Reports/2012/October

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Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 October 2012. 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.

Program activities

Community

GLAM activities

GLAMcamp London

Other activities

Expert outreach

The London School of Economics' Impact of Social Sciences blog ran a guest post by Martin Poulter, "Writing for Wikipedia has forced me into good scholarly habits and accessible writing". This asks academics to view Wikipedia as an opportunity to write about their own fields and as an opportunity for educational assignments.

Martin Poulter, Charles Matthews, Tom Morris and Edward Harding delivered a day workshop at for the JISC Digital Infrastructure team at the JISC headquarters in London. Many of the trainees had managerial or leadership roles in elearning, research infrastructure or digital humanities. As well as basic editing, the workshop looked at different kinds of effort to improve Wikipedia, and how the different Wikimedia Projects work together to provide a "digital infrastructure" for each other and the wider web.

Technology

Other activities

Microgrants

Volunteers at the Cambridge University Wikipedia Society's fresher's fair stall

Two microgrants have been approved this month.

  • Microgrants/Birthday 2012 is for supplies for WMUK's birthday party celebrating the 4th anniversary of the chapter and the 1st anniversary of us achieving charity status - the party will take place at the London wikimeet on 11 November, to which all are welcome. The application was submitted by WMUK's intern, Hasina Khatun.
  • Microgrants/32GB usb stick for Commons dump is for a 32GB memory stick to support the operations of Commons:User:Faebot without wearing out the operator's computer. The bot is currently working on categorising the Geograph images on Commons, as well as doing other similar tasks. The application was submitted by Fæ.

A number of microgrants were marked as completed this month, including:

  • Microgrants/Cambridge University Wikipedia Society provided funding to get the Cambridge University Wikipedia Society started via a stall at their fresher's fair, with freebies to give away. The report for the microgrant, which was submitted by User:Deryck Chan, said "We now have a mailing list, with 237 members on it, a huge jump from only 10 wiki-page members and volunteers prior to the fair. Volunteers at the stall included Charles Matthews, Daniel Thomas, and myself. We've also received great support from SRCF. Almost all freebies were given out; the T-shirts and pens for volunteers of our stall created a particularly professional image by making everything in the stall Wikimedia-branded. Additionally, the nearby stalls, all science and technology related, were also predominantly using Wikipedia pens for their sign-up sheets!"
  • Microgrants/Imperial College Wikipedia Society

Information about microgrants that are currently running, and how to submit a microgrant application of your own, are at Microgrants/Applications.

UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)

A list of recent press coverage can be seen here.

Upcoming activities in November

For events in December and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Finances

  • The current state of each of our budgets is outlined in a Google Spreadsheet. This details spend to date, and a rough estimate of future spending. This spreadsheet is too complex to be placed directly on a wiki. Our yearly spend is heavily 'end-loaded', partially due to the rapid growth of Wikimedia UK.
  • Q3's Management Accounts (covering August, September, October) are at File:Wikimedia UK Management Accounts Q3 2012.pdf. These are also available in spreadsheet format for those interested - contact richard.symondsatwikimedia.org.uk

Board activities

The Board's main activity during October was the appointment (jointly with the Wikimedia Foundation) of Mike Hudson and Compass Partnership to conduct an independent review of our governance arrangements. This was the principal topic of discussion at our Board phone call on 9 October (minutes), and by the end of October the review was underway.

On 10 October we received the conclusions from a financial review from Garfield Byrd, the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief of Finance and Administration. These have now been published along with a plan setting out our plans to address the issues raised in both Garfield's report and that of our auditors.

News from the Chief Exec

For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.
The updates about the Wikimedia UK Interns can be found there too, together with here.

Communications

October was a month for repositioning our communications. The discussions around governance continued, culminating in the appointment of Compass Partnership to conduct the WMUK / WMF commissioned independent governance review. The biggest communications success this month was Ada Lovelace Day. This was the result of much excellent work by Daria and the team at the Royal Society. The event gained widespread media coverage and received an excellent reception on social media. You can see a comprehensive list of coverage on the event's page. October's press coverage is recorded in the attached document, along with coverage from September. In other news, discussions have begun on how we can improve the monthly reports. Suggestions include developing a Signpost-style newsletter, featuring content created by WMUK members, volunteers and UK-based editors. Get involved in the discussion here. Blog posts in October:

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £443.26 in one-off donations, with 13 individual donations. The average donation amount was £34.09 - 62% of these donors have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavageatwikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 5349 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £20,917.12.

Membership

Up to 31st October 2012:

  • 198 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members
  • 51 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)
This adds up to 249 members who are eligible to vote
  • 155 Expired members

A membership survey was distributed on 30th October 2012 , the results were made public as part of the reports to the Board meeting of 17th November 2012. You can view them here (pdf)

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