I am pleased to tell you that Wikimedia Deutschland has offered generously to host an international meeting for participating chapters on Wiki Loves Monuments. We will combine this meeting with the developer meeting in May in Berlin ( see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Berlin_Hackathon_2011 ). We took this meeting already into account in our planning on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011/Timeline because there are several topics that would really benefit from real life discussions.

To be able to organize this well, we would like to get your input on some topics. First of all, the day. The developer workshop will be Friday - Sunday, and for this Wiki Loves Monuments meeting we can choose to organize it on the Thursday before this developers meeting, or on the Friday, the first day of the meeting parallel. The main advantage of Thursday is that there is no overlap, so people can attend both, and that we can use the outcomes of the WLM meeting as input for the developer meeting. The main advantages of Friday are that people with a job need to take a day less off, and are therefore maybe more likely to attend.

I would also like to know which topics *you* think are important to discuss at such a meeting. Please bear in mind that there will also be the chapters meeting in March and Wikimania to exchange some thoughts, so which topics need to be /discussed/.

Finally, I would like you to think about who can attend this (first discuss this within your group perhaps). Of course we cannot have a huge meeting, the maximum number of participants will be 20-25. With already more than 10 chapters participating, and probably some extra people from the Netherlands attending this meeting to share knowledge from last year, this would limit attendance to 1-2 per chapter. Primarily I am asking who /wants/ to join, and whether you would be able to afford these costs as a chapter yourself. If you can't please indicate this - I am trying to find a solution. Also, if your chapter is able to cover some extra travel costs for another chapter, that would be mostly welcome. Please let me know via this list or privately.

The dates are currently still debated - most likely it will be either the weekend of 21/22 or the weekend of 14/15 May, with the preceeding Friday/Thursday.