Below is the Wikimedia Eesti annual report for the year 2014.
Divisions 1-4 contain information concerning the structure and divisions 5-11 present the activities of Wikimedia Eesti in the year 2014.
As an addendum a link directing to the overview of the media coverage of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Eesti in Estonian media has been added to present report.
Wikimedia Eesti is a registered non-profit charitable association run in accordance with Estonian law and legislature and its own Bylaws.
Wikimedia Eesti was founded on the 25th of July 2010 and officially registered on the 6th of October 2010.
Subsequent to the decision of Estonian Tax and Customs Board on the 27th of March 2012, Wikimedia Eesti was declared a tax deductible non-profit organization retroactively from the 1st January 2012.
Members of Wikimedia Eesti on the general assembly on the 8th of March 2014
Wikimedia Eesti chapter consists of members, who have the highest decisive power through the general assembly. The number of the members of the association is not limited. In the beginning of the year the general assembly had a quorum if more than one-half of the members or their representatives participate in the general assembly, but on the general assembly of the 8th of March 2014 it was decided that the quorum will be reduced to 40% of chapter members.
General assembly appoints the members of the executive board of Wikimedia Eesti for 2-year term. The board consists of at least 3 members.
At least 3 members of Wikimedia Eesti can form a regional department, i.e. a division.
Wikimedia Eesti has its own bookkeeping.
General assembly appoints at least 2 members of the organisation, who do not participate in the executive board, to carry out the auditing of the organisation.
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Board members of Wikimedia Eesti discussing things with AffCom representative in Wikimedia Conference 2014 in Berlin
Board members
Wikimedia Eesti started the year 2013 with an executive board consisting of 3 members.
On the 11th of February 2014 one of the board members notified the chapter that he will resign due to health reasons and since the 12th of February 2014 Wikimedia Eesti operated with only 2 board members.
On the 8th of March 2014 General Assembly gathered in Tartu and it was decided that the board of Wikimedia Eesti will continue with 4 members and as a result 2 new board members were elected.
As of the 31st of December 2014, Wikimedia Eesti has 3 board members.
Board meetings
The board held 39 meetings altogether (6th January, 14th January, 21st January, 28th January, 4th February, 11th February, 18th February, 25th February, 4th March, 11th March, 17th March, 25th March, 1st April, 8th April, 15th April, 22nd April, 29th April, 7th May, 13th May, 20th May, 27th May, 3rd June, 10th June, 17th June, 2nd July, 29th July, 18th August, 26th August, 3rd September, 15th September, 23rd September, 30th September, 14th October, 24th October, 28th October, 4th November, 11th November, 2nd December, 7th December)
All the notes from the board meetings have been made available for chapter members on Wikimedia Eesti wiki.
Important board discussions
During the year 2014 the board of Wikimedia Eesti continued discussions about:
issues related to documentation and reporting, including the questions regarding the translation of documents (English to Estonian and vice versa),
questions related to grant applications and grant reporting and other funding-related topics,
ongoing and future programs, including introducing program leads,
measurement of the success of the projects, including carrying out of different types of surveys for informational purposes.
From April to June important discussion about restructuring the staff of Wikimedia Eesti were held, resulting in consultation with chapter members and transforming the former position of the project writer to the one of executive director.
On the 21st of January 2014 it was decided that Wikimedia Eesti should change the plan related to 2013 and 2014 grants, meaning that the 2013 grant will be ended with February and in March 2014 a new grant period should start to accelerate the process of synchronizing WMF grant year with Estonian fiscal year.
On the 11th of March 2014 it was decided that the accountant will no longer have right to do payments and all the members of the board must have access to the bank account.
On the 27th of May 2014 Wikimedia Eesti voted for chapter representatives in the board of Wikimedia Foundation.
On the 2nd of July 2014 new staff job functions related to the restructuring process were approved.
MEMBERS
Some of the chapter members on a wikiexpedition in Latvia
Number of members
Wikimedia Eesti started the year 2014 with 33 members. 2 members left and 3 new members joined the organization during the year. As of the 31st of December 2014, Wikimedia Eesti had 34 members.
