Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023

WMF review and feedback

Thank you very much @Mehman; @User:MIKHEIL; @Jaba1977 and the 2023 CEE team for working on this proposal.

It was great reading through your proposal. It is clear, well presented and the event seems to be well planned.

Here are a few questions and comments I had:

• One of the objectives is to: "Proving help and support for small-size Wikimedia affiliates and organizations, encouraging them to expand their scope of work and international collaboration". It is a great goal to prioritize and I was wondering if you have any practices or specific actions on how to do it other than sharing knowledge.
• Regional events are a high priority obviously, but other than having this annual space and platform to convene, we wish to see some kind of linkage or continuity from one year to the other. Can you point out at something that happened or changed since last year CEE? Are there any objectives that are directly linked to, or the result of things that were developed in the region or in the last year/event?
• If scholarships to non-affiliated will be decided and discussed over the village pump, you might be needing to actively facilitate and monitor the discussions.
• You have compiled a great team, well capable for sure.
• As to the risks - I appreciate your intention to work and engage with communities that will be facing challenges in selecting representatives. It might be a good idea to outline a few basic recommended guidelines for communities to refer to. And even if facing challenges - please make sure to remain sensitive and aware to internal community practices and be sure to engage in a positive manner as advisories.
• We will need to keep checking in with our International Health & Security Risk Management services (ISOS) to remain updated and monitor if and how the war will affect the event. In the hopes it will no longer be a risk by the time the event will take place.

Budget:

• I am not sure I am clear on the total participants breakdown - 92 locals + regional + international. 6-7 WMF staff. But it doesn’t sum up to the total 150 p you indicated. Who are the rest? Are those partners? or self funded participants?
• Can you please elaborate on the learning days section? What are you planning to do? for how long? who is the target audience? is there actually a true need to accommodate learning days? I know this is something that was done traditionally, but I am not fully informed on the impact and outcomes of these learning days. Do you have any indications for this being a crucial/impactful/required part on the event?
• Catering - is calculated for how many people?
• Printed conference agenda - I do not recommend printing the actual program. The agenda will probably change many times even in the last days before the conference and probably while the conference is happening. This is very standard and keeping the agenda online, will allow you much needed flexibility. If you want, you can print other materials (although we always advise to avoid unnecessary printing for environmental reasons) but I strongly recommend keeping the agenda online and maybe only printing a QR code that will be linked to the agenda. I personally find it very useful to print a QR code on the name tag instead.
• Who will facilitate the sessions and discussions? Will it be facilitated by community members?

Thank you again for a wonderful proposal. looking forward to hearing from you. CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 03:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Response Hello CAlmog (WMF), thanks for reviewing our request on this. We are glad that you liked our request, which we have been working on a lot. I will try to answer all your questions briefly and clearly. In addition to providing our skills and experience at the regional level, we will cooperate with all stakeholders in the framework of the CEEHub. One of the goals of the Hub is to expand these opportunities, and the conference for this is one of the platforms for cooperation, exchange of knowledge, and experience. At this stage, the Hub is developing guidelines and skills for everyone, and we will use this resource during the conference to provide this resource for everyone. Over the past two years and, accordingly, this year, at the regional level, we have placed the main emphasis on cooperation, the exchange of knowledge and experience, and the exchange of resources. For this, the CEE Hub was created, which should take care of the region in this regard. Last year at the conference, we were focused on this, and a lot of work was done in this direction, and this year we will work on it. The design of this year's conference will be entirely based on the results of last year's conference and the work of the CEE Hub, as well as the requirements of the community itself. Few such communities will choose delegates based on a village pump discussion. According to our data, there are only 8 of them, which facilitates our work on the review process. We have sufficient resources to oversee the entire process of electing delegates in these communities, and of course, we will monitor them and provide them with assistance if necessary. Yes, but this is not a complete list. In preparation, we will have more members in the team. You can check them all here (except for program committee members, which are given here). We will post the delegate selection process guidelines and community support materials on the conference registration page to help the community. Also, the organizers are ready to help, as needed, everyone in the process of electing delegates for the conference. A special mailing address will be created to contact the organizers for help. We are actively following the latest news, and as the regional landscape changes, we will solve urgent issues in coordination with you. We hope that nothing serious will happen in the region during this time. Budget 95 people (an error was made in the note) are international delegates + regional delegates + local scholarship recipients. All the rest are self-funded participants, our local partners, guests, and local conference participants + event volunteers. Since we provide food for everyone, we took into account the total amount of conference participants so that no one will be left without food. Learning days is a one-day intensive process of providing specific community individuals with the necessary knowledge on cooperation, conflict resolution, community management, etc. This gives community representatives the basic knowledge to manage the community better and processes locally. The request for these days was from the community, who stated this in a survey and indicated the topics they would like to explore during this day. We will invite a staff member of the WMF, Asaf Bartov, as a trainer for these days. The main audience these days will be representatives of different communities, mainly representatives of small and developing communities who locally need this knowledge to overcome issues within their communities. Based on this, the representatives of the communities will be from outside Georgia, they will need accommodation. Catering is designed for a maximum of 150 people (international delegates, regional delegates, local scholarship recipients, self-funded participants, our local partners, guests, local conference participants, event volunteers, and staff). Of course, we will not print the program itself as a leaflet and will focus on the electronic availability of the program. We will prepare a small booklet for QR codes, which we will provide to the conference participants along with a name tag. We will have volunteers and representatives from our community leading the process. From our team, there will be a Lead Facilitator who will lead the whole process. There will also be volunteers who will help the conference participants with adaptation, technical support, time management, etc. The whole process will be under our control. I hope I was able to accurately answer all your questions. If you have any additional questions or comments, please let me know and I'll be happy to answer them. Kindly, — Mehman (WMGE) (talk) 19:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

[Request] Addition to the budget

Hello Chen,

As we agreed on email, we want an additional budget to cover the cost of invited delegates for our conference. The amount of the additional budget is 7,236.00 USD. Thanks for support. – Mehman (WMGE) 17:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi Mehman, Your request is approved. CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 16 August 2023 (UTC)