Reports 26Apr11

Below are the Board reports to the Board Meeting on 26 April 2011; see Agenda 26Apr11.

Templates for actions: Done, Carried forward, Cancelled.

Template to mark something as needing discussion: Discuss

Roger Bamkin (Chair)

Done recently

• Info Shock: Getting to grips with information and responsibilities - still in progress. Thanks to all for patience
• Rock Drum: Made clear that we are happy for Fae to attend and RD under WMF funding but we are not responsible for RD.
• Meeting with National Railway Museum. They will use Wikipedia for new gallery and are keen to hold events and do more. A backstage pass is a natural. An event here could gather those "up north"
• Communicated with all board members about individual interests to work out "who does what"
• Updated board profile (need to do mine with a pic)
• Investigated Birmingham as venue for next meeting and ...
• Booked Flight for Vienna -May 15-18
• Started to close out GLAMDerby
• Visited National Museum of Scotland re QR Codes

Actions

• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'.
• Updated board profile (need to do mine with a pic)
• Close out GLAMDerby - publicise Wright Challenge - help?

Mike Peel (Secretary)

Done recently

• Change of board: email addresses (see [1]), mailing lists (board, office, chapters), wikis (board, office, chapters); internal-l subscriptions (thanks to dungodung)
• Facebook: please add me as a friend ([2]) so that I can add you as an admin to http://www.facebook.com/WikimediaUK . Note that we also have a 'group' at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5678482133 - which I propose we delete.
• Blog: Martin Poulter and Chris Keating are now admins. Please can everyone else register at http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/wp-login.php?action=register so that I can make you an admin.
• Wikipedia:Meetup/Manchester 7 happened on 24 April (total of 4 attendees; low numbers due to the timing...); will be followed up by Wikipedia:Meetup/Manchester 8 some time in June. All welcome!
• OTRS queue access update requested (see email as of 25 April). Should open the OTRS queue up to volunteers to help with? Discuss

Tasks to do

• Sort through / close off old email addresses

Actions

• MP to sort out email addresses + board and office lists for new board members. Done
• MP to set up access to blog for board members, and admins on facebook. Carried forward (see above)
• MP to remove TD from CiviCRM, and to add CK. Other board members not to be added at this time. Done
• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'. Done

Andrew Turvey (Treasurer)

Report

Discussion / review items

• Review of upcoming fundraising-related deadlines
• Participation in 2011-12 fundraiser; meta:Fundraising 2011/Chapter Fundraising Agreement
• Membership approvals

Actions

• AT to notify Companies House and Charities Commission of the election of the new board.
• AT to send a memento of our gratitude to the teller, outgoing board members, and speakers (excluding new board members), from WikiConference UK 2011
• AT to investigate debit cards for bank account signatories.
• AT to investigate how we can move to multiple signatories for large transactions.
• AT to investigate term deposits and return to the board with options.
• AT to email around details of the interested candidate to be an office manager, and to also advertise the position externally.
• TD to give AT the password for the main paypal account. AT to give all board members read-only access to the paypal account.
• AT to send around detailed information about the facilitation for the strategy discussion; decision to be made by email. Fæ to look into background, and to pin down specific outcomes (with SV). CK has contacts in this sector; will ask for a competitive quote. Fæ to take the lead with this topic.
• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'.

Chris Keating (Director)

Report

• Internal comms - paper emailed to board. Have also started to familiarise myself with CiviCRM a bit. Discuss
• Re strategy discussion - awaiting brief then will approach my contacts
• National Maritime Museum - ongoing.

Actions

• CK to email around a summary of his internal communications review.
• AT to send around detailed information about the facilitation for the strategy discussion; decision to be made by email. Fæ to look into background, and to pin down specific outcomes (with SV). CK has contacts in this sector; will ask for a competitive quote. Fæ to take the lead with this topic.
• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'.

