Dear all,

Due to a disruption at our hosting provider, this morning (Amsterdam time) the NABUUR site has been down for a few hours, together with the websites of all the other customers of our webhost. At this moment the site is running fine again.

Strategy development
The governance group has started working in 2 teams:
governance, looking into issues about how NABUUR could/should be governed, budget issues etc - Tobias, Pelle, Rolf
strategy, looking into how NABUUR should work, which priorities should be tackled first, etc. - Nonhlanhla, Jennifer, Tchitula, Denis

If you'd like to get involved in one of these teams, let me know.

Of course governance and strategy won't work without each other. This Sunday, January 30, the governance group will meet on Skype to discuss how both teams will move forward, which exact questions will be answered, timelines etc.
Each team will come forward with a proposal (timeline to be decided) which is then open for feedback.

You've probably seen the discussion opened by the strategy team. If you have ideas about better information sharing on NABUUR or how Villages could earn trust online please share them.

Annual Account 2010
I've gotten in touch with the bookkeeper who always took care of NABUUR's account. I'll start preparing the NABUUR annual report. Due date for the report is March 31st. (including a check by the accountant, which is still needed this year)

Open for Change
You also may have seen messages passing by which mention Nabuur in relation to "Open for Change - Network for transparency, collaboration & impact in development". Already in November 2009, we blogged about Nabuur taking part in a network for international cooperation 2.0. The same partnership was again visible inApril 2010, when a meeting was organised to discuss how the participants could better work together. Over the past year this network has slowly developed to become what is now called 'Open for Change' (new name), which is now hosted by Partos - the national platform for Dutch civil society organisations in the international development cooperation sector.

How is NABUUR involved?
NABUUR was one of the 6 founding partners of this network. On a personal level Rolf and I are heavily involved in this development. Of course we keep our eyes open for possible projects that could benefit NABUUR (i.e. closer collaboration with 1%CLUB or AKVO).

I got notified by Jennifer that this collaboration is not really clear to all, so I'll start writing a post that explains the underlying ideas a bit better.
In the meantime, for those who are interested in International Development '2.0', keep an eye on http://openforchange.info

If you have any questions feel free to email me at pelle@nabuur.com or find me on Skype: pelleaardema

Pelle

Romi....
Happy New Year....
I am shocked....hurt...happy...BUT at times you have to move on...it may be hard....but it maybe what you need to do....You were the ROCK....alot will be lost but thats the one reason why we also need to think..."What if Romi wasnt there...waht would we do?"In a Way there are those that you built..those who changed...those who moved on...and MOST IMPORTANTLY...those communities that you made sure got a Neighbor.... YOU DESERVE a BIG PAT on the back....YOU DESERVE and HONORIA...The best Neighbor Nabuur has ever had....ALL the BEST Girl....Take care...and well...we are just a click a way if we still need you..Thanks Love!

Dear all,

Here's another progress update.

Strategy development
Last Sunday, January 30, the governance group has met on Skype to discuss how the new strategy will be developed, timelines etc. As I've mentioned we've split up into two teams: governance & strategy. Here's what we'll be working on:

Governance team
(Rolf, Tobias, Pelle)

Main topics that need to be discussed
1. governance model - role of board - working groups/different model? :
• overview of 'maintenance tasks' (and who does them now)
• description of board's responsibilities
• expected 'working groups' / volunteer positions
2. Financial stability: we need to determine if we want to stick with the current model: running costs as low as possible, all other initiatives funded on project basis
3. Partnerships: relates to the above + to the strategy. I think it would be helpful to make a list of potential partnerships that we have in mind already. I'll start with this

Approach:
1. Pelle, Rolf & Tobias prepare examples of how other communities are run.
- Then arrange a skype meeting in a week, week and a half to discuss pro's&cons,
- Come up with a Nabuur proposal

2. Pelle will describe how he sees the current model working out.
• Rolf / Tobias gather other ideas, please also provide them within 2 weeks.
• Skype meeting for real discussion --> Nabuur proposal

3. Pelle starts a google doc with possible partnerships, mentioning: name, purpose/area of collaboration, chance of success, remarks (any additions??)

timeline:
first draft proposal with nr. 1,2,3 within 3 weeks, which is then open for discussion.

