Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Czech Republic/2011-08-10

Wikimedia Czech Republic report (August-October 2011)

This is the chronologically ordered list of important events and decision that involved Wikimedia Czech Republic in the period of from August to October 2011.

Main events

These events were significant and shaped the agenda of Wikimedia Czech Republic during all three months:

Discussions about cooperation inside of the committee of Mediagrant. These discussions started immediately in June, continued throughout August, September and October and will most likely continue in November 2011
The members of Wikimedia Czech Republic were included into the discussion if we have to open the internal wiki for unregistered users, or even non-members. There was a long talk about this.
In August, September and October a practice of organized meetings of Wikimedia CZ members and wikipedians continued. We met three times in Prague; some of members of our chapter presented their projects (I. e. subgrants of Mediagrant or Presentation & Outreach) to all wikipedians, who arrived.
For 4th time there was a competition among wikipedians, sponsored by Česká spořitelna (a bank from the Erste Group) and Microsoft, called “Ceny za rozvoj české Wikipedie – Prizes for the development of Czech Wikipedia”. Czech wikipedians had to improve several articles from a list and the best and most contributive ones, who'll make a new article from scratch or create new FA or GA, will be rewarded by a prize – small laptop, various Microsoft products etc. This event was organized by Danny B , Jan Spousta and Krvesaj
Ambassadorship program (very similar to WMF's CAP) was initiated. Originally as an initiative that started shortly after our board election in July this year a small idea continued to grow thanks to a very active group of WMCZ members interested in this issue (Vojtěch Dostál, Chmee2, Reo On). Currently cooperation goes on with the International school in Prague, faculty of Science and Pedagogical Faculty of the Charles University. Juandev is currently working on preparations of video tutorials. These can help students to understand the way of editing Wikipedia and other projects better. Members of the ambassadorship projects are in touch with the global community thanks to Wikimedia Education mailinglist.
Czech GLAM group starts to cooperate with several museums – Bethlehem museum in Třebechovice and National Museum of Agriculture in Prague. A group of certain wikipedians interested in this form of cooperation met in Nové Butovice in October in order to talk about possible ways how to improve own activities. During the OGDN session in early October, members of WMCZ board talked about possible goals of GLAM group with Sebastian Moleski, a German Wikimedian who visited us. Like the ambassadorship project, they have also their own mailing list and they stay in touch with the global GLAM community.

August

During first week in August, new board met for the first time.

At this meeting, members of the board tried to solve several issues - mostly personal changes in the committee of the Presentation and Outreach grant, several organizational issues etc. In the sphere of inter-chapters communication the board decided to plan an international conference in 2012 in cooperation with Wikimedia Poland. We also talked about buying new stuff for our chapter, like i.e. notebooks and so on.

In following days the board initiated a voting for the new committee of Presentation & Outreach grant
After introducing transparent bank accounts (we decided to have only one), the board decided to turn all our accounts into transparent at FIO bank.

September

Juandev decided to initiate a project called „Supporting the communication in WMF“. This subgrant was supported by the board, but not realized due to his later resignation.
In early September the board met again and talked about following things:

Travelling to Poland in order to visit the 10 years of Polish Wikipedia event, position of our treasurer, changes in empowering of various people, international conference in 2012, initiating the Czech ambassadorship program, GLAM report etc.

During September and October the board met only informally (excluding 5th September) and did all the decisions on-line at the internal wiki.
Members of Wikimedia CZ started to ask for an own Wikimedia-branded e-mail addresses in order to be able to negotiate in a more professional level with any possible organization. These e-mails are following this template: user@wikimedia.cz
Discussions about cooperation of the Mediagrant committee continued and several members of our chapter were involved. As a result, 4 members of the committee decided to ask the board to intervene. The board decided to recall Danny B from the committee in early November.
During September our chairman Limojoe had several interviews in mainstream media (newspapers, national television – Česká televize). In October he presented projects of Wikimedia Foundation in city library in Varnsdorf. Packa made some presentations at the Faculty of Biology of the Charles University in Prague.
During 16th, 17th and 18th September there was the 4th official photographic workshop in Šumava mountains. Seven wikipedians practiced various photographic techniques. This event vas funded from the Mediagrant via the “Photographic workshops subgrant”.
Our chairman (Limojoe), a member of the board (Aktron) and two other members of our chapter, Juandev and Jagro visited the 10 Years of Polish Wikipedia event in Poland. They also stopped in Berlin to talk with several people from WM DE.

During this event all the members tried to negotiate terms of the following 2012 international conference that should take place in Prague, CZ. In Berlin we also wanted to hear how a bit more “bigger” chapter – like the German one - actually works. The German Wikimedians showed us their headquarters and informed us about specific details of their work.

In the end of September we decided to have and external specialist that can work for us as a treasurer.

October

Juandev decided to leave Wikimedia Czech Republic, Jirka O decided to resign as a vice-chairman of our chapter. Jan Spousta was elected by the board as our new vice chairman shortly after.
During 8th and 9th October several members of the board and WM CZ met with Sebmol during the second OGDN seminar in Prague-Smíchov. We talked about ways how to solve our issues and improve our work. Sembol also stated that there is no way that WMF would like to support us (WM CZ) in organizing an international conference in Prague in 2012.
At 21st and 22nd October, Wikimedia Czech Republic presented projects of Wikimedia Foundation at a book fair in Havlíčkův Brod, for the third time.
23rd of October – first official meeting of people of Czech GLAM group. Present wikipedians talked about cooperation with various museums. Gumruch also pointed out that the group is already successfully cooperating with the local museum of bethlehems in Třebechovice. Juandev wanted to initiate cooperation with National museum of agriculture. They talked about digitizing the materials (i.e. funding an external professional that can digitize works from this museum to Wikimedia Commons) or emphasizing museum workers to write some articles to Wikipedia.
During October the board started a discussion about our budget for 2012. This also includes a fact that for the following year Wikimedia Czech Republic will most likely ask for a bigger sum of money for maintenance costs.