In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up
some job descriptions on the wiki at
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of
staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
The Annual Conference in April will be a mixture of the informal panel
discussions and talks that are familiar in events such as Wikimania
and the more formal company business, such as electing the new board
of directors.
In the latter section, we also have an opportunity to debate and vote
on any motions that are proposed either by the board or by members.
Resolutions can be used to spark a debate about the activities of the
chapter if that is useful, or a more informal debate can be organised.
As well as the standard resolutions, such as reappointing auditors,
approving the accounts and electing the board, we are planning to
propose a change to the structure of the board as previously discussed
to introduce two year terms and expert board seats. More details of
these will be sent out prior to the AGM notice.
If any members are interested in proposing motions please let me know
by 10th March so we can incorporate it into the agenda and the AGM
notice. Motions can be proposed by any member as long as another
member seconds the motion. Special Resolutions - essentially changes
to the constitution - must be passed with a 75% majority of those
members who vote. Members' Special Resolutions must also be proposed
in writing no less than 28 days before the meeting, and that includes
amendments. Other resolutions can be proposed at any time and require
only a 50% majority.
If you would like any assistance in drafting a motion please let me
know any we will do what we can to help.
Regards,
Andrew Turvey
Chair, Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited.
Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL,
United Kingdom.
Our Annual General Meeting is just around the corner and we'll be
holding the annual election of the board of directors. As with
previous years, we'd like to appoint two independent tellers who will
be responsible for running the election, counting votes and announcing
the results. We plan a similar approach to the election as last year,
with ballot papers sent out electronically and voting both by email
and on paper on the day itself. The main difference is the scale, as
our membership has grown from 70 to nearly 200.
The election rules are on the wiki at [1]. The main restriction is
that tellers cannot themselves be candidates for the board, must be a
member of Wikimedia UK and must be able to attend the AGM in person on
16th April. [2]
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_Rules
[2] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_UK_2011
If you are able to help us with this please could you email me by next
Sunday 6th March with details of any previous similar experience.
Many thanks,
Andrew Turvey
Chair, Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited.
Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL,
United Kingdom.
Considering some of the things you are expecting the staff to do I
would suggest that administration is not the best description in the
budget for whole of the 123k of staff costs. An office manager is an
admin cost, a press and publicity person is part of your marketing/PR
cost.
As for Tom's suggestions:
1 I would be surprised and concerned if the board were currently
getting anywhere close to 4% interest. I would much prefer that the
money was somewhere safer such as on deposit in a UK bank, even though
the interest rate will be lower.
2 Spending money can take time, I would much rather we had a strategy
of using our money prudently than a policy of minimising reserves and
spending everything. After such a huge increase in revenue there will
be temptations to ramp up activity on a similar timescale - I would
advise caution here and please don't commit yourself to expenditure
targets. Better to budget funds for things and underspend if the
projects don't get off the ground. Expenditure targets are a slippery
slope that can lead to organisations using up money to avoid going
under budget.
3 As for the question about company law and what the directors could
potentially do. I'm not sure, but I'd feel more comfortable once we
are registered with the charity commission. A few days ago I was at an
AGM of another charity I'm involved in which has just managed to get
registered after more rather more work than anyone anticipated, and
I'm a trustee of another longstanding charity. The sooner we are a
registered charity then the happier I'll be, partly because the
charity commission is a regulator for charities.
WereSpielChequers
On 27 February 2011 17:28, Tom Holden <tom.holden(a)economics.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> I am looking at the budget. £123k on admin, £455k on programme expenditure,
> of which £290k is going straight to the WMF anyway. Even assuming the WMF is
> completely efficient, that’s over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
>
>
>
> http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget
>
>
>
> Looking at income is irrelevant since we seem to be consistently missing our
> expenditure targets and thus ending the year with money left over. (If the
> £455k target is missed as seems likely then the admin expenditure chunk will
> be higher still.)
