Join the Great American Wiknic July 6 in Ann Arbor for wiki companionship,
as well as "Free chicken, pizza and hotdogs" :)
User:Scottperry is enthusiastically organizing this, and it would be great
if others could join his effort.
Sign up here (and please share widely with your Michigan wiki-contacts!):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Ann_Arbor/Great_American_Wik…
Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
Midwesterners,
In case you haven’t heard yet, we’ll be meeting at noon (Eastern Daylight Time) TODAY (Saturday the 15th) on the IU Bloomington campus in the Jordan Avenue garage. From there, we’ll most likely relocate. This is the official Indy-Evansville-Bloomington Wiknic for the year, though anyone is welcome.
If you join us late, call me at this number (http://imageshack.us/a/img98/5466/text2imagem283192012063.gif) to find out where we’ve relocated to. (Apologies for the link, but it’s a security measure since this is a public list.)
Hint: If you live in Evansville, you can take I-69 most of the way there.
Please bring something edible to share.
See y’all there,
Bob the Wikipedian
Y’all,
We are in the initial planning stages for the Wiknic in Bloomington, Indiana, this June. Local Wikipedians are encouraged to help plan this event (secure a venue, etc).
If you’re interested in attending, be sure and stop by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bloomington,_IN/Wiknic/2013 to add your name to the interest list, and add it to your watchlist. Wikipedians in Indianapolis, Evansville, and other nearby cities are also more than welcome to attend.
Hope to see a few of you in June!
Bob the Wikipedian
Evansville’s WALRUS Representative
Hoosiers of Wikipedia,
The Evansville-Bloomington gang that attended the Evansville Wiknic agreed our next southern Indiana meetup will be in Bloomington. I’m not sure how soon anyone’s wanting to plan an event, but here are the upcoming dates when other WALRUS chapters have meetups, so one of these would be a good time to meet up:
Wikipedia Takes America (Sep)
Wikipedia Loves Libraries (Oct/Nov)
Wikipedia Day 2012 (c. Jan 15)
Wiknic (c. Jun 22)
Rob Schnautz
Ambassador to the Great Lakes Reaches
United States Education Program
Wikimedia Global Development
Hey y’all!
A big howdy from Evansville again! I unfortunately was too busy having fun to take photos, but here’s a brief summary of the meetup on June 30th the weekend before last:
The following folks attended:
>From Evansville, IN:
*YHoshua (who graciously arranged for us to meet at West Branch Library)
*Crtew (and his young Wikipedian counterpart)
*Bob the Wikipedian (me)
>From Bloomington, IN:
*Nyttend
*Vmenkov
*Ben Kovitz
We met at West Branch Library in the basement, where the air conditioning shielded us quite nicely from the heat (and after the blazing hot drive here, I think the Bloomington folks DEFINITELY appreciated that!). We had chili, sandwiches, strawberries, and Turkish berek. I didn’t know what Turkish berek was, but it’s pretty good!
YHoshua was more than excited to share with us what he knew about the history of Evansville’s libraries. He also introduced the Bloomington folks to Ski, the legendary citrus soft drink of Evansville, and told them the lore of the Grippos as well (shame on me for not thinking to bring those!).
Over lunch, we learned that the Bloomington crew was on a mission to help Nyttend fill in some unvisited historical landmarks on his checklist that day, so they had taken the long way to Evansville—driving all the way into Posey County and turning around after taking photos.
What’s a wiknic without Wikipedia discussion? Well, we didn’t have to answer that question. Naturally, hot topics over lunch included Twinkle, deceased Wikipedians, the Wikipedia Education Program, and why Wikipedia hasn’t quite caught on with a good percentage of Evansville. Oh, and we all got cool little Wikipedia globe buttons!
We managed to get a group photo before half our group parted (anyone have a copy they can share?) with the Indiana flag. Funny story here—I’ve been doing research on the flag of the city of Evansville and am now “seeing Evansville flags” in much the same way others “see Elvis”, so there was a bit of excitement from me when I saw the furled blue and gold flag with the fringe around the edges and thought it was the Evansville flag.
