We had a wonderful Annual General Meeting and Community Day on Saturday, and we’d like to thank all of our members, volunteers, trustees, staff and supporters who attended and made the day so special. Thanks to a large number of our members using their votes for our board elections we’re pleased to say we were quorate.

We had an excellent keynote from George Oates in discussion with Nick Poole, which you can catch in the full video of the event on our YouTube. We also heard from five superb lightning speakers; Lorna Campbell on the representation of HIV/AIDS activism on Wikipedia, Jason Evans on the Places of Wales, Dr Martin Poulter and Waqas Ahmed on their visual arts bias research, Dr. Kirsty Ross on the IDEA Network at the University of St Andrews, and Cas Libre on the Core Contest.

Elections

We voted in three trustees, welcoming two new candidates Julian Akodoye Manieson, and Caroline Ball, and re-electing Rod Ward, with huge thanks to all six candidates who put themselves forward for the board this year. We’re excited to welcome new skills onto the board, and retain such a valuable board member in Rod. We also passed all proposed resolutions, allowing the charity to keep running smoothly for the next year.

At the meeting, Nick Poole also announced that following his departure from the board at the end of the meeting, which marked six years since he was elected as a trustee, Lorna Campbell would be stepping in as Interim Chair until October. Nick welcomed our new co-opted trustee and Chair Elect, Monisha Shah. We’d like to thank Nick Poole and Doug Taylor for their outstanding contributions to the board, both as advocates for the chapter and in their unique skills they freely offer to the staff team.

Awards

UK Wikimedian of the Year

Marco Cafolla won the award for their efforts supporting the Scots Wikipedia. They have been a key part of the wiki, organising editathons which not only improved content but fostered a community of editors working together. Having people within a community who can step up and organise is invaluable, and those efforts mean that Scots Wikipedia is improving ever

Honourable Mention goes to Ian Watt who is a tremendously active volunteer and advocate for open knowledge, working with Commons, Wikidata, and Wikipedia. Over the last year he has run public-facing workshops and editathons, and he is hosting and supervising an Edinburgh University post-grad student running a mass transcription of the Register of Returned Criminals (1869-1939).

Up-and-Coming Wikimedian of the Year

Awarded jointly to Abd Alsattar Ardati and Lucy Moore. Abd is one of Wikimedia UK’s accredited trainers and has been proactive in helping his university engage with Wikimedia; his efforts have helped WMUK adapted to the methodology of online training. Lucy is another excellent advocate for Wikimedia – she has organised events at her place of work and encourages people in the museum and archaeology sectors to work with Wikimedia; she is also an active editor and writes articles addressing Wikipedia’s content imbalances.

Partnership of the Year

London College of Communication won the award for the Decolonising Wikipedia Network was set up in 2020 involving students and staff to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of under-represented topics. The Student Changemakers (who had a prominent role in leading the decolonisation efforts) were powerful advocates for the project and presented to staff and fellow students. The successful project will expand over the next academic year to include the whole of University of Arts, London, of which LCC is a part.

Honourable Mention goes to the Scotland, Slavery and Black History project at the University of Edinburgh. History students were invited to improve public knowledge of Scotland’s Black history, and to help make Scotland’s deep connections to Atlantic slavery better understood. They have provided videos on their reflections on this work to local Edinburgh secondary schools who are also interested in Dundas and improving black history on Wikipedia.

Honorary members

We’re pleased to award honorary membership, which waives the requirement to pay an annual membership fee, to Rosie Chapman, Mike Peel and Martin Poulter. Honorary Members have the same rights and responsibilities as regards to the charity as any other member, and do not constitute a separate class of membership. The board reviews its recognition of all Honorary Members at least annually. The memberships were awarded by the Board of Trustees in recognition of the outstanding contributions to the chapter; Rosie for her support in governance for the last six years, Mike for his valuable contributions during the early days of the chapter, and Martin for being an outstanding advocate and contributor in his work as Resident and beyond.

Thank you again to everyone who made Saturday so enjoyable, and welcome to our new trustees. If you’d like to become a member so you can vote in future AGMs and help shape the charity’s governance and strategy, please sign up here.

The post Our 2021 AGM and Community Day appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

We’ll be using Zoom, with a conference link sent to all Eventbrite sign ups, so claim your free ticket here. If you’re not sure how to use Zoom, you can watch instructions on this support page, or contact us with any queries. While the AGM is an opportunity for our members to vote on essential governance of the charity, we also encourage participation from volunteers, partners, supporters, and anyone else who’s interested in the Wikimedia community in the UK.

