Grants talk:Conference/Celtic Knot 2018/Report
Hi Jason User:Jason.nlw and team, I'm Chen Almog and I am the Conference Grants Program Officer, at the Wikimedia Foundation.
First, we thank you for the time and effort spent writing this report and appreciate the hard work you and the Organizing Team have done in hosting this conference. We recognize the importance of producing community conferences on a regular basis and want to emphasize the importance of creating an impact from community outreach and leveraging growth efforts. The Celtic Knot conference is a good example for the importance of community ties.
Here are some comments and questions I had regarding the report:
- Goals section: Hosting the Celtic Knot conference is not in fact a goal, it is an Action. By hosting the conference, you achieve the goal and objective you set up, like getting the community together, allowing scholarships so more people can attend and develop their capacity building. It is important to identify the difference between both so we can measure our success.
- Thanks for pointing this out. I have removed this as a goal and added a goal which reflects our reason for hosting the conference Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Great news about the Welsh language Wikipedia for children. Is there any update regarding this one? We will be happy to hear more about success stories.
- We are very glad to hear that there is a new suggested host for next year. Government support is such an important partnership and can often be a catalyst for the free knowledge movement. We will be happy to assist when time comes.
- Great, thank you. We hope to announce officially towards the end of the month, and i will put you in touch with the lead organizer Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Regarding capacity development section, would you be able to share some action items or professional input that came up during the sessions? It would be helpful in understanding the content and outcomes behind the headlines.
- Sadly i have only a few examples of specific actions which were a direct result of these sessions, however i have tried to expand this section to include more general feedback and takeaways from the individual sessions. Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Project and working groups section - do you have any indication for other community members, that didn't participate at the conference, and made use of this new tools?
- Not really, sorry. I hope that participants will come back for the 2020 conference and share progress made with projects Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- Un-conference session sounds like a great idea. It will be interesting to compare the impact gained as opposed to the pre-planned sessions. Do you have any thoughts or inputs regarding that?
- The feedback about the unconferenced session was really good, and there were sessions proposed which the organizers had not even considered. There also seemed to be great enthusiasm among participants for preparing and holding these sessions. It gave people who didnt speak on the first day a chance to lead a session. If anything we perhaps should of allowed more time for the unconference - however i think it was import to have the structured sessions in order to showcase the broad range of projects and activities being undertaken in small language communities. This overview helped participants focus their thoughts on what was most important to them, and then they could use the unconferenced time to engage in more detail. Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- The lesson regarding organizing the lectures is very positive and worth sharing with future conference organizers. I will be happy to coordinate a talk with next organizing team to also share best practices.
- Cultural and gender diversity is one of our main focus points. Could you share information and statistics regarding gender and culture representation (such as participants Nationality and Language) at the conference?
- Attendees from 11 countries
- 37.5% Female / 62.5% Male
- Unfortunately we did not collect data on the number of languages spoken, but many participants spoke two or more languages Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- What kind of means do you have to contact the participants and to follow up their progress? Would you be able to share this with future conference organizers? Are you planning a 6 months survey?
- I have a spreadsheet with all emails, which can be shared with the organizer of the next conference. We will also use #Celticknot to reach people on social media. I will try and do a 6 month survey soon as i get the time Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- For future reference, it would be worthwhile to try and quantify the In-Kind support from the National library or other partnerships you have. In Kind Donations are a great indication of the work you do, and the ability to create fruitful partnerships, and budgetary utilization.
- Agreed Jason.nlw (talk) 11:00, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
- It seems like there was a good and responsible usage of funds. Thank you for that.
I've also reviewed your financial documentation. Ones you respond to the above questions, I can formally accept the report. Thank you again for your great contribution, and hope to hear from you soon.
Best, CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
Grant report Accepted[edit]
Congratulations on completing your grant!
Your complete grant report has been reviewed and accepted, and documentation of expenses has been received (including the underspend). Thank you for your engagement with the reporting review process, and with your work throughout the grants process. We appreciate the outcomes from your project, and what you learned with WMF and the community.
We also warmly welcome any updates you would like to provide us about your completed project. We thank you for your work for the movement, and offer you our best wishes for your future work.
Thank you! All the best CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 09:45, 15 April 2019 (UTC)