Well, the 107 F climate couldn’t stand in our way that day. We opted to tour Franklin Street instead of playing Taboo or Balderdash, so after a quick visit to the library above us to pick up a tour guide pamphlet, we began our trek down Franklin.
For those who haven’t been to the Fall Festival in Evansville, Franklin Street hosts the second-largest street festival in the nation annually in October and is one of the largest historical sites in Evansville. We took tons of photos with the intention of uploading them to the Commons another day.
We actually had so much fun doing this that we drove down to the Ohio Riverfront and took a walk down the running path next to the river, where Nyttend enlightened us with several stories about the history of southern Indiana, and Vmenkov told us some fun stories about Turkey and the other places he’d been. Thanks to the drought we’d endured in Evansville since April, we didn’t have any mosquitoes to worry about.
Suddenly, we realized Kentucky was literally a few feet away from where we stood as we overlooked the Ohio River. Naturally, we all decided we’d venture to historic Henderson next, where we took a few more photos and ended the wiknic.
We agreed that the next meetup would occur in Bloomington, since Bloomington had practically equal representation at the wiknic. So, good news for the Bloomington and Indy folks—it won’t be quite as much of a commitment to join us next year!
Thanks YHoshua for organizing the event location, and thanks everyone for pitching in for food and carpooling! I especially enjoyed having the visitors from Bloomington! Y’all come back now, y’hear?
That’s all I’ve got...if anyone wants to share photos, I’d love to see them.
Adios,
Rob Schnautz
Ambassador to the Great Lakes Reaches
United States Education Program
Wikimedia Global Development
The first annual Wikimania meetup for the Midwest US proto-chapter is scheduled during the Wikimania Unconference on Sunday at 1:30pm. We will be gathering in the Grand Ballroom, which has been designated for chapter activities during the Unconference.
-Greg
___________
Sent from my iPad. Apologies for any typos. A more detailed response may be sent later.
I've got copies of the chapter promo notecards (now with info on the meetup printed on the back) available. If you'd like to grab some to hand out to folks - find or email me and I'll get them to you. I'm wearing my volunteer sash and red hat.
Notecard:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Midwest_US_notecard.pdf
-Greg
___________
Sent from my iPad. Apologies for any typos. A more detailed response may be sent later.
Well, in two hours we’ll begin breaking the record for “hottest Wiknic ever”! (I think—I’ll confirm that later!) The original plan was we’d take a walk down Franklin Street (the road the Fall Festival is held on, for you out-of-towners), but with this triple-digit (possibly 107 F) heat advisory, ozone alert, burn ban, and wildfire watch all taking place the same afternoon as the Wiknic, we may be avoiding the heat indoors in the basement of one of Evansville’s historic Carnegie libraries (one which oddly has only a brief mention and no photo on Wikipedia!). We’re having chili, Turkish Berek, strawberries, and sandwiches with lime pickles. To offset the awkwardities of being stuck indoors without computers, we’ll have the Wiktionary game (a.k.a. Balderdash) and Taboo.
Update later...and hopefully some photos of us before we melt/combust!
Rob
Hi y’all,
Just subscribed to this list (thanks for the nudge, Richard!). Also, I wanted to make sure anyone within driving distance knows about the Evansville Wiknic this weekend on the 30th. We’re meeting at West Branch Library on the west side of Evansville. It’s located at Franklin St (that’s the fall festival road) and Wabash Avenue of Flags (that’s the one with the American flags all over the place). This is right in the middle of historic Lamasco, so if you have a camera, bring it along to take pictures for the Commons!
The event runs from noon (central daylight time – Evansville time) to 4 p.m.
See you there!
Rob Schnautz
Ambassador to the Great Lakes Reaches
United States Education Program
Wikimedia Global Development