>
>
>
> A question for the treasurer while I’m paying some attention to this stuff:
> what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they’re
> less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
>
>
>
> And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be
> possible in theory:
>
> 1) I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on a
> platform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership
>
> 2) We stand, we’re voted in because everyone there wanted £500 (which
> is about our assets to members ratio at the moment).
>
> 3) We change the constitution as necessary, getting it past an EGM
> again because people want £500.
>
> 4) We do it.
>
>
>
> With our current company status I’m worried this might be possible. And
> obviously the more money we have sitting in our bank account the more
> tempting this starts to look for our membership. This is yet another reason
> why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was
> sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we
> failed to spend that money we clearly weren’t, so doing the second one
> really wasn’t in anyone’s best interest.
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Roger Bamkin
> Sent: 27 February 2011 17:12
> To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
>
>
>
> Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years
> activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and
> income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I
> missing something?
>
>
>
> regards
>
> Roger
>
> On 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden <tom.holden(a)economics.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd
> still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to
> WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to
> Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going
> straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's
> being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then
> going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that
> it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further
> from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
>
> I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm
> completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK
> donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then
> groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps
> something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much
> lighter organisation.
>
> Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story,
> providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of
> WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear
> whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average
> user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
>
> I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the
> next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the
> membership on expenditure priorities.
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew
> Turvey
> Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57
> To: WMUK-L
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
>
> In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some
> job descriptions on the wiki at
> http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff
> that we are recruiting.
>
> Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Andrew
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>
>
> --
>
> Roger Bamkin
>
> (aka Victuallers)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>
>
Hi all,
It is with deep regret that I announce that Joseph Seddon has resigned from Wikimedia UK's Board of Trustees for personal reasons. Our grateful thanks go to him for everything he has done for Wikimedia UK over the last 2 years. In particular, we were deeply impressed by his high level of involvement with the recent fundraiser, which raised over half a million pounds from over 30,000 donors, whilst also studying at university.
As our AGM is in less than 2 months, we won't be co-opting anyone to take Seddon's place. Given the ever-growing importance of Wikimedia UK within the Wikimedia movement, we hope that many of you will consider standing for the Board at the AGM, more details about which will be coming soon.
Thanks,
Mike Peel
on behalf of the Wikimedia UK board
It looks very likely that the National Maritime Museum are going to release a significant amount if information gleaned from their archives under CC-BY-SA so we can make use of it.
This would include information on the service history of some 20,000-odd Royal Navy warships.
More information on-wiki here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/NMM
Regards,
Chris(The Land)
We've seen how QR code lets you move from a physical object to
wikipedia but there is also the issue of going the other way. At the
moment our museum articles can list a few leading exhibits and that's
it. They also find it hard to explain where in a museum an item is.
Both issues can be addressed by using maps. The problem is our current
mapping methods based on GPS coordinates are to inaccurate for any
museum exhibit much smaller than HMS alliance and don't cope very well
if an article talks about an item in more than one museum.
So we need highly detailed maps and a way to place items in them. The
problem is that we are going beyond the detail level of open street
maps. Still they are good enough for an example of what I mean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/map
We clearly need better maps. We could with enough effort draw them
ourselves but there is another possibility. At the GLAM-wiki event at
the british museum it was mentioned that one of the reasons that
museums were trying to do stuff with their metadate was that it was
one of the few things that they hadn't already got tided up in rights
agreements. Might this also not apply to maps?
The method used for the demo is fairly clumsy but is fairly widely
used ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Labelled_image_map_templates
) and has the advantage of needing no new mediawiki code.
The maps won't work too well as part of an article in most cases which
is another issue but we could ask for a new namespace and use a
subpage of the talk page for the time being.
--
geni
Hello,
unfortunately we have not received any replies after this thread. As I
understand it, there is some enthusiasm with individuals, but nobody is
prepared to take a lead, within or outside Wikimedia UK? Basically what you
need is two types of leadership:
1) someone to set up a primary structure on Wikipedia - basically a
Wikiproject - and motivates others to help out setting up the list system
(this is the most important and urgent job)
2) someone to do the real life part of the organization: organize a
brainstorm meeting, organize a meeting with the relevant authorities to get
the databases released if not yet available, to find sponsors, set up a
budget etc.
