Hello everyone!

I know it seems like this year's fundraiser is forever away, but work has already begun getting everything ready to go. This year we hope to take advantage of this time before the fundraiser to build a solid foundation for a great collaboration between translators and the Wikimedia Foundation. This e-mail will hopefully get the ball rolling and will introduce you to Pats Peña, the new Community Department Operations Manager.

Pats (Patricia) will be a major part of the Foundation's fundraising staff during this coming fundraiser. She will add to the work that Megan and the fundraising team did last year, specifically focusing on recruiting and building the team that will code banners and landing pages for tests. She will also be providing increased capacity this year to serve you guys, the translators, in the communication with the fundraising team. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese fluently, and she has lived and worked in India, Belgium, and Brazil while developing partnerships among non-profits. She is extremely passionate about Wikimedia’s mission and eager to work with you guys. :-)

Right now, we want to figure out who is interested in translating for the fundraiser. This year we're hoping to have more of a solidified "core" group of translators that we can count on to have work done by a few key dates, but we'd also welcome help from people who are willing to just help out when they can. Could everyone who is interested please take a look at this little sign-up survey and fill it out? http://survey.wikimedia.org/index.php?sid=13638&newtest=Y&lang=en

When you guys fill out the survey, we can start building a list of people and filling any gaps that show up. The survey is written so that people who aren't as involved in the Foundation as you can understand everything, so please bear with all of the explanatory text.

Thanks in advance for your help! Casey