Strategy team
(Jennifer, Nonhlanhla, Tchitula, Denis)

Based on the current discussions on the site, there's a feeling that most important issues have surfaced. The most important issue involves the website & how it supports the work of committed volunteers.

We think the time has now come to clean up the current site and remove content that isn't being used. At the moment there are no big topics that need to be further discussed. We'll see where the gaps are when the outcomes of the governance team are matched with the outcomes of the strategy discussions that have taken place so far.

Strategy document
Nabuur history, background and SWOT will be taken from the previous Nabuur business plan.
This will then be completed with the governance proposal and the outcomes of the strategy group. Of course the draft document will be put up for discussion/feedback.

Board & governance group
Board: given the current status the board composition (and the vacancy) will be left as it is for now - we will look at the board composition based on the strategy proposal.
We've decided the governance group should be open for those who are interested to join. If you would want to join, please email me at pelle@nabuur.com.

Future meetings
The governance group has made every last Sunday of the month - 8.00 PM CET a standing appointment. Next meeting will be on Sunday February 27 - 8.00PM CET / 2.00PM EST
I will set up a Doodle so people can indicate if they can participate.

I'll make sure to post the link here too, so that you can join us next time.

Warm regards,

Pelle

Dear all,

I realize it's been two weeks since the last update.

Here's a quick update of what's going on:

Governance meeting
This Sunday, February 27, at 20.00 hrs CET, the governance group will meet again (Skype chat). The last Sunday of the month is now a standing appointment. The meeting is open to anyone who is interested, so feel free to join us.

You can find the upcoming meetings here: http://bit.ly/nabuurmeeting
If you connect with me on Skype (ID: pelleaardema) I will invite you to the group.

Strategy development
Due to a number of reasons the writing of the governance proposal is not going exactly as fast as we'd hoped it would. However, Tobias, Rolf and I have managed to come up with a draft today which needs to be talked through. I hope we'll be able to do so next week, so that I can put it up for feedback.

Local Representatives training
Last Saturday, 19 Feb, a number of Local Representatives got together in Nairobi, Kenya, to attend a business training organised by SIFE. Thanks to the continuous effort of some volunteers and John Keya, local representative of Komarok village, all the Kenyan Local Reps were invited to attend. John reports the training was succesful. We're looking forward to further updates.

Through our partner Libre Foundation, the Rwandan Local Reps were also invited for a Leadership training, to be held from March 21st-25th, at the Centre des handicapés de Gatagara, near Gitarama, Rwanda.

That's it for now,
I'll be back here early next week with an update of Sunday's meeting.

Pelle

Thank you for the updates.
How about Ugandan Local Representatives?
Is there any future arrangements for training
where we can also benefit?
I hope you consider our participation and linking
us to potential supporting partners be in Kenya
or elsewhere.

Sulaiman.

Hi Sulaiman -

I brought that up in our meeting yesterday. I think it would be great to be able to offer the same type of thing in Uganda as we also have an active group of local representatives there too. I believe Nonhlanhla is checking into it.

Good to hear from you!

Jennifer

Dear Sulaiman,

Thank you for expressing interest in a similar initiative for Uganda. I just checked the official SIFE worldwide website and Uganda is not listed as one of the countries where SIFE is active. However, I was able to find a blog by SIFE in Uganda so I have to check with my contacts how I can get in touch with some of the teams there. I cannot make any promises about their willingness to help or when it will happen because if we do find SIFE teams to talk to over there they will have to decide if this is an interesting opportunity for them and whether they are able to help. It took us about 8 months to finally get something concrete for the Kenya group so please be patient while I try to get to the right people. Would you be interested in being the primary contact that I refer them to in Uganda?

