Yeah !


Hello everyone

Here are some fresh news regarding Wiki Loves Africa.

As a reminder, the theme chosen for 2016 is "Music and Dance".
The portal page on Commons : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016

IMPORTANT: the dates have changed. The new dates for the contest are 1st of December till 31st of January.
It is planned on purpose to start just after WikiIndaba.

We are happy to say that WMF has agreed to invest slightly more money at the local level this year.
We will be able to support up to 10 countries (against 8 during previous years).
Maximum budget available per country is also potentially slightly higher this year, up to 1000 dollars (or even slightly more if you can convince us).

Submission of propositions is now open
* Read guidelines to submit propositions here : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016/Participating_country_event_guidelines
* Post your propositions there : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016


BUDGET and EXPECTATIONS

There are some changes this year.

We do not expect all teams to provide a similar budget.
Please note that higher budget mean higher expectations. We assume that some teams will want to put a lot of efforts in the contest (with press conference, local ceremony and prizes, post-contest integration events etc.) whilst other teams will prefer to play it more casual (with only a couple of photo hunts and upload events). So we would like to see that reflected in your propositions. Enjoy the contest ! Do not let it become a hassle !
Plan great things, but do not exhaust yourselves trying to do more than your team can really do. Some teams are made of over 20 people. Other teams may be only 2 people. Obviously, both teams can not invest as much time and energy.
So please, plan accordingly and finetune your propositions.


The other change this year is that Elisabeth will help us on that (very) difficult path: financial reporting. Ugh.
Elisabeth is already known by some of you ... she is French... and she has been helping on Wikimedia France fundraising/accounting for several years... and also edited a bit :) and her daughter posted pictures during WLA 2014 ;)
She will be in charge of collecting your banking information, recording your budget, collecting your receipts, and reporting all this in a nice table.
We simply ask you to submit a budget with all expenses fitting the categories described here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016/Participating_country_event_guidelines
Our goal is on one hand to make the whole system more transparent and on the other hand, to make it as simple as possible for you.


The last important change with regards to budget and financial issues is that our host partner is no more Africa Centre but is now Ynternet.org (in copy of this email, Thanasis, his director).
For more information on this organization : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Yorg/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2016#Grant_Requestor:_Ynternet.org
We can expect Ynternet.org will do more than being simply financial host, in particular in French speaking countries :) More on this later.

Any question... clarification request... please speak up !


Florence and Isla