There was a record-breaking turnout of UK Wikipedians on Sunday 16th October for the 50th London Meetup and an Extraordinary General Meeting of WMUK. The single resolution passed with 49 votes for, none against and one abstention (including 24 proxy votes). The resolution adopted a new “Objects clause” in our constitution to make us ready to become a UK Registered Charity – our full Articles of Association are available to view here. It was explained at the meeting that discussions with the Charity Commission have been progressing well, and the Board are optimistic that Wikimedia UK will achieve charity status soon, hopefully in time for the start of the 2011 Fundraiser in November. This will enable WMUK to collect Gift Aid, and brings other advantages, such as discounts on normal business rates – and providing a more professional and trustworthy image to the public. The new CEO, Jon Davies, also answered questions from attendees.
Our plans for 2012
Wikimedia UK has just published its 2012 Activity Plan. Please have your say!
The Activity Plan is an outline of the work we will do in 2012, and the resources we need to support it. It is an important stage in the development of our 2012 Budget. When we’re asking people for money in this Autumn’s fundraiser, the Activity Plan will show people what we’re hoping to achieve with their donations – so it’s also important for the openness and accountability of our fundraising.
We’d welcome your views – please edit the talk page if you have any comments or suggestions. There will be plenty of scope to take feedback from the community into account when we finalise the 2012 Budget later this year in the light of the actual fundraising income.
Welcoming our new Chief Executive
I am delighted to announce that we have offered the position of Chief Executive to Jon Davies and he has accepted. He will start on 1 October 2011, in time to help us prepare for the annual fundraiser that is due to start on 1 November.
Many of you will have met Jon at the September Wikimeet, along with the other finalists. He is the former Chief Executive of Families need Fathers, Britain’s leading shared parenting charity, and a former leader of the London Cycling Network. He will be coming along to the 50th London Wikimeet and the Wikimedia UK EGM on 16th October, where he is keen to meet as many people as possible and hear how they would like the chapter to develop.
Jon is a fantastic find for us. His skills and experience – working with volunteer led organisations and leading charities though periods of change and growth in activities – are just what we have been looking for. His consensual approach is a natural fit to Wikimedian culture and his confident and reassuring manner will be invaluable in the times of change ahead. I am very confident that he will be a very successful addition to the chapter.
Finding and choosing the right person would not have been possible without the help of many people along the way. I would like to thank everyone involved in this. In particular, thanks go to: Continue reading “Welcoming our new Chief Executive”
EGM 16th October – Help us become a charity!
As you all know, since Wikimedia UK was founded, one of our goals has been to become a Registered Charity. The process hasn’t been easy – our activities as set out in our Object don’t easily tick the necessary boxes on the Charity Commission’s checklist.
The Board has been doing a lot of work on this in the last two months. The advice we have received from the Charity Commission and our lawyers is that for the best prospect of success, we need to amend Wikimedia UK’s Object, and also make some minor changes to our Memorandum and Articles of Association.
To do this, we are calling an Extraordinary General Meeting on 16th October 2011, to coincide with the 50th London Wikimeet. There will only be one item of business: the amendment of the Memorandum of Association with revised Objects. The Board is unanimously supporting the amendment of the Memorandum and we hope the new Objects will not prove controversial. The intention of this motion is not to actually change anything Wikimedia UK does, just to re-define our objectives in a way that better fits in with charity law.
You can see the proposed amendment on the EGM wiki page. Members of the WMUK board are happy to answer any questions you have about the amendment; please ask them on EGM talk page.
If you are able to attend in person, please sign up here. The EGM will be at the Penderel’s Oak on Sunday 16 October 2011. We’ll be in the room downstairs (as you may remember the most recent London wikimeet got a bit crowded).
If you are unable to attend then please vote by proxy. This is particularly important to ensure that we have quorum at the EGM in order to pass the amendment. Details on how to vote by proxy are included in the EGM notice.
All Wikimedia UK members will receive an email with formal notice of the EGM. Only current Wikimedia UK members can vote. If you aren’t a member, but would like to get involved, then you can join online for just £5.
This is an important milestone in our development and we are very happy to have got to this stage. Please help us take it one step further.
WikiConference India travel grants
Wikimedia UK welcomes proposals from Wikimedians in the UK community intending to travel to join the WikiConference India. Priority will be given to those with Wikimedia experience to share, links with the Wikimedia movement in India or with credible inter-chapter proposals to discuss and implement with support of the wider community.
Details of how to apply can be found at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_Scholarships. The deadline for submitting a workshop or presentation proposal to the India conference programme team has been extended to Sep 27 19:30 BST.
WikiConference India runs from November 18 to 20 at the University of Mumbai. The conference registration page is available at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011.
Wikimedia UK at the Institute of Physics
On Thursday 1st September, two Martins from Wikimedia UK (MartinPoulter and Martinvl) visited the Institute of Physics building in London to train IoP members in contributing to Wikipedia. This was a pilot event, with an audience of six, building towards a larger event in future.