Martin Poulter (Director)

Report

Actions

• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'. Done

Fæ (Director)

Report

Decisions needed

• Task force proposal: Proposal emailed to board members and discussed with selected peers on the GLAM network.

Updates

• Board workshop: Emailed and phonecall planned with Jay. Chris and Steve approached for alternative proposals. Progress likely to be slightly delayed compared to expectations due to bank holidays.
• GLAMcamp London: Conceived and agreed as hosted for free by the British Library. Re-scheduled for 24 June 2011, format and participants up for discussion. Looking at poor European participation in GLAMcamp NYC, there may be scope for a larger Eurocentric conference late in the year.
• GLAM network: Wangled invite for British Library digital archivist to join the planned Welcome Trust researcher's image sharing workshop on 3 June 2011 (where I'm representing GLAM and WM Commons interests). This will only be of press interest for any actions taken after the workshop. As announced at AGM, 4 June 2011 is scheduled for the next British Library event so Wikipedia banner, press release, sign-up page all need to be organized in the next few weeks.
• m:GLAMcamp NYC: signed up to take part (20-22 May), logistics underway.

Actions

• AT to send around detailed information about the facilitation for the strategy discussion; decision to be made by email. Fæ to look into background, and to pin down specific outcomes (with SV). CK has contacts in this sector; will ask for a competitive quote. Fæ to take the lead with this topic.
• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party'.

Steve Virgin (Director)

Report

1) Watershed - Agreed we would support the marketing team & train them to understand how to improve their own Wikipedia page, add content & improve the number of hits to their site Objective - the key to unlocking every single organisation is the Director of the Watershed Dick Penny http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Penny - he is already a supporter as the venue has sponsored WMUK in the past. If he sees benefits in terms of hits to the Watershed site it will encourage him to help us unlock other content holders - such as Bristol Old Vic (which is credited as saving in the city) and which is creating & investing in a major archive of theatre history going back to 1770. The artistic Director Tom Morris (who does not have a page BTW) has said he is interested in sharing content with us. Dick Penny would help clinch this possibility.

Action - Martin Poulter has had a conversation with Marketing person - he drafted brief mail on state of play - we have passed it on to Jez@Hotwells who has expressed an interest in taking control of the improvements to this site

2) BBC Bristol - Agreed that we would offer a Lunchtime Learning session with Andy Corp (who also represents BBC Anchor Project that co-sponsored JW talk in town in January). Andy has said 'he's going to float the same lunchtime learning session idea with his BBC London counterpart' and that 'when he gets a spare moment, he'll consider the idea of an In-Residency too (he knows what we did at British Museum last year and wants to sit and think about how it might work before proceeding).

Action - Martin Poulter and I have followed up Andy's suggestion with our willingness to commit = it is now down to us to confirm dates & times

3) Arkive/Wildscreen - over the last year there have been ongoing discussions about an official In Residency this summer inside ARKIVE/Wildscreen. http://www.arkive.org/ Where we are at is - the Marketing Chief & Stand in CEO attended JW Talk in january. Marketing Chief & MP & SV have met and exchanged mails on a possible draft job description for an In Residency role. There has been some discussion internally between MP & SV on the topic to refine these ideas.

Action - SV/MP to continue working on job description & to get a final draft to Board ASAP - get Board support - then get ARKIVE Board to sign off so a person can be in place by this summer

4) University of Bristol - there is a concrete offer of office space within the SetSquared Business Incubator section of the University of Bristol. there is a document that the UofB side wrote completely in the dark not knowing what it is we actually want. So please don't consider this anything other than a beginning point. The presence of the University team at the AGM reaffirmed this commitment publicly.

Actively recruiting people to support a Pro-Wiki initiaitive inside the universioty...Dave Jarman (senior lecturer) has mailed all 700 people who attended the JW talk asking them to volunteer to build and develop on the relationship with WMUK & Wikipedia. He is splitting the replies into 3 groups - academics, students + outsiders (last groups comes to MP & SV). These groups could well become a pool from which we could recruit a range of volunteers for projects, they could team up with any on-site Wikimedian Intern or they could simply build and develop their own projects with WMUK Board support.