Agenda

11am Welcome and introduction, including technical onboarding

11.15am Keynote talk from Gavin Wilshaw, Mass Digitisation Manager at the National Library of Scotland, on the Wikisource project that the library has been delivering since the March shutdown

11.35am Q&A with Gavin, and contributions from other participants about their work on Wikimedia during and in response to the pandemic

12noon BREAK

12.15pm A global movement – short updates on Wikimedia 2030, the rebranding project, and the Universal Code of Conduct

12.30pm Lightning talks

1pm BREAK (+ social networking)

2pm Start of the formal AGM: reports, questions and announcement of voting results for the Resolutions and Elections

3pm Wikimedian of the Year and Honorary Member Awards

3.30pm Thanks and close

Proxy voting

All voting for this year’s AGM will happen by proxy. Our current Articles of Association require members to be present in person at the AGM to vote on the day, something we’re not able to facilitate this year. This means all votes must be submitted by the proxy deadline which is 2pm on Thursday 16th July. You can find the director candidate statements here, ask them questions here, and read through the resolutions we’ll be voting on here.

Voting packs have been sent to all members by email, but if you haven’t received one and you think you should have, please do get in touch with Katie at membership@wikimedia.org.uk.

Sign up

You must register for the AGM on Eventbrite rather than on wiki as we need your full name, not Wikimedia user name, and we’ll be sending out video conference links to all attendees registered through Eventbrite closer to the date.

If you have any questions or more general comments, please do get in touch with Katie at membership@wikimedia.org.uk.

We look forward to seeing you next Saturday!

If you’d like to join Wikimedia UK as a member or renew your current membership, you can do so here. To support free access to knowledge through our programmes, you can support us here.

The post Just one week left to sign up for our 2020 AGM! appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

2019 board elections and resolutions

Thank you to all members who attended our AGM on Saturday or voted by proxy. We had an excellent response from eligible voting members, receiving 91 votes in total – ensuring that the meeting was quorate and helping us to elect five board members and agree all the proposed resolutions. The full minutes of the AGM will be on wiki soon, but in the meantime we’re happy to announce the election of:

• Sangeet Bhullar
• Lorna Campbell
• Andrea Chandler
• Josie Fraser
• Rod Ward

Sangeet, Lorna and Josie were all existing trustees who were standing for another term, so we’re very pleased that Wikimedia UK will continue to benefit from their considerable expertise. We’re also delighted to welcome Andrea and Rod as new trustees, and look forward to seeing how their skills and insights can enrich the Wikimedia UK Board. 

We’d also like to take this opportunity to formally thank the other members who stood for the board and encourage you to consider standing in future years, and continue to work with the charity in other ways in the meantime. 

Presentations and workshops

We were delighted to hear from a range of speakers on Saturday, and our Communications Co-ordinator is currently editing a film of the talks so that they can reach more of our members. Brandi Geurkink, European Campaigner from Mozilla Foundation, gave a fascinating and informative keynote talk on the information supply chain and combating misinformation online; calling for those of us working in and passionate about open knowledge to support this work. Our programme co-ordinator in Scotland, Sara Thomas, wove a magical story of ogres and witches to shine a light on recent on-wiki activities to remember Scotland’s hidden historical women; and four other members gave Lightning Talks on subjects including Wikimedia and Museums, the Central and Eastern European Wikipedia article writing contest, Wiki Loves Monuments, and the WiciMon project in Wales – which you can learn more about by watching this video.

We had a stimulating discussion about how the policies, structure and culture of Wikipedia impact on the behaviour of its contributors. The conversations as a plenary and in smaller facilitated groups proved to be highly insightful and informative, and we are pulling together the notes from this session to inform our work on community health going forward. As an alternative to this workshop, several members went on a photography walk around the Old City in Bristol to capture some of the landmarks missing from Wikimedia Commons.

Awards

Lorna Campbell announced Wikimedia UK’s Partnership of the Year and Wikimedian of the Year, along with honourable mentions for both categories.

The Partnership of the Year Award went to Amnesty International for their collaboration with Wikimedia UK on the BRAVE campaign. This project – focused on women human rights defenders – saw 550 articles created or expanded across seven languages, as well as new relationships and partnerships between local Wikimedia groups and Amnesty sections. An ‘honourable mention’ in this Award category was given to The Dumphries Stonecarving Project, which celebrates the sandstone heritage of Dumfries. 

