Grants:Conference/WM UA/CEE Meeting 2018

statusFunded

CEE Meeting 2018

CEE Meeting is an annual regional conference for Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe. Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018 will be held in Lviv, Ukraine, as selected during the bidding phase.

targetWikimedia projects in all CEE languages (Albanian, Armenian, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Turkish, Ukrainian plus Esperanto, Kashubian, Crimean Tatar etc. and potentially Montenegrin), Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata

strategic priorityIncreasing Participation

event dates13 October 2018 - 15 October 2018

amount-local39,425 USD

amount39,425 USD

typeorganization

nonprofitYes

creator• NickK

contact• treasurer

wikimedia dot org dot ua• Taras r
• ceem2018

wikimedia dot org dot ua

organization• Wikimedia Ukraine

website• https://ua.wikimedia.org/

give feedback

endorse

Friendly space expectations

index

Review your report

Event overview

Purpose and vision

Please give a brief description of the event you are planning. What do you hope to accomplish during the event? Why is this event important for your community?

Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe is a partnership among communities in Central and Eastern Europe. Our communities are of different sizes and levels of experience, from communities successful both online and offline, to those that are yet to develop or even yet to emerge. The main goal of our partnership is to stimulate growth for all Wikimedia projects of this region, develop cooperation for mutual aid and development of projects, affiliates and communities of the CEE region. Our vision is developing partnership between communities speaking different languages but sharing similar regional challenges to achieve this goal.

Wikimedia CEE Meeting is a key annual event to stimulate and develop this partnership. The event is the main venue for regional cooperation and follows previous successful editions (2012 in Belgrade, Serbia, 2013 in Modra, Slovakia, 2014 in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2015 in Voore, Estonia, 2016 in Dilijan, Armenia, and 2017 in Warsaw, Poland). The main goals of the 2018 edition are:

to promote, develop, strengthen, and support collaboration between Wikimedia chapters, user groups, projects and other communities in the region;
to develop capacity by sharing experience, good/bad practices, and valuable learnings among CEE wiki communities, as well as offer a place for the wiki communities to gain new skills, discuss and analyse each other's stories and work;
to work on shared challenges, such as community development, Wikimedia strategy and gender gap;
to discuss the state, track the progress and consider improvement of current projects, especially development and possible evolution of the CEE spring;
to connect Ukrainian Wikimedians to other CEE communities in order to develop the Ukrainian community.

Important details

Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.

Proposed date(s)	13 October 2018 - 15 October 2018
Proposed location	Lviv, Ukraine
Number of participants	100
Event page	Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018
Primary contact person	Taras r

Background

Community input

Use the results from the community engagement survey to fill in the table below. Since you cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important. Please rank the priority of each topic, skill, project or problem as high, medium or low. Finally, please answer the questions below the table.

	Description	Priority
Strategic discussions: What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?	The key issues (in order of priority from highest to lowest) were identified as: Increasing the level of cooperation on the level of communities. New cross-border projects, instead of or in addition to the existing CEE Spring. Attracting new editors and creating comfortable conditions for them. Developments of small communities. Implementation of Wikimedia 2030 strategy in the region. Gender gap.	1st
Capacity development: Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?	It is important to notice that needs of communities in the region vary a lot. The following skills were mentioned frequently: Creation and development of local communities. Recognition from WMF. Support of small communities. Wikidata, particularly integration into local wikis. Encouragement of new editors. Outreach, particularly in education. Conflict resolution. Dealing with paid editing. Writing and using learning patterns. Technical skills, particularly to speed up the editing.	4th
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?	The main joint projects to work on were identified as (top four only): Trans-border cooperation (several separate topics of cooperation applicable, particularly, article contests, GLAM and other projects). Trans-border contests: CEE Spring, WLE, WLM, European Science Photo Competition, Wikiexpeditions. Particularly, a lot of applicants mentioned desire to discuss the future of CEE Spring, or another contest which will replace it. Advocacy & Copyright Law. Gender Gap.	3rd
Community building: Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?	The following topic that do not follow into other categories were mentioned frequently: Trans-border cooperation between the communities Learning from (un)successful experience from other communities. CEE foreign affairs with WMF, EU and states. How to influence and promote our targets. Venue of future CEEM.	2nd

Survey analysis:

How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?
The survey was sent to the mailing list, Facebook group and leaders of regional communities (overall more than 100 people). We expected at least one answer per community (32 communities in total), and we received 30 answers.
Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 goals?
Yes, we did. Trans-border cooperation (in particular working on common projects, and especially CEE Spring) and capacity building (learning from experiences of each other) were identified as the top 2 goals.
Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?
The top-5 responses were the following:
1. Sharing successful local experiences
2. Organising thematic discussions on problems that concern multiple communities
3. Brainstorming and creating new projects and ideas
4. Discussing and setting specific goals for the next years
5. Identifying and building collaborative projects which can be extended to the region

Context

It is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.

