Reports/2011/August

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Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 August 2011. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Education projects

This month, Fiona Apps had meetings with staff at the University of Liverpool and University of Manchester about possible collaborations, and Sam Knight, the University of Bristol Outreach Ambassador, has been meeting with various student and staff groups within the University. He also helped to organise the Bristol Girl Geek Dinner (see below).

GLAM activities

On 8 August, The Guardian ran a story on "British Museum makes the Wikipedia connection", based on an interview with Matthew Cock, covering the museum's viewpoint of Liam's Wikipedian in Residence, creating content vs. uploading photographs, QR codes and more.

The ARKive project - a collaboration to improve Wikipedia articles on threatened species - has continued through the month, led by Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing). Four articles related to the project have been appeared on English Wikipedia's Did You Know?. Full information is available at Wikipedia:GLAM/ARKive. The project will continue with two public events in Bristol on 15 September; one in the afternoon, the other in the evening.

A collaboration with the National Archive has been in the process of being drawn up this month, as reported in the August GLAM report, and described on a Wikipedia project page.

There is now a Wikipedia article about QRpedia, the QR code based, multi-lingual, mobile-friendly interface to Wikipedia, launched at GLAM/Derby. Appropriately, nine other-language versions have also been created. Meanwhile, developer Terence Eden is soliciting views on how QRpedia should deal with cases where articles are not available in the user's preferred language.

Wikimania

Roger Bamkin attended Wikimania on behalf of the chapter on 4-7 August. WMUK also provided scholarships to Isaac Kosgei from Kenya, a Wikimedian from Hungary and a number of UK Wikimedians. Isaac Kosgei was particularly successful as a proposal to improve health related issues in sub-Saharan Africa was created around him. In September, he will meet Michelle Obama to discuss his work.

UK presenters at Wikimania included Christopher Cooper, Roger Bamkin, Ironholds, Deryck Chan, James F., Tom Morris and WereSpielChequers. WereSpielChequers was interviewed by the local press - see the article in Hebrew, or the Google Translate version of the article.

Wikipedia Workshops

The Girl Geeks had a Wikipedia globe-shaped cake...
...but it didn't last very long.

On 15th July, Simon Smith (User:Tagishsimon) ran a Wikipedia workshop for post-graduate students of Archaeology, Cultural Heritage Management, Medieval Studies and Eighteenth Century Studies as part of the King's Manor Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of York. Feedback from the 15 participants was very positive and Simon stayed on for a workshop on interdisciplinary studies of the past and the conference's wine reception.

In August, forty people attended an evening event at the University of Bristol, jointly organised by Wikimedia UK and Bristol Girl Geek Dinners. The theme was Women in Wikipedia and the evening was led by Fiona Apps (User:Panyd). The mostly-female audience had one-to-one help from experienced Wikipedians including Jezhotwells, MartinPoulter and Bs5er. Fiona followed up with a post on the chapter's blog and an interview in the Signpost. There are more 'Wikipedia/Girl Geek Dinners' planned in future.

Board activities

There were two board meetings this month. The first, an Executive board meeting on 9 August, focused on our participation in the annual Wikimedia fundraiser, as well as reviewing the status of recruitment for our office administrator and chief executive, and ensuring our adherence to the 2010 fundraising agreement.

The second, an in-person full board meeting on 27-28 August, was kindly hosted by Derby Museum and Art Gallery. On the first day, Ting Chen from the Wikimedia Foundation was present at the meeting by invitation, as were several Wikimedia UK members. The principle of openness, as well as the growth potential for WMUK, was discussed; Andy Mabbett described his experiences with the ARKive project; and John Byrne gave an update on progress with our application to become a charity. The upcoming fundraiser and the 2012 activity plan were also discussed. On the second day, discussion topics included assessment of Wikipedia trainers; reviews of actions and board member reports; and a continuation of the discussion around the 2012 activity plan. Draft minutes of the meeting are available on our wiki.

Charitable status

As mentioned in last month's report post-publication, a revised submission has now been sent to the Charities Commission, and we received their response to our submission in early September.

Fundraising

This month, we received £1485.89 in donations from 81 donors - this is our highest number of donors since February. For more information please see our monthly fundraising report at Fundraising Report - Monthly Totals 2011.

Our annual accounts for the period 1 February 2010 until 31 January 2011 are now available at File:Wikimedia UK accounts 31 January 2011.pdf. Note that they are pending the correction of one minor error, after which they will be signed and filed with Companies House.

We provided an additional £4,037.04 (6,598 USD) to the Wikimedia Foundation via an extension of the previous grant we gave them earlier this year, representing 50% of the donations received by WMUK in the months of February through June this year.

We also signed a contract with SmartDebit to provide administrative services which will enable us to accept Direct Debit payments. We expect to have systems set up for Direct Debit donations in good time for the 2011 Wikimedia Fundraiser.

Recruitment

Interviews for the temporary Office Administrator position took place this month, and Richard Symonds (User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry) was appointed to the position, starting from 1 September.

First stage interviews for the Chief Executive position also took place this month, with in-person interviews scheduled for the start of September. A total of 83 applications were received for the position. (For more information, see the blog post put out in early September.)

UK press coverage

Press coverage of Wikipedia in UK publications this month included:

Miscellaneous

  • There was one UK Wikimeet this month: London on 14 Aug.

Upcoming activities in September

We have quite a number of events planned for September, including:

For events in October and onwards, please see Events.

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