Any volunteers? I hope Wikimedia UK can pick up from here though ;-)
Thanks, Lodewijk
2011/2/4 effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
> Hello all,
>
> I know there has been some discussion about a Wiki Loves Monuments in
> the UK, but I have heard little back after that. I think there is
> definitely a lot of potential in the UK for setting up a project like
> this, and hope that it would be possible to find the volunteers to run
> this in the coming time.
>
> Who can take the lead on this in the UK?
>
> Please see
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2011-January/000001…
> for my email and offer to join a brainstorm session if there would be
> need/advantage for that. If that would help, I am more than happy to
> join you guys somewhere reachable in a conversation on how to make
> this happen. I got the suggestion the coming up London Meetup might be
> helpful. Are there many interested people from outside London? Would
> Wikimedia UK be able and willing to set up a meeting there and to
> reimburse for example some travel costs for those outside London to
> join the meeting? Just shooting some suggestions here, I'm sure you
> can come up with better :)
>
> Do remind please that to make this work, you really have to give this
> a start in February, or it will be very hard to have the lists and
> systems in place in time.
>
> I look forward to your positive and constructive replies!
>
> Lodewijk Gelauff
>
> 2010/12/15 Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net>:
> > Forwarding with permission of the sender. I'm very eager to see the UK
> and
> > Ireland participate in this if possible, but from my experience of
> running
> > Britain Loves Wikipedia I'm very aware that this needs a team of people
> > running it rather than just one person. So: is anyone interested in
> > leading/helping with this project?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
> > Date: 14 December 2010 20:20:15 GMT
> > To: "Local Chapters, board and officers coordination (closed
> subscription)"
> > <internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Subject: [Internal-l] Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 - Europe?
> > Reply-To: "Local Chapters, board and officers coordination \(closed
> > subscription\)" <internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> >
> > Summary of this email (sorry for long text): We did Wiki Loves Monuments
> > (WLM) 2010 in the Netherlands, we would like to do Wiki Loves Monuments
> > again in 2011, but now in Europe. This is only possible when many
> chapters
> > participate, therefore this e-mail. To be clear: this event will only
> happen
> > on a European level if there is sufficient chapter participation to
> combine
> > efforts. Please feel free to forward to whomever you find appropriate.
> > You might have heard before about Wiki Loves Monuments 2010 in the
> > Netherlands. It was a highly successful photo scavenger hunt with 12.500
> > submissions and over 250 participants[0]. We recently completed a post
> > mortem of this event with a more extensive description and analysis [1].
> > However, there are still many monuments in the Netherlands which can be
> > photographed, so we are considering another run for next year - but then
> in
> > a European context. Below we will explain a bit how we got where we are,
> > what we have in mind, and what you could expect.
> > So how did this all start? At the Dutch Wikipedia we have the windmill
> > project. One of the main goals was to get an article with an image for
> every
> > windmill in the Netherlands. Lists were created of windmills per province
> > and statistics were made on a regular basis to track progress. This
> approach
> > worked very well and made it possible to tackle a big problem; All the
> > windmills have an article now.
> > Some volunteers, in cooperation with the chapter, managed to get a
> dataset
> > of all "Rijksmonumenten" (Dutch national monuments - 60.000
> > buildings/objects with some historical or cultural relevance) from the
> > "Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed" (Dutch national heritage
> > organisation, RCE). This marked the birth of the "Rijksmonumenten"
> project.
> > The project uses the lessons learned in the windmill project. The data
> from
> > the RCE was converted into lists by location and put on the Dutch
> Wikipedia.
> > The community started improving the lists by adding missing information
> or
> > adding photo's.
> > In June 2009 Wikimedia Nederland ran Wiki Loves Art /NL [2] : A photo
> > scavenger hunt in more than 40 museums. Also quite successful (5.400
> > photos), but much more work intensive because you need to keep contacts
> with
> > all the museums and usually museums are further away from people's homes
> > than the nearest monuments.