1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018 will be the seventh annual meeting of Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe. The idea of this event was born at Wikimania 2011 in Haifa. The meeting evolved over the time and became the key venue for learning, experience exchange and strategic discussions for Wikimedians from the region, helping build collaborations and develop new ideas (such as CEE Spring, one of the biggest article writing contests in the movement). The natural consequence of the successful 2017 edition was the proposal to organise a new edition in 2018 to continue the positive trend of successful collaboration.

Wikimedia Ukraine proposed to host the 2018 edition at Wikimania 2017 in Montréal when it was announced that no bids were submitted so far. This followed our experience of organising the 2014 edition of the conference in Kyiv which was regarded as a successful one by the CEE communities and which helped our chapter gain the necessary skills to organise an international event of such scale. We offered to host the conference in Lviv, the biggest city in Western Ukraine with a very active community (over a hundred Wikipedians, including dozens active in offline events), as it will allow CEE Wikimedians discover a different region of Ukraine and will help us strengthen the local community. The results of the bidding process were announced in November 2017, and gaining the right to host this event will be inspiring to local Wikimedians.

2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?

This meeting will be a follow-up of the successful previous editions: 2012 in Belgrade, Serbia, 2013 in Modra, Slovakia, 2014 in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2015 in Voore, Estonia, 2016 in Dilijan, Armenia, and 2017 in Warsaw, Poland. The previous meetings have brought a lot of new ideas and projects involving many communities in the region, such as CEE Spring, Wiki Loves Earth and Carpathian Ethnography Project.

During the last year have been witnessing a high level of cooperation in the region. The two large recent projects are the launch of the CEE Newsletter to share experience between communities of the region and organisation of the new edition of Wikimedia CEE Spring 2018. In addition, we continue developing bilateral cooperations between communities as well as some smaller-scale projects.

3. Please list the priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?

According to the 2017 report, the priorities were:

Strategic discussions. A majority of CEE affiliates have endorsed the strategy. However, to our best knowledge, there are no ongoing discussions on the strategy for the last few months, although we are aware there are preparations at the WMF level.
Capacity development. We noticed a significant development of GLAM collaborations in the region, both as a part of #1lib1ref campaign and beyond, some successes in education (for instance in Georgia in Turkey), more active presence of local communities on Wikidata (subjective as rather hard to quantify), as well as more presence of CEE Wikimedians in international projects.
Projects or Working Groups. The CEE Newsletter is active, and we see more collaboration between communities (such as one between Armenia and Austria). We also see CEE Wikimedians involved in Wikimedia CEE Spring 2018.

4. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what key lessons were learned, and what would you like to improve on?

The CEE community is hosting the CEE Meeting since 2012. From the 2017 report, we learned that we will need a strong team (we have one), we want to keep community participation high and we intend to document sessions as it was done last year. On the improvement side, we are planning to be more flexible (but not going into complete anarchy) with selection of attendees, will look for good places for informal discussions and will consider dedicating more efforts to the programme team.

Wikimedia Ukraine is hosting national Wikiconferences every year since 2011, and two of them were held in Lviv (2011 and 2015). We organised the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014 in Kyiv. We have made a significant progress in organising our national event since 2011, and the key learning for us was making the programme most meaningful to the community through a participatory process (survey, on-wiki discussions etc.), as well as gained many organisational experience.

Plan

Venue and Logistics

1. If the venue is more than 1 hour away from a major airport or transportation hub, how will participants travel to the event venue?

The venue will be the Sheptysky Center. The Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), one of the biggest Lviv universities, opened a modern library building in September 2017. We think this modern space will be very accommodating and in line with the wikitradition of cooperating with GLAM institutions (site, facebook). This venue is located close to the city center next to the Stryi Park, one of the oldest parks in Lviv. It has good transport connections: direct bus from the railway station, one interchange from the airport with travel time about 30 min.

Lviv is a major transportation hub of Western Ukraine, with an international airport within the city limits and a railway station with direct services to many Central and Eastern European countries.

2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?

We are planning to use University Collegium guest rooms that are within walking distance from the hotel. If we will not be able to accommodate all participants there, we will use other hotels: Lviv is a major touristic centre and has several hotels within walking distance from the venue.

3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?

The venue and the hotel are very modern (the conference venue was inaugurated in 2017) and are wheelchair-accessible. We will be able to provide assistance if needed.

4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?

We do not anticipate any significant challenges, as so far we did not have any issues in planning the event with the university. We have not signed all the details yet however, as we are still 7.5 months before the event.

Friendly space policy

Please link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event. We are planning to use the same policy as in previous year: Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017/Friendly space policy.

Participation

It is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.

1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.