Do have a wonderful day.

Kind Regards,

Nonhlanhla

--
'If you are willing to change the world, let love be your energy.' Robbie Williams

Dear all,

Last Sunday the governance group met again on Skype. This time Mary also managed to join. :-)
If you'd like to participate, find the upcoming dates here: http://bit.ly/nabuurmeeting

Here's a quick update on the status of the Strategic plan
Rolf, Tobias and I are working on a governance proposal, of which a draft is nearly ready.
We managed to meet on Skype yesterday, and worked our way to a model that at least the 3 of us think would suit NABUUR. Rolf and I are now working on the roles and responsibilities - which we should be able to fill in this week, meaning the draft can be posted for feedback.

Tobias has shared the Kabissa operations manual - an elaborate description of everything that needs to be done in order to keep Kabissa running. The Kabissa community is currently going through a process of completing this manual. There seems to be a big overlap between NABUUR and Kabissa here - so we decided to start the same kind of process for NABUUR.

NABUUR Operating procedures
I´ve just shared a list of 'NABUUR operating procedures' with the members of the governance group - everything that needs done to keep NABUUR working, including volunteer management: guiding new neighbours, website maintenance, spammer control etc.

If you'd like to help complete this list, let me know, then I'll give you access to it.

Pelle

Dear all,

The Governance group didn't meet last week (as scheduled), because there were too many people missing. We should have communicated this better.

A few of us will (hopefully) be meeting tomorrow at 8.00PM CET (2.00 PM EST) on Skype. I'd like to discuss the following:
- Actions to clean up the site (separating active villages from inactive ones, etc)
- Empowering LRs to improve their projects themselves, moving away from the current facilitator model
- I'd like to bounce off our current ideas for a new NABUUR governance structure, which is still in development.

I'm aware it's a very late notice. If you can't make it tomorrow, but would like to chat, let me know then we'll try to arrange another meeting soon.

Pelle

I'll be there :-)

--
'If you are willing to change the world, let love be your energy.' Robbie Williams

Hi everyone,

Although it is Easter and not everyone will be able to participate, we're going to have our next scheduled chat on Sunday 24 April:

New York 14:00
London 19:00
Amsterdam 20:00
Kampala 21:00
Islamabad: 23:00

The current list of items on the agenda:

Items for the agenda so far:

- Year report over 2010
- Filtering the "active villages" for the move forward
- Current plans for the hosting from mid-June onward
- Governance model and "operational procedures"
- AOB (any other business)

The chat will be on Skype and/or on IRC. Leave a reply here if you want to join, or come to the NABUUR chat.

(We can also schedule an extra chat between Sunday and the next regular chat at the end of May if people would like that.)

Hi guys,

Thanks for the message. Could you let us know a bit more in advance when the next chat will be? As I am now in Aftica I better understand the problems having access to internet :) so it takes some time to organise. But anyway, great that it takes now place regularly and that we are making progress.

Thanks,
Maria

Hi all,

There is a NABUUR strategy meetup planned for next week, Sunday May 29. (see http://bit.ly/nabuurmeeting)
Unfortunately I won't be able to be there, only three people have indicated they can make it.
I'm not sure if you'd like to carry on with the meeting, or alternatively postpone it to Sunday June 5th? (I'll follow up with the governance group too)

It's been pretty quiet here, mostly due to the fact that Rolf and I have been very busy organizing the Open Data for Development Camp (http://openforchange.info/oddc), and there were a number of administrative duties that needed to be taken care of.

See below for an update on what has been going on.

Administrative business
Rolf and I've written the Annual Report over 2010 and communicated it with HIVOS. See the draft document attached. Thanks Jen and Mary for your input.

The reason that it's still a draft version, is because the Annual Account is not in there yet. It's taken some time to get in touch with the old Nabuur accountant, so I've been looking for a new accountant to carry out the financial check that we're obligated to. (due to the contract with HIVOS). During the talk with the accountant, he asked if, given the low activity level of NABUUR, a more 'light-weight' check wouldn't suffice. This question now lies with Hivos.