Wikimedian of the Year went to Dr. Jess Wade, whose work is making women in science more visible through the creation of a high number of biographies on Wikipedia about prominent women in STEM; and who has inspired others to do the same in science and other disciplines. Andrew Gray received an honourable mention for his extensive and valuable work on his Wikidata project focused on British politicians.

More details about the winners and honourable mentions can be found here.

Honorary members

Former Chair and outgoing trustee Michael Maggs introduced the charity’s first Honorary Memberships, awarded by the Board to those members who have contributed significantly to the progress of the chapter. These were presented to Carol Campbell and Greyham Dawes in recognition of their outstanding work as Chair of ARC and Treasurer of Wikimedia UK respectively, and we were especially pleased that Carol was able to make the journey to Bristol to accept her Honorary Membership. 

Thank you to everyone who made the AGM such an enjoyable day. You can find an online version of the Strategic Report that was in the delegate packs here, and a video about the day will be on wiki soon.

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At Wikimedia UK’s 2019 Annual General Meeting on Saturday we awarded our prizes for Wikimedian and Partnership of the Year. These awards recognise people and projects which have made a significant impact on the Wikimedia projects and community over the last year.

Wikimedian of the Year

Winner: Dr Jess Wade

With her persistent work Dr. Jess Wade is helping to close the gender gap in biographies on Wikipedia. She launched a project that has made women in science visible by creating over 200 articles in one year on prominent women in STEM. These efforts have inspired others to do the same in science and other disciplines, creating gender parity and representation on Wikipedia.

Beyond her editorial work she has also made important contributions to the public conversation about Wikipedia and how it reflects society’s biases and blindspots.

Honorable mention: Andrew Gray

Andrew’s work on the project he established, Wikidata:WikiProject British Politicians has been extensive and valuable.

It’s a great example of the value of quietly working on improving the quality and quantity of data in a particular area. It showed what can be produced in terms of research value and the process of developing workable, scalable schema for a set of people going back to 1386.

Further, the presentation of, and the showcase queries for the project have been extremely useful: from fairly functional queries like “all parliamentary terms of a single person” to more obscure ones like “MPs with identified mythical ancestors”. This has been very useful in Wikimedia UK’s advocacy work on releasing data and showing its value.

Partnership of the Year

Winner: Amnesty International

As a result of the relationship built over the years with Amnesty International (who keynoted at our London Wikimania in 2014) and a growing volunteer network, last year we worked together on an international initiative focusing on editathons about human rights activists and other human rights issues.

In June 2018 we took park in Amnesty International’s BRAVE campaign focusing on Women Human Rights Defenders. The international volunteer bases of both movements were combined to create content on human rights in multiple languages. We engaged with Wikimedia affiliates across the world, while Amnesty drew on their county sections. Each section determined its own content locally, working on content relevant and most pressing for them.

This project was an opportunity for the global Wikimedia community to work with the leading human rights charity in their own location, and an opportunity to raise awareness and produce some great content across the Wikimedia projects. As a result, 450 articles were expanded and 100 created, 23 affiliates were connected to their local Amnesty groups and some have continued to collaborate, articles were created in at least seven languages, and we have built capacity at a local level for Amnesty staff and volunteers to continue contributing to Wikipedia.

Honourable Mention: Dumfries Stonecarving project

The Dumfries Stonecarving Project is a year-long, National Heritage Lottery Funded project led by the Dumfries Historic Buildings Trust which began August 2018. The project celebrates the sandstone heritage of Dumfries, from local quarries to carved gargoyles. Project outputs have included week-long stonecarving courses for young people, stonecarving ‘taster sessions’ for all ages, archival research and oral histories, and guided ‘stonecarving quests’ in the town centre.

Building on previous Wikimedia partnerships between Dr Sara Thomas and Dr tara S Beall dating from 2015 onwards, the Wikimedia element of the project was built in from the very beginning, involving the delivery of Wikimedia Commons training sessions to local volunteers.  Specifically, this involved engaging local photography groups, who uploaded high quality pictures of local stonecarving – many involving listed buildings – which can and have then been used in Wikipedia articles. A number of pictures were entered into Wiki Loves Monuments 2018.  Two rounds of training sessions have already taken place, with an additional round planned for the end of July. This final round will also include a Wikipedia editathon, where the findings from archival research will be used to improve relevant Wikipedia articles.

