I accepted a partial scholarship for Wikimania from the Foundation, but I am not aware of anybody else from the UK receiving one. They made clear from the outset that special consideration was to be given for those from the "global south" (see http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships#Scholarship_Selection), so people from the UK were rightly or wrongly at a disadvantage in the selection process. I actually needed a full scholarship, and I had to get funding from other sources in order to accept the partial one which I was offered. The list of attendees while likely incomplete lists just four people from the UK (http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Attendees/100). I agree that a scholarship programme for next year from the WMUK would be a good idea in boosting attendance, as other chapters are doing. In the longer-term, the chapter would benefit greatly if the UK hosted the conference, of which it has not yet done so.

Regards,

Christopher Cooper (CT Cooper)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CT_Cooper

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:CT_Cooper

...

It doesn't look like there is much of a UK contingent going to Wikimania - we didn't even make the top 5 countries list. There's also no mention of WMUK sponsoring anyone despite there being ?10k in the budget for Wikimania sponsorship. Could someone on the board let us know what that money is being spent on?

I understand we're financially supporting seven or eight people (most of them not from the UK). Not sure why that is on the list.

Make sure you get on the list - you want the chapter to look good! It's excellent publicity for the chapter within the Wikimedia community.

Your email is written as if you expect "number of people from the UK attending Wikimania" to be one of the metrics of the Chapter's success -

why

is this, out of interest?

I think it is self-evident that more people from the UK attending WIkimania would be a good thing. The chapter is in a position to help that. The WMF's sponsorship programme typically doesn't give many (or any) sponsorships to people in the UK, so it would be good if the chapter did instead.