Our target audience is: chapter, group and community leaders from affiliates and language communities of the CEE region, active experienced Wikimedians from the region, as well as active local Ukrainian Wikimedians.

2. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?

The major outreach component of this conference is a geographic one: we will encourage participation from communities that have historically been little active (e.g. Lithuania or Slovenia). Should they be interested in participation, we will ensure engagement with them by integrating them into our usual communication channels (mailing list, social media, newsletter, on-wiki discussion) as well as by developing bilateral connections with their communities. We hope this will help them make an impact on developing communities of their projects, as this already happened in several countries of the region (such as Albania, Bulgaria, Latvia, or more recently Romania and Moldova).

3. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.

We are planning to invite some WMF staff members. The exact names or teams will be defined at the later stage as we are currently just working on the general vision and goals of the event. Judging from preliminary results, staff members working on Community Resources team will be those whose participation will be the most important.

Scholarships

1. How many scholarships would you like to offer?

We have budgeted 62 international and 30 national scholarships. Depending on the needs, requests and costs we might end up offering a few more or a few less scholarships.

2. What expenses will the scholarship cover?

The scholarships will cover travel costs, accommodation and lodging.

3. How will scholarship recipients be selected?

For established chapters and user groups, they will be selected by the boards, on-wiki discussions or general meetings of their organisations. For those not having established groups we intend to welcome most active and engaged Wikimedians, mostly based on their submissions (if any) or history of on-wiki and off-wiki collaborations. For national scholarships, we will evaluate previous experience and the value of participation in the meeting (both for the user and for the event itself).

Resources and risks

Describe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.

Resources

Organizing team

Name	Role	Estimated time allocation	Experiences in organizing of events
Taras Rykmas, based in Lviv	responsible for event logistics (venue, hotel, meals, local transportation etc), WMF liaison	~240 hours	WikiConference Lviv 2015
Olia Nesterenko, Board member	responsible for coordination of volunteers (transfers, registration etc)	~120 hours	WikiConference Kherson 2017
antanana, volunteer	responsible for working with the international program committee	~480 hours	WikiConference Kyiv 2014, Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014, WikiConference Lviv 2015, WikiConference Kyiv 2016, WikiConference Kherson 2017
Maksym Tsizh, volunteer, based in Lviv	event logistics (hotel, meals)	~120 hours	WikiConference Lviv 2015
Illia Korniiko, Chair of the Board	responsible for working with partners, grant proposal, WMF liaison	~120 hours	WikiConference Kyiv 2014, Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014, WikiConference Lviv 2015, WikiConference Kyiv 2016, WikiConference Kherson 2017
Viktor Semeniuk, volunteer	visa/invitation letters (if needed), travel support	~240 hours	WikiConference Vinnytsia 2013, WikiConference Kyiv 2014, Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014
Юрій Булка, board member, based in Lviv	venue	~240 hours	WikiConference Lviv 2015
Ліонкінг, volunteer	working with the International programm committee	~480 hours	WikiConference Kyiv 2014, Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014
Friend, volunteer, based in Lviv	social events, event logistics (local transportation, coordination of transfers to/from airport, railway station etc)	~120 hours	WikiConference Lviv 2015
NickK, Board member	grant proposal, financial management, WMF liaison	~120 hours	Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014
Vira Motorko, project manager, based in Lviv	event PR, keeping in touch with CEE communities / affiliates	~360 hours	Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014, WikiConference Lviv 2015, WikiConference Kyiv 2016, Wikimedia Conference 2018 (Visiting Wikimedian)
Anna Khrobolova, project manager	event PR, volunteer support, souvenirs, printing materials	~480 hours	WikiConference Kyiv 2016, WikiConference Kherson 2017
Oleksandr Kotliar, event manager	event logistics, souvenirs, printing materials, assistance with international travel (tickets, bookings, reimbursement) etc	~480 hours	WikiConference Kyiv 2016, WikiConference Kherson 2017, different non Wikimedia events

Risks

Examples of risks, along with how you would minimize or overcome them, are:

Skill gaps in project leadership team (e.g. no financial management experience)
Components of the measurement process that are hard to quantify

Examples of how to minimize these risks include:

Recruiting volunteers with desired skills to project leadership team.
Working with the WMF Learning & Evaluation Team to develop an appropriate measurement and evaluation plan.

Lack of participation or attendees from some communities — unlikely for big communities but possible for smaller ones — we will work closely with these communities to help them choose representatives to Lviv to minimise this risk.
Lack of interest in the event — unlikely — we will work on a conference programme interesting to all participants to minimise this risk.
Financial risks, such as change of exchange rates, increase in ticket prices etc. — very likely — we added 10% increase to ticket costs (as they are very likely to increase by the time we buy them) as well as 10% contigency to minimise this risk, and request the grant in USD as it is more stable than UAH.
Border problems — not very likely as no CEE countries need Ukrainian visas but some invited foreign attendees might need them; the only regions that might have issues being Russia and Kosovo — we will work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make sure all participants can attend.

