Reports/2013/June

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Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1st to 30th June 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

Cambridge University Wikipedia Garden Party

A peacock visited the CUWPS garden party

A Wikipedia Garden Party was held in Cambridge University on 17 June. The party is Cambridge University Wikipedia Society's (CUWPS) contribution to the great Cambridge University tradition of post-exam celebrations known confusingly as May Week, and marks the end of the first year of CUWPS.

The party was attended by eight people and one stray peacock. The human attendees included seven current Cambridge students (five of them were also Wikimedians) plus Charles Matthews, an alumnus who has been faithfully organising Wikipedia meetups in Cambridge for many years. A Wikipedia cake was served at the party.

CUWPS is now looking forward to next year. The Wikipedia stall will be back in the Cambridge University societies fair on 8-9 October and we need extra WMUK volunteers behind the stall! Please contact WMUK's education organiser, Toni Sant, if you're interested.

Microgrant outcome

GLAM activities

June saw a range of GLAM events with topics ranging from Military History to Ballet and Black Music in the UK.

The three month residency at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums came to an end, highlights included a dialogue with WikiProject ships on the English Wikipedia which lead to the release of this image of a battleship launch on the Tyne - now included in two featured articles.

Future events that were worked on this month range from an editathon at Conway hall in August to one at the National Railway Museum in York this October.

Technology

Wikimedia UK along with three other Wikimedia chapters has been grant funding Europeana to write a mass upload tool for Wikimedia Commons. The Software will make it easier for GLAMs and others to upload large volumes of files. The Software is currently available for "Alpha testing", in that it has been deployed on a testwiki where it can be tested but will not be deployed on Commons until it has been tested by users and code reviewed by the WMF developers. Volunteers to test this would be appreciated, if you have access to a large database of uploadable files, a fast connection and an understanding of commons categorisation then please contact Jonathan Cardy if you are willing to help.

Other activities

Wiki Loves Monuments

The UK's logo for Wiki Loves Monuments

By June the first two planning meeting for Wiki Loves Monuments UK had taken place. A steering committee was set up and it was decided to focus on Grade I and II* and Category A listed buildings. Since then, the group of volunteers helping organise things has started putting the lists of listed buildings on Wikipedia, ready for use in September when the competition takes place. If you are interested in helping out, 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

3rd June - Who cares about Wikimania? Ed Saperia of the Wikimania 2014 organising team writes about the project.

4th June - Volunteers' Week: A letter from our Chief Executive Jon Davies, our Chief Executive, discusses the importance of volunteers to our movement and, on behalf of all of the staff and trustees, thanks all of our volunteers.

9th June - Wikimedia UK announces election of new board members This post was uploaded after our AGM and announced the results of trustee elections.

12th June - WMUK Conference - MediaWiki for OER and Learning Analytics This post was written by Simon Knight of the Open University. He presented on this topic at WikiConference UK 2013. You can read his original post here and see a video of his presentation on Wikimedia Commons here.

17th June - Wici Cymru and Wikimedia UK - Rheolwr Cymru / Wales Manager This announcement, en Cymraeg and in English, reported the appointment of Robin Owain as our new Wales Manager.

18th June - "One is most amused": Queen Victoria's Journals editathon Liz McCarthy, Communications and Social Media Officer at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, shared this account of an editathon event using the journals of that most regal of monarchs, Queen Victoria.

19th June - Royal Opera House to host an editathon The clue to this post is in its title!

20th June - British Library to make Europeana WWI collection available at workshop This piece announced a workshop at the British Library based around a specific and rare collection of materials.

21st June - Interested in British black music? Join our editathon! Working with www.britishblackmusic.com and the Black Music Congress we held a one-off event at the Wikimedia UK office.

27th June - Jisc and Wikimedia UK to bridge between academia and Wikipedia Announcing the appointment of Dr Martin Poulter as Wikimedia Jisc Ambassador.

Upcoming activities in May and June

May

June


For events in July 2013 and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Board activities

June saw our AGM take place as a part of WikiConference 2013 in Lincoln. Our Chair and Treasurer both gave detailed reports to members on the state of the charity. Elections also took place for members to elect new trustees of the charity. You can see full details of WikiConference, the elections and candidate statements all linked from this page.

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 June and blog posts published during the same period.

Perhaps the most important piece of communications work this month was the production of the print version of Wikimedia UK's 2012-13 Annual Review. The booklet was shared at WikiConference 2013 and was well received, both for its content and its design. Speaking of WikiConference, many of the presentations given at the conference, including statements from the board election candidates, can now be found on Wikimedia Commons here.


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 £185 in one-off donations, with 5 individual donations. The average donation amount was £37 - 20% 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 5,414 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £22,072.52

Membership

Up to 30th June 2013:

  • 176 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members - with 7 new join-ups in June.
  • 39 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)
This adds up to 215 members who were eligible to vote
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