General assemblies
In total, 2 general assemblies were held in 2014.
The first took place on the 8th of March in Tartu in Jakobi Mäe Kultuurikoda. 18 members were present and 4 members were represented. Also a non-member employee was present on the assembly as a technical assistant.
The financial report of fiscal year 2013 was approved, the annual report of 2013 and the annual plan for 2014 was revisioned. It was decided that the auditing division will continue with 2 members and one of them was replaced. A strategy division was formed, consisting of 9 members. Tt was decided that the quorum will be reduced from 50% to 40% of chapter members.
Also it was decided that the board of Wikimedia Eesti will continue with 4 members and as a result 2 new members were elected.
Meetings
End of the year meeting of members from Tartu on the 15th of December 2014.
End of the year meeting of members from Tallinn on the 17th of December 2014.
EMPLOYEES
Executive director of Wikimedia Eesti participating on Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014
On the 14th of October 2013 Wikimedia Eesti hired its first employees: project writer and board assistant and in the beginning of the year 2014 the chapter continued with the same positions. In April, however, following the development talks with the employees, it became evident that there is a need to restructure the positions. On the 1st of July new positions of executive director and assistant were approved and on the 2nd of July 2014 their job functions described. Wikimedia Eesti finished the year with the permanent positions of 1 full-time executive director and half-time assistant.
The contracts signed as part of the pilot of wikipedization of the research writings of the students of Estonian secondary schools funded by the Ministry of Education and Research with the full-time trainer and half-time coordinator lasted until the end of June and no new contracts related to this project were signed. In December 2014, however, Wikimedia Eesti signed a contract with a full-time trainer of environmental awareness project with a term of the end of November 2015.
Throughout the year 2014, Wikimedia Eesti contracted professional bookkeeping services.
In the beginning of the year 2014, Wikimedia Eesti did not have any office space and the official post address of Wikimedia Eesti wasl Domus Dorpatensis, where Wikimedia Eesti had rented a hub space previous year.
With the changes on the board of Wikimedia Eesti and without a proper space to hold weekly board meetings and store the property of Wikimedia Eesti, the need for an office rental became more and more evident. In April Wikimedia Eesti started to rent a 24m2 office in the center of city of Tartu (address Lai 6) with the support of Wikimedia Foundation funding. There is an option to use a bigger gathering room, if available. Also the official postal address of Wikimedia Eesti was changed.
As of the 31st of December 2014, Wikimedia Eesti still rented the permanent office.
Ivo Kruusamägi, the leader of the education program of Wikimedia Eesti for universities
Wikipedia in schools
During the 1st half of the year Wikimedia Eesti employed one full-time trainer and a half-time coordinator and their contracts lasted until the end of June. During the project year Wikimedia Eesti interacted with 12 schools and finally in 6 schools Wikipedia workshops were held for 20 teachers and 41 students. Unfortunately, only 6 of these students did the final task foreseen in the project. There is a project page available.
As the project proved to be somewhat dysfunctional the Ministry of Education and Research was willing to restructure the secondary schools education program pilot into more prospective process of creating an e-course. Activities related to this restructured project will be carried out in year 2015.
Wikipedia in universities
In the framework of the biggest lecture course in the Department of Natural Sciences and Technology in University of Tartu, run from September to December 2014, students wrote about 190 articles with a minimal length of 8000 characters. Volunteers of Wikimedia Eesti have been editing those articles constantly and giving feedback to the authors.
Also a course on Wikipedia was given in the 2013/2014 Spring semester, not only focusing on Wikipedia itself, but the whole field of open knowledge, including copyright issues, crowdsourcing, encyclopedias, free software, information society, popular science, relations between Wikipedia and media, wiki software, Wikipedia in education, photography, etc.
Late night session of the first seminar for Fenno-Ugric Wikipedias
Fenno-Ugric cooperation is a project aiming to find solutions to the problems of small Fenno-Ugric Wikipedias in a joint effort and to ameliorate the content concerning lesser Fenno-Ugric cultures and languages in Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian, as well as in major Wikipedias.