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Event budget table

Travel

Please see the details of the travel budget in the Google Docs table.

Nr.	Item description	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit	Total cost	USD	Comments
1.	Travel costs				19 750	19 750
1.1.	International travel	participant	62	280 + 10%	19 000	19 000
1.2.	Domestic travel	participant	30	15	450	450	Local participants from other cities of Ukraine
1.3.	Visa fees	participant	3	100	300	300	For invited speakers

Accommodation

Nr.	Item description	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit	Total cost	USD	Comments
2.	Accommodation costs				11 700	11 700
2.1.	Lodging	participant * nights	90 * 4	20	7200	7200	breakfast is included
2.2.	Catering	participant	100	45	4500	4500	lunch and dinner

Venue

Nr.	Item description	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit	Total cost	USD	Comments
3.	Venue costs				2975	2975
3.1.	Rent	days	3.5	80	280	280
3.2.	Coffee breaks	breaks * participants	7 * 100	2.5	1750	1750
3.3.	Technical support	days	3	315	945	945	filming of sessions

Other income / expenses

Nr.	Item description	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit	Total cost	USD	Comments
4.	Income (inc. in-kind)				595	595
4.1.	Venue rent	day	3.5	170	595	595

Nr.	Item description	Unit	Quantity	Cost per unit	Total cost	USD	Comments
5.	Other expense				5000	5000
5.1.	Materials and gifts for participants	Participant	100	15	1500	1500	Souvenirs for participants (pens, notebooks, t-shirt or bags etc)
5.2.	Downtown bus city tour	Participant	100	5	500	500	Translation will be provided
5.3.	Unforeseen expenses				3000	3000	~10% contingency for unforeseen, we hope not to use it.

Total

Total cost of event: 40,020 USD

Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program: 39,425 USD

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded: Venue in-kind donation (595 USD); Affiliates funding extra attendees from own costs, amount to be defined.

Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

YES

Discussion

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Support --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:42, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Strong support - CEE Meeting has for years been a centerpiece in one of the most successful regional collaboratives of the movement - CEE. The meeting is a venue for discussing new collaborative projects, learn from each other and as well inspire Wikimedians from around the region. Also last year proved that it is a good place for strategic discussions and a great opportunity to get valuable input to Movement strategy discussions. I strongly support organization and funding of the event in 2018. --Misosoof (talk)
Support - the CEE Meeting has proven to be one of the most interesting and productive meetings in recent years and the model of using a university campus for the meeting is very promising and makes it easier for people to mingle, when everyone is in one place at all times. Philip Kopetzky (talk) 08:42, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Support — Mehman 97 15:27, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Support — Thank you for organizing the CEE event.--Jetam2 (talk) 16:18, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Support CEE Meetings became very important for communities in the CEE region. These events were well-organized conferences in the previous years with valuable presentations, panel discussions and meetups with many great ideas and enthusiastic Wikimedians. I am sure, this year it will be the same. Samat (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Support My own experience with CEE Meeting was transformative. I was invited to attend CEE Meeting 2014 in Kyiv and as a result we founded Wikimedians of Latvia User Group. Before that I was not even aware of offline Wikimedia activities and why it is important. This is why I believe that meeting people in person is so important for our movement — there are still communities in region which have very limited offline activity. Papuass (talk) 18:57, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Support one of the best examples of regional meetings, should continue Mardetanha ^talk 23:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Support As a part of the selection committee for the 2018 CEE Meeting, I fully endorse this proposal. The grant proposal (as the bid) shows again the great dedication of the team. I like the idea of using the event to decentralize WMUA activities and I really like the event location, quite against the trend in the movement to use hotels for conferences. What I would like to see is an even strong emphasis on capacity-building, as I think learning happens best at regional (or even local) level. As for previous CEE Meetings, I'm happy to advise on the program, but also contribute with at least a session. Furthermore, Wikimedia Deutschland is hosting Vira, one of the organizing team members, at the moment, as she is currently doing a Visiting Wikimedianship for the Wikimedia Conference 2018. So, good grounds are set for a great conference! Cheers, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE) (talk) 23:38, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Arno-g Musik 17:22, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
Support. Rotating regional conferences are more accessible than global and are great tool to foster a sense of international Wiki-community. -- Frhdkazan (talk) 08:46, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Support. Previous CEE meetings have shown that attendants brought inspirations and cooperations back home. And there are quite some problems in the region that should additionally be discussed in person (Turkish ban for example). Thus I endorse this sound grant application. --Gereon K. (talk) 20:31, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Support — Jaba1977 (talk) 17:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

For grantees

If you are the grantee or representative that wrote this grant submission, you may request changes by using these links:

Create a request for an extension of the approved project completion date.
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