Given the financial impact of a full organization check vs. the light-weight variant, it's hard to give you an up to date financial picture right now. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Hosting
The current hosting contract will end next month, we're preparing to move to a new, cheaper environment. We'll focus on moving the current site to a Linode virtual server, and then explore another option for free hosting that Kester suggested (more on that once we contacted them).

Inactive villages
As a result of the discussions about cleaning up the NABUUR site, a list has been made of active vilalges vs. inactive villages. Eventually 58 villages were marked active, and 235 marked as 'inactive' (Having seen no activity for a long time, usually half a year or longer.

An email message has been sent to all Local Representatives of inactive villages (haven't posted in their Village for half a year or longer). They were asked to reply before May 31st, if they want to keep their village online on NABUUR. The other villages will be archived.
235 messages were sent out,
28 email addresses bounced
around 30 Local Reps have indicated that they'd like to keep their village online, so far.

The idea is that the active villages + the ones who's Local Rep has indicated they would like to keep their village online will be moved to the new server directly. The other villages will be archived for the time being (and can be reactivated later on, if needed)

So far for now. As always, if you have any feedback, ideas or questions, let me know.

Pelle

NABUUR Annual Report 2010 - final draft.pdf

Hi all,

The final date for the chat is June 5th, 20.00 CET.
Talk soon,

Pelle

Nabuur Governance Meeting – June 5, 2011

Hi everyone - below, you'll find notes from yesterday's governance team meeting. Please take special note about the upcoming server migration scheduled to take place THIS FRIDAY - June 10th.

Present: Frans Kuipers, Rolf Kleef, David Bale, Mary Smith, Maria Zandt, Pelle Ardema, Nonhlanhla Dube, Jennifer Wells

Annual Account

Pelle and Rolf drafted an annual report for 2010 shortly after the May governance group meeting to send to HIVOS. There were some questions on Nabuur’s end as to the kind of final financial check that Nabuur should have done, so thus far only the narrative report has been submitted. The actual “numbers” are still with the bookkeeper at this point. We are still waiting for an answer from HIVOS on the type of financial check that is expected (either light-weight, or full story – both of which have different financial implications).

On receipt of the report, HIVOS got back to Nabuur with some questions about the results that Nabuur should have met according to the initial funding contract (signed by the OLD Nabuur board). Pelle answered those questions, but suspects that further discussion may be needed.

Some of the benchmarks that were agreed on by the old Nabuur board which HIVOS is questioning include:

• 50,000 total subscribed neighbours by the end of 2010.

• 5,000 total registered Nabuur villages by the end 2010.

• There were a couple of additional points questioned which we did not discuss in the meeting.

It is also important to note that Pelle and Rolf did meet with HIVOS back in October to explain the transition at Nabuur and that these benchmarks were not likely going to be realistic given the current situation. They understand that Nabuur is planning to be much smaller in the future and are okay with that. Pelle does not foresee any major issues. He hopes to get more clarity from HIVOS this week so that we can proceed with the financial part of the annual report and move forward.

Pelle previously posted the draft annual report to this group if anyone interested in reading it.

Announcements:

• Pelle & Rolf met a gentleman from www.waterhackathon.org (World Bank) at the recent Open Data for Development Camp. This organization plans on organizing a “hack event” somewhere in the Fall of 2011. They are looking for villages with water issues that could be helped with solutions that could be “hacked.”

"Challenging water experts and software developers from around the world to co-create the innovative solutions needed to help solve today's water problems. You are invited to contribute a problem definition on any of the wide-range of water issues facing developing countries today, including access to clean water to sanitation, flood management, agricultural water management and environmental pollution."

