Grants:Conference/Wikimedia Serbia/CEE Meeting 2019
Event overview
editPurpose 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?
CEE meeting is an annual meet-up of volunteers and editors from the Wiki community from Central and Eastern Europe for the purpose of networking and knowledge exchange. The idea of gathering is to stimulate the growth of Wiki projects in this community through regional cooperation between chapters and affiliates. Volunteers from these countries have a similar history and culture which can affect establishing cooperation and networking for common growth. It is important to point out that the communities are of different sizes and each is unique in the experience it has acquired within the Wikimedia Movement. The CEE Meeting uses similar community characteristics to consolidate links between them, while using diversity for learning and sharing experiences.
The first CEE conference was organized in Belgrade in 2012, followed by conferences in Modra (2013), Kiev (2014), Voreu (2015), Dilijan (2016), Warsaw (2017) and Lviv (2018).
Goals
The goals of the CEE Meeting 2019 (CEE 2019) are:
- to promote, develop, strengthen, and support the collaboration between various Wikimedia chapters, thematic organisations, user groups, projects, and other communities in the region;
- to support the sharing of 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 help and support smaller communities and network them with chapters which can provide technical and human resources;
- to document and track current projects and developments carried out by the CEE Wikimedians;
- to interconnect CEE Wikimedians working on solutions to similar challenges;
- to involve Wikimedia Serbia more in CEE communities in order to make Serbian Wiki community stronger.
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) | 11-13 October, 2019 |
Proposed location | Hotel M, Belgrade, Serbia |
Number of participants | 120 |
Event page | CEEM 2019 |
Primary contact person | Filip Maljković |
Background
editCommunity input
editUse 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? |
Top issues that need and should be discuss at the conference are:
|
2nd |
Capacity development:
Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn? |
These are the skills that community thinks are necessary to gain and apply:
|
1st |
Working groups:
Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person? |
Below you can see the projects that need to be planned in person or maybe some activities:
|
4th |
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:
|
3rd |
Survey analysis:
- How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?
- We have sent invite via CEE mailing list (two times), Facebook group (two times) and 30 individual calls with a request to share the survey within their community. We’ve got 18 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 noticed top 2 goals - Understanding the strategic direction and what it means for our communities and Volunteering goals (protecting project or organization leaders from burnout and recruiting new ones).
- Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?
- We should have good input - updates and an overview, interactive sessions to include more voices in the process; get actionable items to start working on, even if it fulfills a small part of Strategy outcome. As for the volunteers, community should inspire younger volunteers and clearly state why is that great for them and us. Also, we should collect opinions, ideas, have meetings with a new editors and possible volunteers as well as develop new ways of attracting new community members.
Context
editIt 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 Serbia is an organization with many years of experience in organizing conferences. It was founded in 2005, and in 2012 it opened an office in Belgrade after obtaining an annual grant. Wikimedia Serbia has successfully implemented annual plans, achieved set goals, and at the end of 2017, it adopted the Strategy of the organization for the period January 2018 - December 2020. One of our plans is to be more involved in CEE community. Organizing conference is a huge step towards it. We believe in sharing experience and thought conference program we will give participants chance to do that. We strongly believe that CEEM 2019 should be a place where we can share our ideas and thoughts about new projects and successful models of cooperation.
- 2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?
- During many years of its existence, Wikimedia Serbia has organized various international, regional and local conferences. Among the most famous is the first CEE conference organized in 2012. In addition to it, there are also four local, annual Wikipedian conferences. 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, 2017 in Warsaw, Poland and 2018 in Lviv, Ukraine.
- 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?
- We had a meeting with organizers from the last year and they pointed out some risks and shortcomings we should bear in mind. Since the report is not available yet, we'll be guided with priorities from 2017:
- 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.
- We had a meeting with organizers from the last year and they pointed out some risks and shortcomings we should bear in mind. Since the report is not available yet, we'll be guided with priorities from 2017:
- 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?
- We are proud to emphasize the improvements which we introduce every year and which are helping us ensure good quality of the WikiLive conference. First, we wanted more involved community members in conference program. That is why we opened call for submissions. Community members could send us topics they wanted to present or they could suggest what do they want to hear or talk about at the conference. Second, we made parallel sessions, round tables and panel discussions in order to make conversations more interactive. Also, over the years we gathered valuable feedback from the participants and used it to make various logistic changes.
- In addition to organizing, Wikimedia Serbia has had numerous representatives at international conferences. The participants used those occasions, among other things, to spot the good sides of the event, as well as improvements that can be implemented. The organizers will endeavor to apply the acquired knowledge to the organization of the CEE Conference 2019 and invest all the effort needed for the conference to pass without any problems, but with good results.
Plan
editVenue and Logistics
edit- 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?
- Venue is located in a peaceful part of Belgrade, surrounded by greenery of the Banjica park. It is 25 minutes from the airport (the only one) by taxi. Also, it is 15 minutes from the city center by car and 20 minutes by the city transport (bus lines 33, 47 and 48 and tram lines 9 and 10).
- 2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?
