime I will share details of the upcoming community discussion ASAP. If anyone is interested in helping to organise or facilitate this, please let me know!