Meetings/2009-11-17
Wikimedia UK Board meeting Tuesday 17th November 2009, 8:30pm BST on Skype
Present: Andrew Turvey (AT) (Chair)(minutes); Tom Holden (TH) (part); Steve Virgin (SV); Joseph Seddon (JS); Tom Dalton (TD)
Apologies: Michael Peel (MP); Paul Williams (PW); Tom Holden (TH) (for late arrival)
Absent: Zeyi He (ZH)
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Note: Please mark your actions with one of the following:
* {{done}} if you have completed what was agreed In addition please mark {{discuss}} if the board needs to discuss the action and add it to the agenda of the next meeting. |
Note: The meeting was not quorate at the start of the meeting
Minutes of previous meetings
The minutes of the previous meetings on 3 November and 30 October were unavailable so will be reviewed at the next meeting. Actions from the Meeting of 20th October were carred forward.
Reports
Corporate report
SV asked to start with his report.
Bioblitz
The first item concerned an opportunity to work with the Bioblitz Project. This project is run by the "Bristol Natural History Consortium", which brings together eight environmental organisations and two universities. It is indirectly linked to a global project run by National Geographic. The purpose of Bioblitz is to "survey, classify and record as many different species as possible" using volunteers including schoolchildren. A pilot was run in Bristol in the summer of 2009 with 300 schoolchildren and the next one will start in June 2010 in Bristol and will be across eight cities across England.
In simplistic terms, Bioblitz are looking for someone to host the data collected online - in 2009 they put the data on a £10 blog. They are happy to release it copyright-free. SV and JS met with the organizers and working with Wikimedia UK as a possible data host was an option discussed. SV had previously discussed with AT releasing the data to Wikispecies, but doubts were raised in this discussion about whether the data would comply with Wikispecies own inclusion criteria. However, it was accepted that some content that any Bioblitz event produced may be able to be added to Wikispecies, Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons and perhaps complement those projects, and content from these projects could be used during Bioblitz.
All BioBlitz costs would be shared among its own consortium members - any costs on the Wikimedia UK side depend on whether there are any costs liable to be incurred linked to the need to data capture and storage. It may, for instance, involve paying for a programmer to run the wiki code.
JS mentioned approaching Wikimedia Foundation to ask for a grant given the size of the project - possibly £10,000.
SV mentioned involvement would be great PR for us and would give rise to good contacts and potentially recruit new members. By the estimates provided to us by the Bioblitz organisers it would involve eight events and the participation of up to 30,000 schoolkids, plus scientific experts etc. - so would be strong exposure for Wikimedia UK to be associated with such an event.
AT thought it was free educational content so appears to fulfill our objects. It was unanimously agreed to support it in principle. SV agreed to discuss it with other board members to get their acceptance as well. We would contact the Foundation once the budget is more firmed up. SV will propose a "straw man" of the next 5 or 6 steps and send these round the board and other people will fill in the gaps. AT will send to SV the issues he thinks of.
Note: this decision was reversed later in the meeting and all actions cancelled.
Digital inclusion
Some people have suggested in discussions with SV that Wikimedia UK could be included in the government's Digital Inclusion Taskforce's Advisory Committee. A project on inclusion is running in Bristol's Knowle West area which could use Wikiversity and/or Wikibooks have been suggested as a host for their "University of Local Knowledge". SV is due to be meeting the Knowle West Media Centre soon to find out more about their project. However, some of the content being created may not be of much value in itself, but rather focussed on the educational value of the creation exercise.
Tom Holden joined the meeting.
Fundraising
Wikimedia France, by contrast, is taking €2,000 per day. They actually have a box on the first Fundraising page and don't ask for addresses. It was agreed that the pages would be redone to be similar to the other chapter. We're are getting quite a few failed donations. Discussions included: a) having a link direct to PayPal rather than via CiviCRM and b) installing Google Analytics to see where the traffic is dropping.
ACTION: TD to revise the donation pages as discussed. 
Done
ACTION: AT to contact MP to install Google Analytics on the Fundraising page Done 
Discuss
Tom Dalton left the meeting
Reports (contd)
Corporate Report (contd)
The meeting returned to the Corporate Report.
SV gave an overview of the project.