A joint seminar with Wikimédia Magyarország and Wikimedia Suomi and the representatives of small Fenno-Ugric Wikipedias took place from the 22nd to the 24th of August, with a public conference day in Tartu and closed seminar in Vaskna turismitalu. The programme consisted of presentations, practical workshops and discussions. There were 23 participants from 5 countries representing 10 finno-ugric languages. During the article creation/translation event with the help of Minority Translate translation tool.
Prize ceremony for 2013 Tartupeedia events held on the 11th of January 2014 in Tartu City Hall
Tartupeedia is a project shaped after the example of Monmouthpedia, seeking the comprehensive and diverse representation of the city of Tartu in Wikipedia.
During the process of applying to 2014 grant, it was revealed that there was a remarkable conflict of interest in Wikimedia Eesti related to operating Tartupeedia project. As the result the project was slowed down and only a very small article editing month was held in October 2014.
Nevertheless Wikimedia Eesti discussed the future of the project with the municipality of Tartu and there is a general good will on both sides and the project will generally be continued.
Estonian Wikipedian participating on the Northern Latvia expedition in year 2014
Digitization of Estonian literature for Wikisource
For years Wikimedia Eesti has tried to find possibilities to support digitization of Estonian literature for Estonian Wikisource. In the year 2014 Wikimedia Eesti understood that although there are national programs related to this topic, there is no national strategy, nor proper coordination related to this project. As a result, Wikimedia Eesti has decided to change its active approach to a more passive one and wait until policies surrounding this topic will become more clear on the national level.
Latvia 100 is a project which consists of two stages: first, creating a list of 100 most important articles on Latvia that Estonian Wikipedia should definitely have, and second, to write and improve those articles to some decent, informative level.
Portrait of Heinrich Laakmann created through collaboration with Tartu Art School
University of Tartu
Cooperation continued with the University of Tartu. There were several meetings with lectors of the University and several presentations of the possibilities of Wikipedia related collaboration were made for students and lectors of the university. For further information regarding content related activities, see the long-term project Education and its subdivision Wikipedia in universities.
Ministry of Education and Research
The collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Research continued throughout the year. Although the initial planned project for wikipedization of research work of secondary school students did not meet its goals, the collaboration and discussions continued and in year 2015 Ministry of Education and Research will continue supporting the creation of a Wikipedia based e-course for secondary school students.
Estonian Environmental Investment Centre
In June 2014 Estonian Environmental Investment Centre approved the grant proposal from Wikimedia Eesti for a project to increase environmental awareness through Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in Estonia. Main focus will be on collaboration with secondary schools and higher education institutions and the activities will be mostly carried out in year 2015. There is also a project page on Estonian Wikipedia.
Tartu Art School
Tartu Art School has been supportive of possible collaboration with Wikimedia Eesti and in the first half of 2014 there was active collaboration period with Wikimedia Eesti and its projects, generating portraits of famous people of the city of Tartu. Unfortunately, there were some problems with derivative works and some of the pictures created during the project were deleted from Commons. Efforts will be made to continue the project in year 2015.
Wikimedia Eesti started the year 2013 with an executive board consisting of 3 members.
GLAM COOPERATION
Wikimedia Eesti has decided to make the most of the upcoming 100th birthday of Estonian Republic in year 2018, to use the anniversary to attract interest from possible GLAM partners and to inspire and encourage them to increase their participation in Wikimedia projects.
Wikimedia Eesti had discussions with possible partners throughout the year and finally the roundtable for the Estonian Republic 100 project took place with 15 participants from 12 organizations (from museums to archives and even relevant universities) on the 17th September 2014 and there was a certain interest to implement the program. The activities are foreseen to continue in the future.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Picture brought online through Wikimaps Nordic participation in Estonia
Estonian-Armenian Wikipedia cooperation
Collaboration between Wikimedia Eesti and Wikimedia Armenia continued with an exchange of the winners of the collaboration month of the year 2013. The winner of Estonian competition visited Armenia in Summer and the winner of Armenian competition made a visit to Estonia in Autumn. It has supported the collaboration on the level of chapters, but also nurtured collaboration between the communities themselves.