The success of these projects was the basis of a paper, written by Drs Thomas & Beall, which was delivered at the recent HeritageDot conference, and which focused on the ability of Wikimedia projects to ensure considerable impact and longevity for the outputs of community heritage projects.

Wikimedia UK would like to thank the winners of Wikimedian and Partnership of the year, along with the honourable mentions, for making outstanding contributions to the Wikimedia movement and helping us at the chapter have such a great year.

The post Wikimedia UK announces Wikimedian and Partnership of the Year appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Our Annual General Meeting is an important opportunity for Wikimedia UK to report to its members on the progress we have made in the past year, and to hear from our members about their views and feedback. You can register for this year’s AGM on Eventbrite here.

This year we are holding our AGM in the Natural History Museum, on Saturday 14th July, from 10.30 to 16.15, with the AGM proper starting at 14.00. There will be talks and workshops from 11am, including a keynote speech from the Campaigns Director of Liberty, Corey Stoughton, a look at our work with the Welsh Government from Welsh Digital Language Specialist, Gareth Morlais, and an introduction to the challenges and successes of the Natural History Museums’ new Data Portal.

We encourage members to participate in what we think will be a fun day in a wonderful venue, a chance for members to meet each other and talk to staff and trustees, and to listen to some interesting speakers. See you all at the Natural History Museum in July!

The post Register for our AGM and help to shape the future of Wikimedia UK appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Nominating your Wikimedian of the Year is a great opportunity to celebrate an individual who’s made a significant impact to the Wikimedia projects in the last year.

This year, we will also be celebrating:

• Positive Wikimedian of the Year
• UK Partnership of the Year
• and Up and coming, Wikimedian to Watch 2018

For some inspiration from nominations which have stood out before, here you can look at last year’s winning nominations.

To find out more details about the categories & to submit your nomination, click here!

Nominations close at midnight, Tuesday July 10th. The winners will be announced at Wikimedia UK’s 2018 AGM, taking place in the Flett Theatre at the Natural History Museum, London on Saturday 14th July.

We look forward to reading your nominations!

You can register to attend this year’s AGM here! At this year’s meeting, we will featuring a keynote speech from the Campaigns Director of Liberty, Corey Stoughton, a look at our work with the Welsh Government from Welsh Digital Language Specialist, Gareth Morlais, and an introduction to the challenges and successes of the Natural History Museums’ new Data Portal.

The post Nominate your Wikimedian of 2018 appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

This post was written by Michael Maggs, Chair, Wikimedia UK

I am very pleased to announce that at our annual general meeting on Saturday 25 July the members of Wikimedia UK elected three new trustees to the board from a very strong slate of candidates.

Please join me in offering a very warm welcome to Doug Taylor, Nick Poole and Josie Fraser.

Doug Taylor will be well known to many readers as a long-standing active Wikimedia volunteer and Lead Trainer for WMUK. He previously served on the board during 2012-13. Doug is a retired teacher and IT professional.

Nick Poole is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. His previous roles include serving as CEO of the Collections Trust and Chair of the Europeana Network. He brings extensive knowledge of and influence in the international GLAM community, and has strong connections to policymakers and funders in the UK and Europe.

Josie Fraser has for the past five years worked in local government as the strategic technology lead of one of the country’s largest and most accelerated school building programmes. She is an expert in the relationship between education and technology and a vocal advocate for free and open knowledge.

Existing trustees Greyham Dawes (treasurer) and myself (chair) were re-elected.

Three trustees have stepped down from the board: Alastair McCapra, Saad Choudri and Joseph Seddon. We thank them for their exceptional expertise, commitment and diligence, and we wish them well for the future.

With these changes, the new board is as follows:

Michael Maggs (board chair, and chair of governance committee)
Simon Knight (vice chair)
Greyham Dawes (treasurer, governance committee, audit and risk committee)
Chris Keating (audit and risk committee)
Carol Campbell (chair of audit and risk committee)
Kate West (governance committee, audit and risk committee)
Gill Hamilton
Doug Taylor
Nick Poole
Josie Fraser

The new board will formally meet for the first time on Saturday 12 September at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where officer roles will be reviewed.

Please join me in welcoming the new board.

Michael Maggs

Chair, Wikimedia UK

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