Hi all,
Just to let you know the Board meeting today decided to call the next meeting in a fortnight's time, Tuesday 13th January 2009 at 8:30pm GMT/UTC.
Regards,
Andrew Turvey
Secretary
Wiki UK Limited
Wiki UK Limited is a Company Limited by Guarantee
registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. The Registered
Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom
Hi all,
I'm starting to get some more details together about the events at the
Victoria & Albert Museum that we're running as part of the Wikipedia
Loves Art project.
The V&A are organising their launch event on Sunday 1st February -
time to be confirmed. If you can come down that day or otherwise
contribute either in person or on wiki during February please sign you
name up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WLA@V%26A#Participants
Please spread the word to anyone else you know who may be interested -
the following groups have already been notified:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WLA@V%26A#Publicity and please
add in any other groups you contact.
Lastly, we're planning a short discussion on irc:wikimedia-uk to
organise the event and sort out how the V&A element is going to fit in
with the international project.
If you can think of anything else please post on the project talkpage!
Regards,
Andrew
The December newsletter has been published at http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Newsletter/December2008 and
is copied below for your convenience:
Summary: You can now join Wiki UK Ltd, which hopes to become the
official UK chapter of Wikimedia in January. The organisation is
planning its first Annual General Meeting, where members can vote on
who is on the board, and put forward and vote on resolutions. The
organisation is already supporting activities such as a bid to hold
Wikimania 2010 in Oxford and the exciting Wikipedia Loves Art project
at the Victoria and Albert Museum. We also bring you news of the the
recent Wikimeet in London.
In this month's newsletter:
1. Chapter formation
2. Membership
3. AGM
4. Wikimania 2010 - Oxford bid
5. Wikipedia Loves Art
6. London Wikimeet
Chapter formation
As mentioned in our November newsletter, the Chapters Committee has
recommended we are approved as a chapter of Wikimedia, and we are
expecting the Wikimedia Foundation to decide on this at their next
meeting, on 9th–11th January. We hope to complete bank account
opening shortly after we are approved. In the meantime, we are
preparing for the rush of events which will happen immediately
afterwards (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/
Timeline ), and we are also supporting activities ranging from the
bid to hold Wikimania 2010 in Oxford to Wikipedia Loves Art.
Membership
As we announced in our last newsletter, we are now inviting
membership applications: being a member gives you an official say in
what the company does, allowing you to attend and vote at AGMs, put
forward written resolutions, elect the new boards at the AGMs, and
much more. You can download the application form here: http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Wiki_UK_Ltd_membership_application_form.pdf .
We will start processing the applications received as soon as the
bank account is set up. We should also be able to accept tax-
refundable donations at that point, and claim back the tax from the
donations already received with the permission of the donors.
AGM
As soon as the chapter status is approved and the bank account
opened, the board will move to call the first AGM. This is currently
pencilled in for the end of February, giving us enough time to give
the statutory notice and to organise the elections. However, if there
are any delays this may be pushed back. The draft of the agenda for
the AGM (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/AGM )
currently includes the election of the first permanent Board,
discussing the priorities of the chapter and passing some formal
resolutions.
Wikimania 2010 - Oxford bid
Wiki UK Limited is keen to bring Wikimania to the UK, and the 2010
Oxford bid still seems like the best chance we will have for this in
the next few years, since there is a common feeling that 2010 is
Europe's year. Organising a conference on the scale of Wikimania is a
lot of work, and we desperately need your help (see below for details
of things you could do). A lot of progress was made on the bid over
the summer, but since then the momentum has died down a little due to
the other commitments of those who had been working on it. In the
last few weeks, Seddon has once again begun work, obtaining the
support of the local flickr group, and investigating a new source of
sponsorship for us.
How you can help:
* work on the bid page (expand existing sections, fill in place
holders) - see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford
* contact potential sponsors and partners on our behalf (see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/
Oxford#Organisations_not_currently_being_investigated and the talk page)
* show your support by signing up as a member of the local team:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford#Local_team
Wikipedia Loves Art
The Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's largest museum of
decorative arts and design with a collection of over 4.5 million
objects, is joining in with a world-wide project in February 2009 to
photograph major pieces of work and release the images under public
licence: Wikipedia Loves Art. They have invited Wikipedians to get
involved in collecting the images, putting them online and using them
in Wikipedia articles. More information is available here: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WLA@V%26A . Please sign up to get involved
and let us have your ideas!
London Wikimeet
Sunday 14th December saw the 16th London Wikipedia meetup ( http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London_16 ). As the numbering
suggests the meetups have been running for quite some time, with the
first one in June 2004. The meetups currently take the form of a pub
lunch at the Penderel's Oak in Holborn on the second Sunday of every
month. Eight Wikipedians came along, falling within the stereotypical
Wikipedia demographic (15-45, higher education, involvement in a non-
manual job). Topics discussed included Wikimedia UK and its current
status, the (now concluded) Arbitration Committee elections,
(briefly) contract law and various other tidbits. The meetups are
excellent fun and a good opportunity to meet other Wikipedia
contributors and get to know them; several projects people have
worked on have come about as a result of interactions with people at
these meetups. The next one is due to be held on Sunday 11th January
2009 at 13:00 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/
London_17 ).
Wiki UK Limited is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in
England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. The Registered Office is
at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom.
The page on meta says there is a meeting this evening, but there
doesn't seem to be an agenda yet, is that meeting happening? If so,
could I add something to the agenda? I'm curious as to how the
accounts are currently being managed (I know no receipts or payments
have been processed yet, but they will be soon so a system needs to be
in place). Is the plan to just have a simple spreadsheet or is some
proper accounting software being used? I suggest the board consider
using proper software from the start since it will almost certainly be
required once we get to a decent size and it will be easier to
implement it now than transferring everything across at a later date.
There are FOSS options available, although I don't know if anything
are any good. Something which includes features for UK charities would
be good, since you could get it to do all the complicated gift aid
stuff (I'm assuming such software exists, there are plenty of
charities that could use it).
At the last Board meeting, one of the matters that was briefly
discussed what where the AGM in Jan/Feb should be held.
London would seem an obvious option for me - although not
geographically central, it is easy to get to from all parts of the
country,
Oxford would also be a good choice, as its the location for our
Wikimania 2010 bid so would be a good opportunity to familiarise
ourselves with the city (and have some experience organising an event
- albeit much smaller event - there)
I guess other cities that are fairly central could be candidates too -
Birmingham was mentioned as was Manchester which is fairly central
when looking at the whole of the UK rather than just England.
Has anyone got any views on this?
This probably wont be decide for a few weeks yet, but would be good to
get peoples' views.
Thanks
Andrew
Hi -
Although I've not recently posted to this list about the minutes of
each board meeting, I have continued to add them online each week,
around a day after the meeting. The latest minutes are now available
at [ http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Board_meetings/2008-12-16
].
The next board meeting will be in two weeks time, on Tuesday 30th December.
Best Wishes
Mickey
Cool with me.
2008/12/21 Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com>
> >
> >I'm going to guess that everyone is okay with my providing her with
> >your names and contact information. Thanks!
> >
> >Cary
>
>
> Fine by me!
>
> Gordo (in London)
>
> --
> "Think Feynman"/////////
> http://pobox.com/~gordo/ <http://pobox.com/%7Egordo/>
> gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>
--
"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
-WB Yeats
http://luminaryuprise.wikidot.com