The training is part of Wikimedia UK’s wider programme of engaging with scholarly bodies and funding councils, bringing in experts to review and improve Wikipedia and its sister projects. The collaboration with IoP also includes an article by Martin Poulter and Mike Peel in the current issue of Physics World.
The attendees were very enthusiastic about the Wikimedia mission to make physics (and other areas of knowledge) accessible to as wide an audience as possible, not just through a free, multilingual encyclopaedia but also through projects such as Wiktionary and Wikibooks. Continue reading “Wikimedia UK at the Institute of Physics”
Help us choose our Chief Executive
At the AGM in April it was agreed that professionalising Wikimedia UK and recruiting our first permanent staff would be one of our priorities this year, We are now coming to the end of the process for choosing our first Chief Executive and would like your help with this.
This Sunday is the regular monthly wikimeet in London (details & directions) and the three final candidates will be there to meet the community. We would be interested to hear your impressions of them so that this can feed into the final decision of who to employ. If you require financial assistance for travel costs to attend please get in touch as we have a small budget that may be able to help.
This has been the result of a lot of hard work. Back in May we visited three recruitment agencies to discuss our staffing needs and how they could help. We selected prospect-us, a recruitment firm that works exclusively in the not-for-profit sector, who we felt would be best suited to provide us with the step by step help we need. They helped us draft the job description and advertised on the Guardian, Charity Jobs, as well as in their own network. We also advertised within the Wikimedia community using the geonotice facility on the english Wikipedia.
Over 100 people requested the application pack and 83 people applied for the post. The trustees worked with prospect-us to longlist 16 candidates who then met our consultant for a one-on-one interview. We then shortlisted six people for interview by a panel. We are very grateful to our partner GLAM institutions who who agreed to sit on the interview panel, bringing much appreciated expertise into the process. We also benefited from the help of Sebastian Molenski, President of Wikimedia Deutschland, who have already been through a similar process. The British Library kindly donated a room for our interviews, further demonstrating the importance of such relationships for the Wikimedia movement.
This appointment is going to be one of the most important decisions Wikimedia UK makes this year. We have designed a thorough process to test candidates on all the different angles. With your help, we can ensure that our new Chief Executive is the right choice for Wikimedia UK.
Girl Geeks V. Wikimeet – An exercise in real-time collaboration
By Fiona Apps (Wikipedia User:Panyd)
How do you get members of the public involved in Wikipedia? Moreover, how do you get women,
a relative minority in the Wikipedia world, interested in editing when the thought had not crossed their minds before? Well, the Bristol Girl Geeks Vs. Wikimedia Event was a great example in how to meet this challenge – and the feedback we gained from the event suggests that this isn’t as difficult as it seems.
The collaboration started from the off. Wikimedia UK approach Bristol Girl Geek Dinners to ask them whether they would be interested in hosting an event with a Wikipedia theme. The enthusiasm with which this suggestion was met resulted in a fantastic collaborative effort to arrange the evening. Both members of Wikimedia UK and Bristol Girl Geeks worked hard to ensure that the rooms were booked, the public were attending and a Wikipedia Logo cake was present.
The audience was seemingly disparate. Although most of the attendees were women, they varied significantly in age, race and geography – some came from as far away as London – some were even men! Addressing such a disparate crowd appeared to be quite a challenge, as how could we bring together people so diverse? Continue reading “Girl Geeks V. Wikimeet – An exercise in real-time collaboration”
Could you be Wikimedia UK’s first Chief Executive?
Wikimedia UK is hiring its first ever Chief Executive.
We are looking for a high-calibre individual who will play a key role in the growth and development of a rapidly expanding organisation. The successful candidate will work closely with the Board to shape the future of Wikimedia UK.
For more details please see the advertisement.
Second Wikipedia Training Day at BBC Bristol
Wikimedia UK Launches its University of Bristol Outreach Ambassador in the heart of the BBC Digital Village
On Monday 4th July Wikimedia UK held its second Bristol Wikipedia Training Day attended by friends from organisations such as the Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol Girl Geek Dinners, Bristol University, UWE, BBC Bristol and other groups from across the city. With the appointment of Bristol University’s Wikimedia Outreach Ambassador, Sam Knight, the aim of the day was to help participants get started as Editors on Wikipedia, get to know Sam and to discuss the ways in which Wikimedia UK is building outreach across the city and throughout the UK. The day was run in the style of collaborative event and we covered the topics of:
- Starting up on Wikipedia as an editor
- Working with Wikipedia data in a collaborative setting
- Building the highest possible quality standards
- Growing the e-volunteer network
- Creating outreach programmes
Our kind BBC Hosts made the day a success that everyone enjoyed. Newly skilled Wikipedians left the event motivated and enthused and ready to help Wikimedia UK develop its outreach program across what promises to be a busy summer. Many thanks to Martin, Jez and Steve Woods for leading the team across the day.
For additional information or comment contact Martin Poulter or Steve Virgin.