Grants talk:Conference/WLM Team/Wiki Loves Monuments International Team Offsite Meeting 2017

This grant is currently under review. Comments are welcome on this page. Remember the Friendly space expectations!

Please note: There is one WMF staff person included as a potential recipient of travel reimbursement on this request. We do not currently have a policy about WMF staff requesting grants or receiving funds/resources from a WMF grant for work that they do in their capacity as volunteers. We have drafted a policy that we will be finalizing and publishing the policy in the next few weeks.

Under this policy, we will consider funding requests for projects that include WMF staff who when they are working in a volunteer capacity and on non-work time. WMF staff acting in a volunteer capacity should be evaluated as any volunteer would. The funding decisions will be made by a volunteer committee, not by WMF staff.

Grant committee members decisions

Grant Committee members who support this request

1. I support the proposal without any additional changes. The proposal is narrowly scoped, with clear and defined objectives, to build on the success of a high-impact project. harej (talk) 02:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
2. Support --ProtoplasmaKid (WM-MX) (talk) 23:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
3. support. I wish you agenda included a plan to encourage new groups to participate in the contests and help weak participants to improve. All the best. Mervat Salman (talk) 22:50, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Grant Committee comments

Hello Team; I was wondering if this meeting should really include only 15 participants; I thought you may want to increase participation even in reviewing the strategies and tools. May be as the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin would be a good chance for such a meeting, since representatives of most of chapters and user groups will be available, and those are really who organize the contest. Any way, I do support any actions that intend to boost and enhance the WLM contents. --Mervat Salman (talk) 21:14, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Mervat, thank you for your comments. These are indeed points we did consider. We limited the number at 15, to ensure that we can actually achieve the goals we set for ourselves. We need an effective meeting style, and if we go over that number (we may very well stay under it), we fear that this would lower the actual outcomes. Besides this main point, this also helps to keep the costs low, and to be effective in some team building. As for the time of the meeting: we chose deliberately to do this well before the Berlin conference. If we arrive at the conclusion that things should change in the approach or pipeline, we should have sufficient time for implementation of that change. That means that the meeting has to take place before the national organizers start their work - and Berlin would then be a perfect opportunity for follow-up discussions with a wider audience or joint implementation. I definitely agree that the 'real work' of the organizing happens at the national level, with the hundreds of volunteers. However, it is also important that the international team functions well in the future, as a coordinating body among them. I hope that explains a bit! Best regards, Effeietsanders (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders:: Thank you for explaining. This is convincing. Support. --Mervat Salman (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

ProtoplasmaKid's comments

Hi team. First, thanks for your great volunteer work on one of the main initiatives at Wikimedia movement and for your time organizing this conference. I have a few comments before to give my support.

• Although I understand the meeting attendees will be invited and Schengen area participants will be support to reduce costs, what was the criteria to choose the participants? Because WLM seems to be one of our *very* international contests and I don't see representation from certain areas as MENA or South America for an example. In addition I'm very concerned that this meeting will be a primary male gathering. Really WLM does not have any women leader involved? If there are no women leaders, will there be any discussion in this meeting to tackle the situation?
• What are the planned venue for the event? A hotel, a coworking space? Because the number of attendees can be an advantage to have a small space and reduce the cost of venue.

Thanks, --ProtoplasmaKid (WM-MX) (talk) 20:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi ProtoplasmaKid, thanks for your questions/feedback. The criteria for the selection of participants are focused on having maximum results with regards to reaching the goals of the meeting. This means that the international team will be joining, plus a few targeted people. The exact people that will be invited, are not decided yet, and will depend on the exact details of the agenda and the preparations. One criterium will be expertise that is not covered by the team already. Also, one of the participants will be LilyOfTheWest, who also organizes WLM-IR, but who decided not to request travel reimbursement for this activity. As for your second question, you're right that the smaller group may result in a reduced cost for renting space. We're looking into renting 1-2 houses for the meeting, and may end up using that for meeting space too. We may also find a local sponsor, as indicated. The budget for renting a space is our last resort. I hope that clarifies. Best, Effeietsanders (talk) 22:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Lodewijk. In addition I received input from WMF to my concerns. Although, please consider in this meeting discussion and ideas of positive strategies to foster women involment in the WLM leadership and organization around the world. Thanks for your time, --ProtoplasmaKid (WM-MX) (talk) 23:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Funding decision

Thank you for all of your hard work on this proposal. The three members of the conference grant committee have reviewed this request and have agreed to approve your request for 13,000 EUR to host an in-person strategy and planning meeting for members of the WLM international organizing team and relevant stakeholders. Please note that the grant committee will need to review and approve the list of participants who will be eligible for travel reimbursement before you make formal offers to participants. To do this, you should send the list of desired participants to me by email, and I will send it to the committee for review. You do not need to post the list publicly. Normally a program officer reivews and approves a list of scholarship recipients before scholarships are offered to participants, but because there is a WMF staff person who hopes to participate in this event in their volunteer capacity, the grant committee will need to review the list to avoid and potential conflict of interest. Please let me know if you have any questions. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, if I could cut in with my 2 cents :), I wanted to express my enthusiasm seeing this proposal accepted. Whereas I had a personal difficulty with proactively endorsing the submission (as an FDC member + call me a conservative bean counter but I like seeing more details from the start :) ), I do believe it is a great opportunity for the Movement. Not only for the Wiki Loves Everything and competitions community which can benefit from some good brainstorming, networking and sharing best practices - but literally for the whole Movement. A great strength of our usual meetings is a great possibility to network, solve a number of issues in one place, and get a clue about many things that are going on. A great downside is: rarely there is time to elaborate on the issues deeper, not to mention carrying the initiatives on, and with most projects all the parties need to be very solemn about doing the work after the conference to kickstart the new ideas. From my short history of focused (small and thematic) working meetings, they can spur much work and development offline and online, and I am waiting to see the results of this meeting to know if we should advocate this model and make similar meetings in other areas and more often. Best Regards! aegis maelstrom δ 22:11, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Budget change

The event will be in Como, Italy - where Wikimedia Italia has a good network. We were in the grant assuming that this could result in lower venue costs (while maintaining reasonable accommodation costs), but because we're looking at a venue/accommodation combination, it turns out this will be the other way around. The venue is likely more expensive than expected, and the accommodation will be cheaper. Combined, we will remain within budget.

As we have to get your permission for significant budget changes, I'm requesting permission to transfer up to €1000 (may be less) from the accommodation budget item to the venue budget item. Effeietsanders (talk) 08:51, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Effeietsanders, thank you for posting this request for a change in the budget - it is approved. We understand that sometimes costs turn out differently than expected for events, and are pleased that you were able to stay within the total budget. We hope that the meeting goes well this weekend, and look forward to hearing about it soon. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Report

The report is available here. Effeietsanders (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2017 (UTC)