Reports/2012/September

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Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 30 September 2012. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Program activities

Community

Editor decline
Jimmy Wales
Philip Roth
Political edits
Gender bias
Wikitravel

GLAM activities

See also the This Month in GLAM UK report for this month.

Wikipedia Takes Coventry

Wikipedia Takes Coventry was the first Wikipedia Takes... event in the UK
Coverage

GLAMcamp London

Other activities

Expert outreach

Technology

Other activities

  • Microgrants approved this month include ...

UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)

There has been a substantial amount of media coverage during over the last couple of months. The online coverage has been aggregated into a PDF file that includes links to the articles. Topics include Ada Lovelace Day, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia, Mentions of Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia Zero, Jimmy Wales, GLAM Camp London, EduWiki, our relationship with the PR industry and a collaboration with Know How Non-Profit. You can see the full list here

We also published the following blog posts in September:

Upcoming activities in October

For events in November and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Finances

  • The current state of each of our budgets is outlined in a Google Spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkP38YPQ7Tg3dEQyQnRTMUhDMnV1RHdHekhqSXZvZHc#gid=0. This details spend to date, and a rough estimate of future spending. This spreadsheet is too complex to be placed directly on a wiki. Our yearly spend is heavily 'end-loaded', partially due to the rapid growth of Wikimedia UK.
  • Although we may underspend in one or two budgets, the next few weeks will see a refocussed effort, led by a committee of editors, to work out how they would best like to spend this underspend.
  • We also expect to be moving money between some budgets in the not too distant future.

Board activities

News from the Chief Exec

For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.
The updates about the Wikimedia UK Interns can be found there too, together with here.

Communications

There were some notable communications successes this month. Both the EduWiki conference and our work around Ada Lovelace Day attracted a good deal of positive media attention. You can see the full breakdown of press coverage in the report linked to in the UK press coverage section above. In other ways this has been a challenging month in terms of communications and it was unfortunate timing that our Communications Organiser was on annual leave for the second half of the month. There have been appointments and departures on our Board of Trustees and the announcement of an independent review into Wikimedia UK's governance. There has been much conflation and presumption at the heart of much of the media coverage, both in terms of Roger's resignation and the announcement of the review, that it has been difficult to be clear and factual about what has actually taken place. In many ways September was something of a gift to our critics because of the perception of events - regardless of what those events actually were. Moving forward, we need to be more secure in making our own voice heard in amongst the media hubbub.

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,258.35 in one-off donations, with 68 individual donations. The average donation amount was £18.50 - 63% of these donors have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavageatwikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 6026 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £24,765.

Membership

Up to 30th September 2012:

  • 214 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members
  • 41 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)
  • This adds up to 255 members who are eligible to vote
  • 152 Expired members

Katherine is developing HTML templates for welcome emails for new and renewing members to sign-post them to resources and information and will be scheduling a regular job to email members who have renewed (monthly) and newly approved (post-board meetings).