Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Australia/2015/Annual Report

Wikimedia Australia 2015 annual report

Firstly to acknowledge WMAU members and supporters who without your efforts 2014/15 would not have been a success. Our thanks also to the members of the WMAU committee for your efforts during the year and to the WMF staff who helped and advised along the way.

Thank you to Kerry Raymond for her efforts in the development of the Australian conference, and to Craig for his ongoing efforts both of whom are leaving the committee this year. Our thanks also to Michael Billington who after stepping to the vacant treasurers position in 2013 has done a great job in sorting out WMAU financials. Michael also had the joy of rebuilding our website after our providor servers crashed just prior to Christmas in 2014. Also a special thanks to Craig and Graham who continued to assist with Bendigo bank issues and the transition to a new provider.

Unfortunately at this I also need to announce that despite re-nominating for the position of President Steve has decided to withdraw his nomination. We thank you for efforts as President over the last two years and for the commitment to WMAU as a committee member prior to that.

Committee

This was Steves second term as President along with many of the other committee members who continued on past year. As well as gaining the experience of two new members who had previously been on WMAU committees, Craig Franklin became our first former president to return to the committee in an active role. The committee continued to work towards developing process and addressing issues that resulted from the previous years changes. We also looked into the future and started planning how WMAU could best help and develop the community

Projects

There have been many significant projects along the way, we have also continued with our camera equiment assistance, and volunteer support programs as well. This year saw us get media accreditation for a community member to attend the Avalon Airshow as photographer which gave an opportunity for access to the field and behind the scenes. WMAU support continued meetups around the country and help with Wikibombs in Sydney and Melbourne. User:Gnangarra was invited to present at the Interpretation Australuia conference in St Kilda as well. Perth community also started a bid for 2017 Wikimania, unfortunately due to no Australians being in Mexico we were unaware of the changes, we will be keeping an eye developments with Wikimania hopefully we are consider for 2018 rather than being pushed to somewhere after 2021

Wikimedia Australia Conference

After some early discussions and planning which focused on WMAU holding a conference in South East Queensland an opportunity presented itself to also consider holding it Perth. WMAU decided on holding the conference at the State Library of Queensland with Kerry as the conference co-ordinator. After early discussions and aiming to get maximum value out of the travel costs WMAU came to considering a 5 day event focusing 2 days on the needs of Australian GLAMS, 2 days on wikimedians and one day workshop/hackathon program, this was discussed around the wider community who thought that such a long program was not going to work.

We later condensed this into a 2 day program with a third unconference day. Kerry compiled a budget and presented to the committee a grant application which we accepted and submitted to PEG for consideration. The request was rejected by PEG and WMAU after considering an even smaller event decided that it was impractical to to press on with the planning at that stage. Despite the event never taking place WMAU learnt some important lesson in its development and combining that with lessons learnt elsewhere we should see a successful event in the future.

Toodyaypedia

This project continued to expand and was able to obtain funding to create more plates around the town. We chose to focus on people related to the development of Toodyay and Western Australia from convicts to clergy to pastoralist and politicians the history and people of Toodyay have been intertwined with the development of Western Australia. There are many wonderful lessons to had from the way this project has progressed.

Noongarpedia

What a project it started when researchers at University Western Australia and Curtin University asked the simple question of why there was no Wikipedia in Noongar. After some minor issues the project leaders sort help local Wikimedians at their regular meetup, from the project has blossomed. The School of Indigenous Studies at UWA now has 3 Wikimedian in Residences who focus is on Noongar language and culture. We have a Noongar langauge Wikipedia taking early shape in the incubator along side a noongar Wikictionary also in the incubator.

Bright Future ahead

Many things will be explored for the coming year, we will take the Wikidata aims of the conference and organise for a speaker to tour Australia promoting its use and running workshops to help people better understand the project. WMAU will organising Wikipedia 15 events, we will take our experiences of 2015 and focus on a conference sometime in 2017. The other major change in WMAU will be structurally as the national committee facilitates the development of local semi autonomous branches under the WMAU umbrella negating the costs of multiple affiliates while retaining the national unity and cooperation that has existed since the development days of WMAU.

Notes

• annual report by the then WMAU Vice President Gideon based on notes taken at the AGM when a verbal report was given in lieu of a Presidents report being available.