- Accommodation, venue and catering will be provided at the four-star Hotel M.
- 3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?
- Hotel M has two rooms suitable for people with physical disabilities. Two of three venue halls are approachable, but one hall (Belgrade) and the restaurant are not.
- 4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?
- We could have challenges in terms of accessibility for people with physical disabilities. Hotel staff members will be available for helping them. Also, we'll ask participants in registration form if this is acceptable and comfortable for them.
- Additional information about the venue
- Hotel M is the first officially licensed convention hotel in Belgrade. The meeting will be held in the congress halls Atrium, Forum and Belgrade. Halls Atrium (with capacity of 180 seats) and Forum (with capacity of 90 seats) are interconnected with the foyer and communal area. They are suitable for people with physical disabilities. Congress hall Belgrade has a capacity of 100 people. All halls have basic technical equipment (projectors, laptops, flipchart, sound system). The hotel will provide a special high-speed internet connection for CEEM participants that will be sufficient for streaming needs.
- Accommodation - The participants will be hosted in comfortable twin rooms. We also reserved a few single rooms for participants who have difficulties in sharing rooms with other people. Scholarship grant includes four nights. Breakfast is included in the accommodation costs.
- Catering - Catering during the conference days includes lunch, dinner (except for Saturday when we’ll have dinner in the city center) and two coffee breaks. Lunch is on the buffet system. Hotel restaurant confirmed that the menu can contain options for vegetarians, vegans and people allergic to gluten and lactose.
- Social event - On Saturday evening, a city tour will be organized for the guests of the conference. They will have the opportunity to see the beauty and history of Belgrade with the help of a tourist guide. After the tour, the dinner is planned in a restaurant located in Skadarlija. Skadarlija is the main bohemian quarter and the second most visited tourist attraction in Belgrade famous for its archaic urban organization and architecture. The transport will be organized by rented bus.
Friendly space policy
editPlease link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.
At the annual Assembly in December 2018, Wikimedia Serbia adopted the Friendly Space Policy, which was created based on the Friendly Space Policy of the Wikimedia Foundation. This document is available on the Organization's website and will be effective during the conference.
Participation
editIt 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.
- Primary target group is mainly consisted of participants from countries and territories of Central and Eastern Europe who are actively involved in the work of their Wiki chapter or community, who have a solid knowledge of English and who are ready to actively participate and contribute to the conference program. Participants can be volunteers involved in projects or affiliation governance, but also those who are focused only on editing Wiki projects.
- 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?
- As the meeting is meant for most active Wikimedians from the region, we do not plan to have any outreach activity for participants. It could happen spontaneously, but it won’t be in our focus.
- 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
edit- 1. How many scholarships would you like to offer?
- We have budgeted 75 international and 5 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, promo package, social events and food and beverage during the conference.
- 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
editDescribe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.
Resources
edit- Organizing team
Risks
editExamples 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.
Risk assessment table:
Potential risk | Solution | Responsible person |
---|---|---|
Lack of volunteers in the organization team | We had already started to work on creating a volunteer base
that will help us coordinate activities before and during the conference. Core organising team is formed and call for the volunteers will be open in March. |
Ivana Madžarević |
Lack of participation or attendees from
some communities |
We will have proactive approach in terms of communication with
potential attendees. Beside general calls on mailing list and meta, we’ll try reach the most active volunteers via various communication channels. |
Filip Maljković |
Lack of interest in the event | We are planning on including questions on conference programme
in registration form to determine what topics participants want to hear in order to make conference programme interesting. Also, we’ve got feedback from last year’s organizers about people who avoided participation, so we’ll have that in mind while selecting them. |
Ivana Madžarević |
Badly prepared speakers | We mentioned solid knowledge of English language as obligatory
criteria for selection. We’ll suggest Program Committee to organize Hangouts calls with speakers in order to better prepare them. |
Ivana Madžarević |
Financial risks:
|
We added 10% increase to ticket costs and 800 euros for unforeseen
expenses. We also calculated catering (meals and coffee breaks) costs for 120 people and conference fees in order to protect the budget from overruns. |
Bojan Cvetanović |
Follow-up
editUpdate
Wikimedia Serbia will provide monthly update report on what has been done over the course of that specific month. This report will be send on WMCEE-l list and CEE Facebook group in order to make things transparent and to make space for improvements. This way, we’ll try to involve broader community and previous organizers.
Survey
All attendees will be provided with a survey in order to get the feedback from them. Survey results will be presented within the report after the conference. We hope that answers will include their opinion on:
- presented topics and whether they’ve learnt something new and applicable in their community
- should something be changed / added / improved within the program
- what are the shortcomings of the conference
- did conference provide opportunities for establishing potential regional cooperation
- did they feel safe and comfortable
- additional comments
Content
- Selected topics will be recorded and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with speakers' consent.
- Selected topics will be live streamed, so participants who aren’t present can follow the program.
- All speakers will be encouraged to prepare presentations which conform to open licensing so that they can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. In other cases, speakers will be asked to upload their presentations to Google Drive.