Wikimaps project
Throughout the year 2014 Wikimedia Eesti participated in Wikimaps Nordic project oganized by Wikimedia Suomi and with participation from Wikimedia Sverige, Wikimedia Danmark, Wikimedia Norge and OpenStreetMap. The main activities of the project in Estonia were related to working together with National Archives and University of Tartu to bring old maps and pictures of city of Tartu to Commons.
The competition was organized for the 4th time in Estonia and it was open from the 1st to the 30th of September 2014 and it had 81 participants contributing 1769 photos. The competition was organized with the help of Ministry of Culture, who supported a short-term position of coordinator for the projects. Also collaboration with the National Heritage Board of Estonia was continued. There were various prizes from the State Forest Management Center, Maaleht, Saarte Hääl and YIT Ehitus.
The final ceremony took place in the premises of Cultural Heritage Board on the 28th November 2014.
Runner-up of the competition (Mukri bog in the october morning mist)
Third place of the competition (Rookse elm)
Article competitions
Prize ceremony of translation bee 2014
The most successful article competition of Wikimedia Eesti, Translation bee took place from the 21st of February to the 21st of April 2014 with 52 participants translating 411 articles. This event was organized with the help of European Commission.
As the collaboration weeks/months have worked well in Estonia a Greek themed article competition was held in November 2014, following a decision on the CEE meetup on Wikimania 2014. It had 12 participants editing 230 articles.
Touring of exhibition of Wiki Loves Monuments 2013
Location
Start date
End date
Jõgevamaa Keskraamatukogu
01.03.14
29.03.14
Suure Munamäe vaatetorn
01.04.14
01.05.14
Viljandi Pärimusmuusika ait
05.05.14
31.05.14
Pärnu Keskraamatukogu
02.06.14
13.07.14
Rannarootsi Keskus Haapsalus
15.07.14
28.08.14
Virtsu Kool
10.09.14
10.10.14
Virtsu Seltsimaja
12.10.14
19.10.14
Wiki Loves Monuments 2014
Touring of exhibition of Wiki Loves Monuments 2014
Location
Start date
End date
Virtsu Kool
10.12.14
12.12.14
Virtsu Seltsimaja
14.12.14
20.12.14
Feminism project exhibition
The exhibition of feminism project was exhibited in Rapla Vesiroosi Gümnaasium, in café "Sõsar", Central Library of Lääne county, the cinema "Artis" in Tallinn and in Viljandi Culture Academy.
Estonian representatives taking part in WMCEE meetup on Wikimania 2014
Wikimedia Conference
From the 11th of April to the 13th of April 2014, the Wikimedia Conference was held in Berlin. Three representatives from Wikimedia Eesti were present. Useful information was acquired and contacts made.
Wikimania
From the 7th to 10th of August, Wikimania took place in London. There were three representatives from Wikimedia Eesti.
WMCEE Conference
From the 19th to the 21st of December, two representatives from Wikimedia Eesti participated in the WMCEE Conference in Kyiv.
On the 21st of March a board member of Wikimedia Eesti took part in a visit of Estonian NPOs to the European Commission in Brussels.
1 board member participated on the train the trainers workshop on Wikimania in London from the 4th to 5th of August 2014.
LOCAL
Members of Estonian wiki community participating in Wikipedia Summer Days 2012 edition
Summer Days took place on the 16th and 17th of August 2015 on Naissaar. It had 9 participants from the community and chapter and during 2 days they took actively part in recreational activities and discussions.
The newsletter of the chapter (MTÜ Teataja) was published weekly to the members of chapter throughout the year.
In the end of November, 1 representative of Wikimedia Eesti was present at the “Voluntary Thursday” in Tartu with the aim of increasing voluntary participation in the activities of the organization.
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