• Pelle also spoke with Mirjam van Dijk from www.eye4africa.com/en. She is arranging internships in Uganda for Dutch students in higher education. Students travel to Uganda for 3 months and work on real assignments. Students are paired with a local mentor with higher education as well. Pelle explained, “They are looking for different kinds of projects - at the moment they have ICT, social work, agriculture, ...The idea is to see if we can 'deliver' a few trusted communities with a concrete question so that we can try this collaboration.” The founder of this organization is moving to Uganda later this year, so Pelle discussed other possible collaboration as well for the future (such as possibly some training for local representatives in Uganda). The group then discussed a few possible ideas in terms of villages in Uganda who might benefit from such a partnership. Pelle will follow up with those with regard to the necessary application forms.

• Cheryl van Kempen shared information last month on the Nabuur LinkedIn site and also on Nabuur’s Facebook page about http://ruralweb.info/start/home. She thought it would be great to collaborate with Nabuur. Rolf has met Cheryl before. At a recent Call 2 Action meet-up, Rural Web was represented by Firmin Soutime (who attended Nabuur Camp last year). Rolf shared, “the key of what they hope to achieve: work with diaspora communities, people who are well-connected to the internet and (mostly) telephone connections they have into their home country communities, to bring information from the web to those communities.” Rolf plans to keep in touch with them.

Nabuur Clean-up:

• Villages - A message was sent out to 235 villages asking if they would like to continue to have a presence on the Nabuur website. Out of those, 31 have replied saying they would like to stay. Added to the villages we marked “active” in our initial review – this would make a total of 91 villages that would be migrated to the new server. We will be reviewing this list again to make sure all of these should be moved. We need to have a finalized list of who to move to Frans by Thursday this week as the server migration will take place this coming Friday, June 10th. The initial message did bounce back from several villages (about 30 total) – Pelle will be sending a list of those who responded including a list of the bounced messages so that we can review and determine if any of those villages need to be moved as well.

• Neighbours - There are a total of 18,436 neighbours that have never logged in to the existing Nabuur site. This means either they joined before July 2008 and were active at one time, or they never activated their account when Nabuur last moved to the current site (which accounts for the majority of these). All are in agreement that these profiles need to be archived and NOT moved to the new server. People will be able to create a new account on the new server if they decide to come back.

Moving Nabuur to a New Server:

Nabuur has to be migrated to a new smaller server within the next 12 days. Frans, Pelle, Rolf and perhaps some others will be meeting on Friday to begin this migration. At this point, it is important to note this is a new SERVER, not the new Nabuur website. There could be some unexpected bumps in the road with the server migration, but that will not be known until it happens. Once this migration happens, fewer villages will be visible – the rest will be archived. This should be the only noticeable change to active Nabuur users. Because this server is smaller than the old one, one option for reducing traffic to the Nabuur site for a short while is to “switch off” Google Adwords for a while.

How long will this take?

According to Frans, they need to take the existing database, run the clean up script (roughly a 12-hour job) and then set up the new site. After this, the switch can take place in roughly an hour or so.

The log-in to Nabuur will be disabled before they migrate the database. The current Nabuur site will still be visible, but you will not be able to post new messages and volunteers will not be able to create a profile while this occurs.

Once the cleaned-up server is up and running, the domain www.nabuur.com will be pointed to the new server.

Support for Villages that Stay Online:

After the group met for 2 hours, we decided we did not have time to delve into this topic today. We will revisit this issue after the serve move takes place. The support we are discussing involves helping the villages that stay “clean-up” their tasks and make sure they reflect current priorities. Pelle and Rolf are going to come up with some ideas for how to best approach this.

If you’re interested in helping out with this – please let us know!

Other business:

• Nonhlanhla brought up that the group needs to start thinking further into the future so that we are not always dealing with major issues at the last minute. When the Nabuur does move to the new website, we want the website to work for Nabuur instead of Nabuur being run by what the website will and will not do.

• Rolf suggested taking stock of where the ideas of vision, tech options, Nabuurcamp decisions, etc. all are to discuss at the end of June.