Reports/2013/July

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Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1st to 31st July 2013. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join a UK 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

A Wikipedia editing training session took place on 20 July in Monmouth. The office received feedback from one local attendee that the training was excellent, attendees went away very happy and that "all of the Wikimedia volunteers were fantastic!" Eight people attended (including three women), all newcomers to Wikipedia editing, attended. A good understanding of how Wikipedia works and the rules around notability and referencing was achieved. All users went away confident in making basic edits to articles and were enthusiastic to be involved. You can see more details of the event on the event page.

Education activities

EduWiki

Work progresses on delivering the Wikimedia UK's flagship education conference, EduWiki 2013 (1-2 November 2013, Cardiff). Registration opens soon, and we are already looking for volunteers for various support roles. If you are interested do get in touch with the Education Organiser Toni Sant - toni.santatwikimedia.org.uk

Y Coleg Cymraeg

The Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (the federal Welsh College) is a national body which plays a key role in planning, supporting and developing Welsh medium education and scholarship at universities in Wales. Wikimedia UK has initiated discussion regarding open content.

European young researchers network Wikipedia workshop

Sphingonet a European network of PhD-candidate and post-doc researchers focusing on Sphingolipids. Part of their activities is outreach work and so we organised a workshop on how Wikipedia works, and how to improve it with the attendees' specific knowledge. The people on the network came from 10-12 different countries (UK, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland). The goal of this event was to make a significant contribution to the quality of Wikipedia scientific content in Sphingonet-­‐related topics.

Luc Henry, the organiser from the network, reflected:

"The workshop was exactly what we expected. We found a team of extremely motivated and talented editors willing to freely share their time and knowledge to improve Wikipedia. As most of the participants were beginners, the basics of the language and inner workings were covered first, but the aim was that each participant would create or significantly improve one article. In order to be more productive, a draft article was prepared in advance so that we could focus on the technicalities during the afternoon. The five hours of the workshop were just sufficient to cover some background and technical information and learn enough to achieve the task.

The feedback from the participants was unanimously positive and the comment that was heard the most was that people found it very useful to get started, overcoming their apprehension to modify anything found in the encyclopedia. A majority of people also found it very likely that they would continue editing Wikipedia articles now that they had a basic training, something they would not have done on their own."

GLAM activities

Open Culture 2013

The Collections Trust very kindly gave us a free stand at their exhibition on the 2nd/3rd of July 2013. This was a great opportunity for us to talk to attendees at OpenCulture2013, people who are committed to the idea of free culture, but who may need information on what Wikipedia can do with mass releases of images. Or indeed just show them how to edit an article or add an image to an article. In actuality it gave us the opportunity to talk to a range of museum professionals, from those who weren't sure if we'd be interested in their little museum, to those who only see us as a threat to their sale of images; and we did get to show one curator how to upload images.

Welsh Books Council

The Welsh Books Council agreed to Wikimedia UK's Manager in Wales' request to upload all their Welsh book reviews (3249 articles) onto Wicipedia Cymraeg.

Technology

Other activities

Wiki Loves Monuments

The third planning meeting for Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK took place in July. Volunteers have been adding lists on Wikipedia, with lots of help from editors, resulting in a strong collaborative effort. At the same time, the organisers are setting up a website and arranging events such as photo walks, and looking for partners. The competition takes place in September, and if you are interested in helping out or participating, please leave a message on Commons where efforts are being co-ordinated.

Microgrants

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)

Blog posts this month

2 July - Wikimedia UK yn penodi Rheolwr i Gymru / Wikimedia UK appoints Wales Manager - a post in English and Welsh announcing the appointment of Robin Owain as Wales Manager

4 July - Wikipedia to celebrate Rosalind Franklin’s birthday - this piece is about an event to be jointly hosted with the Royal Society and Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) celebrating the contributions of women in science.

5 July - - a painting from Commons to feature in new book A painting uncovered by Andy Mabbett at the The New Art Gallery, Walsall, is to feature in a new book.

5 July - Canadian Copyright Collection from the British Library on Wikimedia Commons - Wikimedia UK and the British Library announced the release of 2,000 images of historic Canada.

11 July - Notes from a Wikimedian in Residence - a report from John Cummings, Wikimedian in Residence at the Science Museum and Natural History Museum.

13 July - Ashley Van Haeften steps down from Wikimedia UK Board - noting that Fae has stood down as a Trustee.

16 July - Twentieth century culture and Wikimedia UK - A report from Jonathan Cardy about the editathon at the Royal Opera House.

27 July - Mike Peel resigns as a Trustee of Wikimedia UK - Announcing Mike's departure from the Board.

29 July - Sphingonet and Wikipedia - A report from Richard Nevell about an editing event in Oxford.

Administrative activities

Finances

Our FDC progress report form is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/WMUK/Progress_report_form/Q2. This breaks down our activities and spends over the months of May, June and July.

Our Annual Accounts and Financial Statements for the year have also been published: see here.

Board activities

There was a board meeting on 13 July. You can see the agenda here, the minutes here and the reports made to the board here.

News from the Chief Exec

For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.


Communications

Please see the above links to relevant press coverage received in July. In other top line communications news, Stevie visited journalists from some of the national newspapers to build relationships and keep them up to date with potential stories, including Wikimania 2014 and Wiki Loves Monuments. He also spent some time meeting academics and learning more about the way they use Wikipedia in their university courses. These form the basis of some potential case studies and will be useful in the lead up to the EduWiki conference. The annual review was successfully printed in Hong Kong for sharing at Wikimania 2013 which was a great relief. Rock drum visited the office for a few days to make a short film for Wikimania 2014 and did an excellent job. Planning began for a key messages workshop offered to the charity for free by a volunteer.

If you're interested in getting more involved with our communications or have any questions or comments, please email Stevie Benton – stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £2,357 in one-off donations, with 7 individual donations. One of these was a large donation of £2,000. Excepting this, the average donation amount was £59.50 - 71%% 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.

There were 5414 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £22,177.52.

Membership

Up to 30th July 2013:

  • 180 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members - with 6 new join-ups in July.
  • 34 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)
This adds up to 214 members who were eligible to vote


Visitors to the office

  • Lucile - volunteer from France
  • John Cummings WiR Natural History and Science Museum
  • Visitors from National LIbrary of Scotland
  • A Brazilian Wikimedian en route from Hungary to Brazil
  • Alaistair McCapra and Micahel Maggs - new trustees
  • Ed Saperia and James Knight from Wikimania Team
  • Martin Poulter - JISC Ambassador
  • Garfield Byrd CFO Wikimedia Foundation
  • Greyham Dawes
  • Mark Kelleher - BBC
  • Rockdrum for volunteering.
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