Below is the Wikimedia Eesti annual report for the year 2015.
Divisions 1-4 contain information concerning the structure and divisions 5-11 present the activities of Wikimedia Eesti in the year 2015.
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 29th of June 2015
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. The general assembly of Wikimedia Eesti has quorum when 40% of chapter members or their representatives participate on the general assembly.
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 board, to carry out the auditing of the organisation.
BOARD
Board members of Wikimedia Eesti on Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015
Board members
Wikimedia Eesti started the year 2015 with the board consisting of 4 members and no changes in the board were made during the year. As a result as of the 31st of December 2015, Wikimedia Eesti has 4 board members.
All the notes from the board meetings have been made available for chapter members on Wikimedia Eesti wiki.
Important board discussions
During the year 2015 the board of Wikimedia Eesti continued discussions about:
issues related to documentation and reporting, especially bookkeeping and financial practices,
questions related to grant applications and grant reporting and other funding-related topics,
ongoing and future programs, including narrowing the scope of chapter activities,
roles and responsibilities of board members and employees.
In September 2015 Wikimedia Foundation staff visit was carried out, drawing attention of the board to problems related to financial and management practices of Wikimedia Eesti. As a result a restructuring process was planned out and started.
MEMBERS
Active members of Estonian photo community on an expedition in Osmussaare
Number of members
Wikimedia Eesti started the year 2015 with 34 members. 2 members left and 3 new members joined the organization during the year. As of the 31st of December 2015, Wikimedia Eesti had 35 members.
General assemblies
Only one General Assembly was held in 2015.It took place on 29th of June in Tallinn. 16 members of the chapter were present and another 13 were represented.
The financial report of fiscal year 2014 was approved, the annual report of 2014 and the annual plan for 2015 was revisioned. It was decided that the auditing division will continue with 2 members and there will be changes in the auditing committee in the following year. Also a decision related to microgrants was made and organization Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 was discussed.
Meetings
Meeting related to the end ceremony of Translation Bee 2015 on the 18th of June in Tallinn.
End of the year meeting of members from Tartu on the 18th of December 2015.
End of the year meeting of members from Tallinn on the 19th of December 2015.
EMPLOYEES
International organizer of European Science Photo Competition 2015 and Executive Director of Wikimedia Eesti Kaarel Vaidla handing over the prizes to Estonian winners on the final event
In year 2015 Wikimedia Eesti continued with full-time executive director and part-time (0.5 FTE) assistant, with a change in person concerning the latter in August-September 2015. Their job functions can be found on the respective page on meta.
In addition Wikimedia Eesti operated project based positions related to education program, namely full-time trainer for the environmental awareness project and 5 member working group to prepare the e-course for secondary schools. In addition with the funding of Estonian Science Agency a position of international coordinator of European Science Photo Competition 2015 was created.
In addition to local activities, employees of Wikimedia Eesti were also active internationally, with executive director participating actively on Wikimedia Conference 2015, science photo competition coordinator taking part on Wikimania in Mexico City and executive director, assistant and science photo competition coordinator taking actively part in organization and execution of Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 in Estonia.
Throughout the year 2015, Wikimedia Eesti contracted professional bookkeeping services.
In April 2014 Wikimedia Eesti started renting the office with the support of Wikimedia Foundation funding to provide a space for board and project meetings, as well as a working space for employees. Wikimedia Eesti continued to rent the office throughout the year 2015 and as of the 31st of December 2015, Wikimedia Eesti still rented the office.
Although the initial planned project for wikipedization of research work of secondary school students did not meet its goals, Wikimedia Eesti continued the work on Wikipedia related e-course. A 5 member working team was created, consisting of teachers, specialist of academic writing, as well as education technologists. Initial workplan did not work out and the course will be completed in 2016 and will be a chosen subject for Estonian secondary school students in autumn 2016.
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 2015, 164 students created and revised 195 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 other minor editing tasks were included in some other courses in University of Tartu and an effort will be made to increase the scope of the project in years to come.
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.