- Notes will be taken on Etherpad.
Budget
editPlease provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.
- Event budget table
The budget value is in euros. We used the exchange rate on 28/01/2019: 1 EUR = 1.1405 USD.
Travel
editPlease see the details of the travel budget in the table.
Nr. | Item description | Unit | Quantity | Cost per unit | Total cost | USD | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | Travel costs | 19,092.50 | 21,775.00 | ||||
1.1. | International travel | participant | 75 | 251.90 | 18,892.50 | 21,546.90 | Based on estimates from travel sites and known travel origins with 1 checked bag per person. |
1.2. | Domestic travel | participant | 5 | 40.00 | 200.00 | 228.10 | Participants from other cities of Serbia. |
Accommodation
editNr. | Item description | Unit | Quantity | Cost per unit | Total cost | USD | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2. | Accommodation costs | 18,768.00 | 21,404.90 | ||||
2.1. | Lodging | participants*nights | 320 | 32.40 | 10,368.00 | 11,824.70 | Breakfast is included. |
2.2. | Catering | participant | 120 | 70.00 | 8,400.00 | 9,580.20 | Lunch and dinner on the conference venue during 3 days (except Saturday dinner). |
Venue
editNr. | Item description | Unit | Quantity | Cost per unit | Total cost | USD | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3. | Venue costs | 6,330.00 | 7,219.37 | ||||
3.1. | Rent | day | 3 | 1,150.00 | 3,450.00 | 3,934.73 | Donation of the Hotel M. |
3.2. | Coffee breaks | participants*breaks | 720 | 4.00 | 2,880.00 | 3,284.64 | |
3.3. | Technical support | days | 3 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | It is included in the venue costs. |
Other income / expenses
editNr. | Item description | Unit | Quantity | Cost per unit | Total cost | USD | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4. | Other expenses | 5,535.00 | 6,312.67 | ||||
4.1. | Video recording service | day | 3 | 305.00 | 915.00 | 1,043.56 | |
4.2. | Promo packet for participants | participant | 120 | 6.00 | 720.00 | 821.16 | Sack bags, name tags, badges, folders, pens, antistress balls, stickers, magnets, maps. |
4.3. | Working material | 500,00 | 570,25 | Roll up, posters, banners, papers, markers, stickers. | |||
4.4. | Saturday dinner | participant | 120 | 15.00 | 1,800.00 | 2,052.90 | Dinner in Bohemian district of the city - meal + drinks. |
4.5. | Downtown city tour | tour | 1 | 800.00 | 800.00 | 912.40 | Donation of Wikimedia Serbia. |
4.6. | Unforeseen expenses | 800.00 | 912.40 |
Nr. | Item description | Unit | Quantity | Cost per unit | Total cost | USD | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5. | Income (inc. in-kind) | 6,250.00 | 7,128.13 | ||||
5.1. | Rent of venue | day | 3 | 1,150.00 | 3,450.00 | 3,934.73 | Donation of the Hotel M. |
5.2. | Conference fee | participant | 20 | 100.00 | 2,000.00 | 2,281.00 | Expected from non-funded participants. |
5.3. | Downtown city tour | tour | 1 | 800.00 | 800.00 | 912.40 | Donation of Wikimedia Serbia. |
- Total cost of event
- 49,725.50 EUR = 56,711.93 USD
- Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program
- 43,475.50 EUR = 49,583.81 USD
- Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded
- Hotel M in-kind donation for the rent of venue: 3,450.00 EUR = 3,934.73 USD
- Conference fee from the non-funded participants: 2,000.00 EUR = 2,281.00 USD
- WMRS in-kind donation for the downtown city tour: 800.00 EUR = 912.40 USD
- Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.
- YES
Discussion
editEndorsements
editDo 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.
- This annual conference has been important factor in growth of Wikimedia activities in Latvia. I have attended several of these conferences myself and have seen improvements in many areas that benefit the attendees. Recent years have seen better documentation and participant engagement practices. Papuass (talk) 10:49, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
- Last year's Wikimedia CEE Meeting was the first one for me. I noticed that the size of the conference (smaller than Wikimania) and its regional character seemed to create a more informal atmosphere and conducive learning environment. At the same time, these are easier to organize and have a great transformative effect on the local community. --Frhdkazan (talk) 10:59, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
- After change of Wikimedia Conference to Wikimedia Summit and shifting of organisational education from it to regional and topic meetings, such meeting is vital to keep our international volunteers in in good education, high resourcefullness and knowing each other (very important to keep and boost the regional collabouration). --KuboF Hromoslav (talk) 13:56, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
- The CEE Meeting is the most useful conference for the communities in the CEE region. The conference was organized professionally in the previous years, its thematic and program reflected very well on the needs of the participants, and plays an essential role in the intercultural, international, interaffiliate connections and collaborations. Samat (talk) 19:51, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
- My endorsement no longer matters because is already founded, but I still want to send my congratulations to this team, because I see many valid people from our movement. Thank you for proposing and taking care of it. Camelia (talk) 07:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)