Hello all,

This is for your information, that West Bengal Wikimedians User Group will not be organizing and/or supporting any offline Wikimedia activities and projects till 15th September, 2020, (or until further notice) due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This decision from the side of the user group was taken as the user group primarily runs on WMF funds through rapid grants as of now and WMF has decided https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/COVID-19_Notice to not provide grants for any offline events until the said date. This means, apart from our regular plans for meetups and workshops, we are also suspending our Wiki Exploration, Documenting City Heritage and upcoming GLAM plans and activities. We have informed our community leads who were organizing and/or planning such events and they have all welcomed the decision.

We will however organize and support online activities, as usual. Currently, we have asked our community members to come up with their proposals, which we can support in coming days. Requests can be done here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Bengal_Wikimedians/Requests.

We thank WMF for taking the tough but necessary decision. Needless to say, the decision has affected all our future plans, like many other affiliates, but considering the safety and health of our extremely valuable volunteer contributors, we heartily welcome this decision and will fully abide by it.

Regards, Bodhisattwa