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Comments about funds allocation

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Two comments regarding the financial report:

  1. If WMCH would like to reallocate funds from certain areas of the project budget to other areas instead of returning the remaining USD 3400 to WMF, WMCH must submit a formal request for reallocation on the talk page of the grant request and present a revised budget for approval. By our calculation, only USD 21,600 was used for approved purposes (this is the sum of the amounts approved in areas when spending was equal to or more than the approved amount and the sum of amounts approved in areas when spending was under the approved amount, or 7500 + 10500 + 600 + 1000 + 2000)
  2. Additionally, we would require as part of this request, clarity regarding some of these expenses, especially in areas where WMCH overspent significantly (for example, "TAO Project organisation and coordination").

-Wolliff (talk) 00:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

  1. the formal request has been placed directly on the report page.
  2. First I would apologize for an ambiguity we noticed now in the grant request. It wasn't clear enough that the grant was ask to participate to a project and not finance the whole project. The main overspent according to the budget breakdown is due to the participation to the "question d'âge" fair, a fair dedicated to the senior, held for the first time in June 2011. This fair was unknown when the grant has been request. Due to modification of the lead of the project inside WMCH some information has been lost, like the need to ask formally to the WMF the modification of the budget proposed. The participation to this fair has been really positive, we meet a lot of senior, and professional in the field. Unfortunately it lead only to one new wikipedians, but also create collaboration with the fair itself and a local newspaper. By lack of volunteers, this collaboration haven't been exploited in 2012, but will be in 2013. --Chandres (talk) 08:28, 21 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Request for clear statement of impact

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This report as written does not give us a clear enough idea of the project's impact. Whether or not the project was executed as successfully as planned, we need to know what exactly the use of these 21,600 - 25,000 actually did achieve. You state that you were able to increase WMCH's credibility with "third age universities", but it is unclear how that is a statement of this project's impact, especially considering that you are not moving forward with the project; were you able to measure any increased involvement in Wikimedia projects among your target group (in this case, adults over 50), for example?

Please provide a clear statement of impact, and we will proceed with reviewing this report.

-Wolliff (talk) 00:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi, It hink there is a misunderstanding, WMCH do not continue under the umbrella of the TAO project consortium, but will continue to work to increase involvement of adults over 50. For example, considering the third ages universities, we will have workshop and conferences in at least two new U3A in 2012-2013. --Chandres (talk) 07:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for clearing that up, Charles: now would you or someone else from WMCH please respond to the question above regarding the statement of impact? Wolliff (talk) 21:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Please find here a more detailled statement of impact. From our point of view it's important thar we clarify the difference between the whole TAO project, what the TAO consortium was waiting from us and the WMCH activities in the scope of the project. For WMCH we had activities with a clear positive impact. It gives us the opportunity to be in contact and initiate collaborations with

Seniorweb, in collaboration with WMCH, organised 3 internet and wikipedia workshops dedicated to seniors in shopping centers in 2011 WMCH had a stand and organized worskhops at fair dedicated to seniors : about 7'000 visitors within 4 days.

  • Universites of third age  : there are 7 Universities of third age (3UA) in Switzerland : one lecture and 2 workshops on Wikipedia were given in 2011.The collaboration continues and other lectures and/or workshops are planned for 2013. In 2012, following the contact initiated by Wikimedia CH, representative of all the swiss 3AU went to Germany for a congress on free knowledge and e-learning proposed by a TAO member (university of Ulm).

A lecture was given by WMCH’s CAO to the teachers of a Popular University. The chairwomen and the teachers expressed their interest for further collaborations as workshops or integration to computer or photography classes. New senior editors : 1 for Wikipedia, more than 20 for Commons via WLM. Of course not a lot, but what we learned it that this public is more difficult to reach and to convince than younger ones. So, it will take more time and efforts to gain contributors. But when they are convinced, they remain contributing for years and have time to do it.

It also give us a better view of how successfully approach the senior. To make a long story short the TAO project line was "teach them how to edite Wikipedia", whereas our experience demonstrate that first you have to help them with the computer thing, then explain them how wikipedia works, then find a subject with enough interest for them in order to create the feeling "how can I edit the article". A posteriori it could appear obvious, but when the TAO project has been designed, it has been done on the assumption that seniors were ready to became wikipedians, and this is absolutely not true. The impact on our actual activities is a better design of the project with a focus on the thematic of interest of a senior group. For example in 2013 I will personally teach Wikipedia and Commons to the members of an association of support of the Neuchatel Botanic garden. Here the entry point is the Digitization of the Herbarium and the finishing phase of improving the picture caption and the usage on Wikipedias.

About the decision to withdraw : If we did all correctly and we financed the project, why we left the consortium? The question is simple. We had in charge the communication and the coordination of several partners, but we are not organized like a web agency. These activities have been really time consuming. We accepted to do it at the start because we supported the TAO consortium in a better way, but after we proposed to change our tasks with some activities more conform to our strategies. TAO consortium not accepted our proposal, so we decided to do these activities out of the consortium. After 18 monthes, we also noticed that the project is more an academic survey that what we were expecting and that the time devoted to the project’s management was to important in regard to concrete realizations. Following the example of WMDE’s program Silberwissen, we have now the contacts to be able to build concrete projects, workshops, lectures,… with senior public. The partners in TAO will continue to support Wikipedia and to train elderly people to use Wikipedia, but we would focus our interest and future projects with elderly people in different activities with more direct impact for the Wikimedia Movement.--Chandres (talk) 20:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Summary of this project's impact

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After reading your statement of impact, would it be fair to summarize that the following were your main measures of impact?

  • The recruitment of 1 third age Wikipedian
  • The participation of 20 seniors in the WLM project with SeniorWeb
  • Partnerships were established with 3rd age institutions
  • WMCH improved its strategy for outreach to seniors by focusing more on thematic workshops

Wolliff (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it's an accurate synthesis--Chandres (talk) 14:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Questions about your statement of impact

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We have a few questions about your statement of impact:

  1. Would you provide more details about your partnerships with 3rd age institutions in Switzerland: details about participation in the workshops and lectures and the results of these events?
  2. Is there a place where you posted materials you developed and lessons learned about conducting editing workshops with seniors so that they might be shared with the broader community? This might be helpful in supporting the observation that seniors are more effectively reached through thematic workshops.

Wolliff (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

  1. Yes, our CAO will add more details in the next days (just after the FDC rush)
  2. We will soon have a total reorganization of our association wiki, the goal is actually to make more accesible such document. As soon as it will be done we will add a link on the report and make an announcement on the relevant mailing list. --Chandres (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Request for reallocation approved

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The request to reallocated USD 3400 within the project budget from communications and translation expenses to meeting expenses is approved. Thank you for submitting a formal request. Regards, Wolliff (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Report accepted

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This report is now accepted, but we still would like you to follow up by answering the questions above so that we can better understand your project. Cheers! Wolliff (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Documentation of expenditures

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Receipts and documentation of expenditures were requested in January 2012, but never provided. Note that we do not necessarily have any concerns about this grant or grant report: this is simply noted here as a matter of public record. Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 22:01, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Reply