The new years reception at January 23 was organized together with the Tropenmuseum and Creative Commons NL. The reception, held in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, was preceded by a guided tour through the exhibition "Kunst van overleven" (Art of survival) about the Maroon culture and history in Suriname. The reception was well visited with 40-50 visitors: not only Wikimedians, but also people from cultural institutions and other enthousiasts.
The University of Amsterdam organized a cooperation between 7 organizations that will develop software under a free license which will make it easier to maintain a multilingual wiki. The idea is that a change in one language will lead to changes in the same page in the other languages. The project under the name CoSyne with participants such as the Dutch institute "Beeld en Geluid" (Sound and Vision), Deutsche Welle and Wikimedia Nederland is exploring the usefulness. The European Commission has approved the funding request.
The "Nationaal Archief" (National Archive) is the larges public archive in the Netherlands and has a large collection around several themes. The National Archive has sought contact with Wikimedia Nederland and we will probably be able to announce a project where the National Archive and Spaarnestad Photo release a part of a photo collection under a free license for use on Wikimedia Commons. More to follow!
Wikimedia Nederland is cooperating with the Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken (Association of Public Libraries) on a joint project around media literacy and cultural heritage. The expectation is that a pilot can be launched in 2010 in the province of Zeeland.
In February, Wikimedia Nederland will organize a special meeting for people who are interested in candidating for the board during the elections in March. This meeting will give an opportunity to get to know the other candidates, to ask questions to the current board about how the board works.