Here’s an update on Wikimedia Philippines (WMPH), which I’ve blogged earlier this year. The organization has had two members’ meetings already. The first one was the first Annual General Meeting held last May 15 at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila in Intramuros and the second was the Second Quarter Meeting held last Saturday, June 19, at the UCCP Shalom Center in Malate, Manila.

I must say that both meetings were great learning experiences. While most of us in the organization are avid contributors to the Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wikipedia, very few of us have any experience with setting up and running an organization and most especially with conducting meetings in a parliamentary manner. We, the Board of Trustees, made a lot of mistakes in planning and handling the meetings and we’re just glad that the rest of the members were very understanding.

I’ve had the experience being the chairperson of my org in college, but that definitely didn’t prepare me for the “big leagues”. My college org conducted its affairs in a really informal way and we never did adopt any formal rules of conduct more detailed than our org constitution and we didn’t follow any method for doing meetings and deciding on matters of substance. So the recent WMPH meetings were the very first time I encountered doing things the formal parliamentary way and with the famous Robert’s Rules of Order. We all know about making motions, seconding them, and voting thereafter, but I didn’t know that there are actually exact procedures and steps for them. Thanks to our member, Tony, who’s an experienced parliamentarian, many of us in the org learned quite a lot from him. I actually quite like the formality of it all.

As for the projects and activities that WMPH would be doing, one sure thing is that we will have a Wikipedia Day in January 2011 to celebrate the tenth birthday of Wikipedia! Yes, the free encyclopedia we all love (and hate) will be ten years old this January 15! How time flies! Wikipedia Day 2011 will be celebrated together with the Wikimedia Foundation as well as all the other Wikimedia chapters all over the world. Hooray!

A possible project we were also thinking of doing is to tie up with the local GLAM industry (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), such as the National Museum, to expand the free content about the Philippines’ historical heritage. Another possible activity is the Wikipedia takes the City concept pioneered in New York City. In this activity, Wikipedians go around an area and take photographs of notable landmarks and buildings and then release the photos under free and open licenses.

So, now that you’ve read about what WMPH has been up to, are you interested? Do you support the spread of free and open knowledge and educational materials? If your answer is yes, why not join Wikimedia Philippines now?