> > For 2010 we were looking for a nice topic for a photo competition. The
> > "Rijksmonumenten" project was running very well so we decided to organize
> > Wiki Loves Monuments to give this Wikipedia project a boost.
> > So, what would a European WLM most likely look like? Let me give you an
> idea
> > of what we are thinking of, changes are open for debate of course. Trying
> to
> > incorporate the main lessons from last year in the Netherlands into a
> > European model, we think it might work best if Wiki Loves Monuments is
> > organized on a national level primarily, but with cooperations, shared
> > resources and international prizes on a European level. The national
> > contests do not have to be identical, but some consistency would be
> > practical. We are not sure yet what countries would be most successful,
> but
> > our initial hope would be EU chapter countries and Switzerland.
> > Basically, Wiki Loves Monuments would run 1-30 September 2011, and
> > participants would be allowed to submit photos of monuments which are
> part
> > of the object list. This object list includes the address and ideally
> > geo-coordinates of all monuments which are allowed to participate. In
> each
> > participating country there would be some prizes available, to be awarded
> by
> > a jury for that country. The top-X of each could be competing for
> European
> > prizes.
> > You can find more information on how WLM 2010 was organized on the
> > post-mortem [1]. That also lines out in more detail how much work it
> would
> > be, and what the positive impact could be.
> > Most of the local work would be to get a database with the objects,
> create
> > object lists from that (possibly Dutch volunteers could support you with
> > that, they have the experience [3]) and get the community involved on
> that.
> > You would need to get communications going, both external to the press
> > (press releases etc) as to participants (have a clear website in your
> > language(s) with explanation, rules etc), find a jury and prizes for them
> to
> > award. We can help each other with example press releases, best
> practices,
> > template and list examples and community motivation.
> > So, what to do when you like this idea? Well, it would be good to first
> of
> > all check with your collegues (at the board, other members, community)
> what
> > they think of it. You probably need several people to run such a
> competition
> > over time to some extent. Next step would be to do some analysis on your
> > local situation: who would be good partners (who keeps the lists of
> > monuments?) for you, how many monuments are there in your country, are
> they
> > well spread? What information/photos are already available of it roughly?
> > Are there community members involved in that kind of topic? Definitely
> read
> > the post-mortem and some relevant links from there [1].
> > For the time being, we registered www.wikilovesmonuments.eu and are in
> touch
> > with CARARE and Europeana (European cultural heritage organizations) -
> who
> > seem to be interested in laying contacts with local cultural heritage
> > organizations. Hopefully that helps them to realize the European context
> and
> > impact this could have. The most important partner in each country would
> be
> > the one that governs the database with all monuments, and could release
> that
> > to you. This database/list is crucial for the success of such an event.
> > Please inform us (ideally through internal-l) when you would be
> interested
> > in joining in such European event, if there is enough enthusiasm, we will
> > create a special (easy to join) mailing list to coordinate efforts to
> allow
> > more volunteers to join in the discussions. We already took the liberty
> of
> > discussing this with some other chapters, and are hopeful that it will
> > actually get to a first grand chapter cooperation program. Of course this
> > does not mean you are bound, but that you think you would like to
> > participate. You can also join #wikilovesmonuments on freenode irc of
> course
> > if you like.
> > With kind regards,
> > Maarten Dammers
> > Lodewijk Gelauff
> >
> > [0]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments
> > [1]:
> >
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/post_mortem
> > [2]:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Art_Netherlands
> > [3]:
> >
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/template_sys…
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Internal-l mailing list
> > Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia UK mailing list
> > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
> >
> >
>
Hi all,
A number of chapters have created geography-specific Wikipedia portals. Should Wikimedia UK create and host a UK Wikipedia portal? Please add your thoughts, and join in the discussion, at:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Proposals/Wikipedia_Portal
Thanks,
Mike