Categories: Spotlight

Spotlight on the ReMo Council

The 7 volunteer members of the provisional ReMo council, taken by Viking KarwurIn February of 2011, the Mozilla Reps project, also known as ReMo, celebrated its kick-off. The program empowers and helps volunteering Mozillians to become official representatives of Mozilla in their region, country and wherever they go. From the very beginning on, a team of 9 motivated Mozillians guided the ReMo project: The Council.

The program was founded by two employees at first, who invited 7 other council members afterwards. Its job is to oversee the global activities and to provide a governance and support stucture to assist Mozilla Representatives worldwide. The program has grown a lot from its initial stages to where it is now: more structure and responsibilities have been created within the program.

In Paris, July 2011, the whole council came together for a meeting and this year, there was a second council meeting in Greece and the first Reps Camp just took place in Berlin which the Reps mentors also attended. “The Reps Camp was definitely the highlight. The sessions were all really productive”, Majken “Lucy” Connor, Provisional Council member for North America said. “It’s just different to be able to put a personality to an IRC nick.”

The hardest decision the council ever had to make was how to change from the provisional council to an election model. Although the promise of making the council elected was wanted to be fulfilled, replacing all of the seven volunteers at once would be disruptive given the fluid state of the program. Lukas Blakk suggested an election model she’s seen in other situations, and everyone at the Reps Camp agreed it was a great idea and adopted this model.

Now, the time has come to say goodbye and thanks to the provisional council. “I think we all [saw] this as a real privilege that we got to be the ones to help nurture this program.” The ReMo project is growing and growing – thanks to the hard work of the council, the mentors and the hundreds of Reps around the globe. And for having guided the ReMo project, including all of the 270 representatives, the ReMo Provisional Council definitely deserves to be in the spotlight this week! Check out the other Spotlight entries or Bonjour Mozilla to find out more about other Mozillians.