TH asked what WMUK would be asked to contribute and what we would get out of it. SV said we would get content, volunteers, possibly members and publicity. TH thought that contributing several thousands of pounds and/or offering web hosting wouldn't be within our objects. There was concern that Bioblitz thinks that Wikimedia UK are involved in web hosting which we aren't at the moment. TH thought that this project won't be particularly useful to Wikispecies. There are other ways to spend this amount of money that would more directly fulfill our objects.
JS discussed approaching the Foundation for support. However, AT felt we needed to establish whether WMUK should support the project first.
AT mentioned that the Open Knowledge Foundation host open content projects. JS agreed to approach them.
ACTION: JS
TH said we should focus on our niche, and this isn't it.
SV suggested we cap our involvement at some level and bring in the Open Knowledge Foundation to help.
TH said he had no objection to continuing discussions to see what they wanted, but we could not offer a hosted website.
The board split 2-2 on supporting the project, so it was agreed it would be discussed again at the next meeting.
Secretary
The report was noted. AT will submit the Companies House Annual Return
ACTION: AT
Treasury
The report was noted.
Member 36 was approved. The four member applicantions received via the fundraiser haven't yet sent cheques so will be considered when these arrive.
Chair
The report was noted. AT mentioned that he had met one of the Culture24 directors at the Cabinet Conference.
Initiatives
Workplace Learning Lunches
SV mentioned that two are booked - the Hub in Bristol, 23rd November, which SV is giving and Kaizo, on 3rd December which AT and SV are doing.
Also possibilities with the Brizzm monthly meeting and BBC Bristol.
AT mentioned that the project timetable mentioned approving material by end of October. SV agreed he would send the material he does for the Hub round the Board for approval this weekend.
ACTION: SV 
Cancelled
AT confirmed he would put some material together for Kaizo and send round for approval.
ACTION: AT 
Carried forward
Schools projects
AT mentioned that at the in-person meeting it was discussed suspending the project; PW was going to get in touch with Wikimedia Brazil to see if he could translate their material and if not, to review again at the end of November.
SV mentioned he is going to go into Red Maids schools to talk about working with them, including discussion on CRB checks.
TH mentioned that it would be more effective to talk to teachers rather than directly to school students. AT mentioned this was done in the Open Source Schools Conference and another one is planned for the Open Source Local Authorities Conference.
AT mentioned that if the project is suspended then we shoud write to the Charity Commission to update them on our position.
JS mentioned that if we suspend the project then we may have to return some of the start up grant.
Britain Loves Wikipedia
JS mentioned that the MLA were talking at the recent meeting about getting every one of their museums signed up - we had said we wanted to limit it to around 30. AT mentioned that the Netherlands' Wiki Loves Art had 35 museums.
The project timeline talks about start doing advertising and a preliminary list of sponsors and prizes. These don't seem to have been started and discussion focussed on who else could help with advertising, software and sponsors. It was agreed to email the membership list to solicit help. AT agreed to do this in conjunction with MP.
ACTION: AT Cancelled
SV offered to help with the advertising.
GLAM/WIKI
SV mentioned that a BBC contact wanted to be involved. JS mentioned that feedback from museums has been positive and indicated that a GLAM-WIKI conference could happen. We would like the MLA to organise the conference itself, including arranging the host museum, with WMUK coordinating and provide speakers.
SV mentioned the new museum in Bristol may want to host an event like this. JS mentioned that a high profile name, like the British Library - if we could get it - would be a better way of promoting our name.
JS will speak to MP to arrange a meeting with the MLA to discuss taking this forward so we can clarify how we can take this forward.
ACTION: JS
AT queried whether the NPG legal case is causing any problems for our relationships for the museums sector. JS and SV thought this wasn't causing any problems.
SV mentioned that his contact has sent an email to the Museums & Libraries Show organisers regarding our request for a free speaking slot at the event in May 2010
JS is speaking at a UCL event on Social Media in Museums.
Hidden Treasurers Conference
MP has received an invitation to put up a session facilitator at this conference on 26th November which is organised by the museums sector. ZH has volunteered to go but may struggle to facilitate the session. Board agreed to fund the travel costs. AT agreed to approach David Gerard and Alison Wheeler and the mailing list to see if they could do this.
ACTION: AT Done
AOB
N/A