2008-2009 AGM/President/Brianna Laugher

Hi, my name is Brianna. I am a Melbourne Wikimedian and I would be proud to have the opportunity to lead our nascent group. (In other words, I'm running for president.)

I have been a Wikimedian for several years, mainly involved with Wikimedia Commons, and I have also kept a blog on Wikimedia related topics. I have attended two Wikimanias and most recently I have been devoting the largest part of my wiki time to being secretary for WMAU. If you're on any of the WMAU mailing lists it's very likely that you receive multiple emails from me a week. :)

In 2009 I want to see WMAU become a strong and reliable organisation. Here are some things I would like to see us doing.

• Regular meetings for the committee, and regular reports to members/the community.
• Regular meetups (monthly or two-monthly) in at least four capital cities.

  Regular in-person events create stability and reliability for potential attendees, and improve trust and knowledge between members. They help us know better what our own strengths and weaknesses are.

• Devolve power to the greatest extent possible - encourage member leadership and participation.
• Create/update/localise introductory promotional brochures as many Wikimedia projects as possible.
• Find and get to know our allies in the media, government, education and business.
• Develop material in relation to Wikipedia's inclusion on the NSW HSC English syllabus.
• Try to grow a local MediaWiki developer community: Encourage people to become MediaWiki developers, and encourage applications based on the MediaWiki API.

  More MediaWiki developers = more features implemented for the projects, and more use of the MediaWiki API = better use and reuse of the Wikimedia works.

• Make a serious project application to the auDA Foundation. Perhaps "how to edit" training sessions?

Of course there is much else we can do (like host a Wikimania Australia?!), but we have to start somewhere, and these are the starting points I can see. We are a very lucky organisation: people all over Australia (and GREAT people as far as I have seen!), strong support from WMF and the other chapters around the world. I look forward to seeing what we are capable of in 2009.

--Brianna