Additionally, only 2 days before the AGM they added to the mix the offer of a paid for summer Intern on their side. They were recruiting 4-5 people for various summer roles anyway, they agreed to convert one of these to being somone who would devote their time to building relationships to all things WIKI & to support us in what we are seeking to achieve in both the city & the south west

Then, the University actively seek to host an official Campus Ambassador's (CAP) training event inside the University BEFORE 27 June when all the students leave. They would love to host this program & are prepared to go the extra mile to get it off the ground

Risks - When this (CAP) project was first discussed we set incredibly high standards for who may or may not be selected to be trained as an ambassador - thus reducing the numbers of people possible to a very small number immediately. We need to 'balance' expertise, need and understanding of our objectives with our prerequisites for an ambassador - such as teaching & communication skills, willingness to take on new ideas - some form of tenure at the university (not just about to leave). Next there is timing - we are entering the exams period - very few places in the academic world want to deflect and set up something like the CAP during exams. Equally, students do their exams and then split for the summer - so our 'audience' for a CAP training session could vanish in a matter of a few weeks

Recommendations We need a package that all the Board would feel comfortable with that would encourage the University of Bristol to carry on with what it has begun to do. I suggest delegating powers to proceed on all fronts on these matter listed above to MP & SV - maybe reporting into RB or Fae as a 'check and balance'

If ARKIVE/Wildscreen Intern happens - there is an immediate 'high profile' tie in project that would instantly raise the profile of the work the summer U of B Wiki Intern is doing.

5) Knowle West Media Studio - is seeking a long discussion about partnership opportunities (had to cancel meeting just prior to AGM due to time pressures)

6) The Director of Futures for the City pinged me today about another group interested in talking - know nothing yet but I know this much "Lottery Funded 'living rivers' project in Brislington" - so would proceed - copying & involving MP at all stages

Other thoughts

Any In Residency in Bristol has to put 'external events' at the centre of the planning & objectives: be they Editathons, Competitions, Training Days or whatever - so any money spent by WMUK prioritises training non-Wikipedians in how to work with us so that a ripple effect begins where we can draw on more volunteers & more people seeking out content for us

7) QR Codes & Museums - Bristol is opening a brand new multi-million pound museum on June 11 called M-Shed...I had invited staff members to the BrisWiki Academy on March 19 but they did not attend. In following up I spoke to the head of curation & content for all 5 museums in the city & explained what we did. He promised a meeting after the M Shed opens. he explained how MShed was capturing user generated content & its plans.

Action - MP & SV to follow up after June 11

8) Bristol Cathedral Choir School - again as a result of the JW talk there is interest in training sessions. A teaching staff member has now got involved in the dialogue & I initially copied in Alex Stinson, as I he had some formal training material to discuss with him. After Ollie Brae's talk at our AGM I now feel confident to go and talk more to the School directly (again with MP) and to hand them 'Wiki Leaflets' that MPeel handed me at the AGM + to explore and explain some of the simple ideas that Ollie Brae listed that could be included in a teacher's planning

9) Coming down the track Bristol Festival of Ideas - 'Bristol & the Word 2012' - this is an intiaitive run by Andrew Kelly (co-sponsored JW talk last January) - by which B FoI approaches the Lottery for funding for Writers in Residence. Over the summer they plan a program for 2012 which would involve documenting the city, capturing content, creating books from the content, capturing experiences of the city, its history, its heritage etc

Kelly approached me about this in November 2010 - and 'in theory' I asked the Board for 'theoretical' support subject to more details if and when they emerge - which i received. These details may well be no more than a month away.

Actions

• All to produce a short profile for the website. Also to put together a summary of what they 'bring to the party' (ACTION COMPLETED).