Second seminar for Finno-Ugric Wikipedias took place from the 2nd to 4th of August, with an open presentations day in Obinitsa (cultural capital for Finno-Ugric peoples in 2015) and closed seminar in Piusa Ürgoru Puhkemaja. The programme consisted of presentations, practical workshops and discussions. There were 26 participants from 3 countries representing 9 finno-ugric languages.
Wikimedia CEE Spring 2015 was organized on local level in 20 communities and Wikimedia Eesti had an important role in international coordination of the event. Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 had an international organizing and programme team from 7 countries, but it was locally coordinated by Wikimedia Eesti volunteers and staff. Also the meeting itself was a success with 60 participants from 31 communities taking part and 34 of these participants having an active role in conference programme.
WIKIEXPEDITIONS
Wikiexpedition of Wikimedia Eesti in Setumaa
Wikimedia Eesti has taken a strategic approach in improving photo content available about Estonia and is organizing expeditions to cover areas which are not well represented in Commons.
In the year 2015, five expeditions were made in various remote locations in Estonia. As a result 510 pictures were taken and 208 of them being used in various Wikimedia projects.
Dr. Mart Noorma, Anna Koval, Ivo Kruusamägi at the University of Tartu in Estonia
University of Tartu
Cooperation continued with the University of Tartu. There were several meetings and discussions about the possibilities of Wikipedia related collaboration. On September 10th 2015 also representative of Wikimedia Foundation education team Anna Koval had a meeting with education prorector of the university, Mart Noorma. Wikipedia work in the University of Tartu is coordinated by Ivo Kruusamägi. 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. See long-term project Education and its subdivision Wikipedia in schools.
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 activities of this project were various workshops and seminars. A total of 79 participants created a total of 97 articles. 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.
Unfortunately Wikimedia Eesti did not have human resources available to coordinate the GLAM project and thus little progress was made in year 2015. However, in year 2016 there will be an effort made to proceed with collaboration with local memory institutions and benefit at least to some extent from upcoming birthday of Estonian Republic.
The competition was organized for the 5th time in Estonia and it was open from the 1st to the 30th of September 2015 and it had 27 participants contributing 812 photos. Collaboration with the National Heritage Board of Estonia was continued, but it was hard to maintain general interest in the event and most probably in 2016 WLM will not be organized in Estonia (at least not as big competition).
3rd place - Water tower of Tartu railway station by Ivo Kruusmägi
Wiki Loves Earth 2015
The competition was organized for the 2nd time in Estonia and the active competition period was open from the 1st of May to the 31st of May with 47 participants uploading 600 pictures. The participation levels and quality of pictures increased in the second year of the competition.
Winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2015 competition
1st place - Valgesoo forst by Külli Kolina
2nd place - Tolkuse bog by Märt Kose
3rd place - Old small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata) in Saarnaki islet by Kairi Kalmann
Article competitions
The most successful article competition of Wikimedia Eesti, Translation bee took place from the 21st of February to the 21st of April 2015 with 42 participants translating 340 articles. This event was organized with the help of European Commission.
The tradition of county article contests was continued with Lääne-Viru article competition where 10 participants contributed 41 articles. Also the psychology articles bee was organized for second time and had 11 participants creating or complementing 24 articles.
In the end of the year also a Latvian article competition was held and it had 6 participants writing or complementing 32 articles.
Representatives of Wikimedia Eesti on Wikimedia Conference 2015 in Berlin
Wikimedia Conference
From the 15th of May to the 17th of May 2015, the Wikimedia Conference was held in Berlin. Three representatives from Wikimedia Eesti were present making also active contributions to the programme of the conference, participating in panels, discussion groups and making presentations.
Wikimania
From the 15th to 17th of July, Wikimania took place in Mexico City. There were two representatives from Wikimedia Eesti.
Wikimedia Eesti has also increased its collaboration with Wikimedia RU and so 1 member was present on Wiki Sabantuy in Bashkortostan and 1 member also visited their conference in Kostroma.
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