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Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/17 March 2020

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Wikimedia ZA - Board Meeting 17 March 2020'

Attendance

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  • Adri
  • Bobby
  • Coenraad
  • Douglas
  • Ian
  • Michael
  • Wynand

Apologies

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  • Rossouw
  • Deon

Minutes

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No offline meetings with WMF Grant Money

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Which scheduled activities does this affect and what are the counter measures that we can take.
Strategy Session and Meetup: Team feels that we can go ahead with zero budget, but we need to wait for now to make sure that everyone is healthy.
Online Meetings are possible, and should be encouraged
Lets use this opportunity to give Zulip a push - https://wikimediaza.zulipchat.com/

Strategy Workshop

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Agreed to host it on the Sunday, April 5 - 10:00 - 13:00 - https://wikimediaza.zulipchat.com/ in invite

WMF grant meeting 18 March

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Theory of change document - to incorporate into 5 year plan
Aimed at developing grant application
Current grant report due end of July, current grant ends June
What we do as UN Sustainable Development Goal objectives
Do we have backing documents - eg a WMZA strategy document and/or "report pack"
Good idea to read our report to the WMF here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_South_Africa/2019
Also check the WMZA category on meta
Suggestions: satelite training e.g. one central trainer virtually talking to classes faciliated by known wikipedians e.g. Wynand at RU and Ingrid at UCT simultaneously
Also ensure that strategies are aligned to political will through linking to SDGs etc.

Online Events

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Training videos in indigenous languages
Bobby asks about remote editathons
Ask Peter Meyer at Wikimedia DC about who to talk to there for remote edit-a-thons<econterms(_AT_)gmail.com > as they have done these sorts of events very recently.
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Need to consider timing as might compete with other banner ads
consider user journey - and next steps
Working group: Adri, Coenraad, Douglas, Dumi

Zero rated Wikipedia

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provided for free by Vodacom
Telkom provides zero rated access to all universities, but not Wikipedia
Media Statements
Wynand recommends writing to Minister of Science & Technology too
Highlight existing relationship with UCT zero rating, and educational benefit of Wikipedia
Coenraad volunteered

LIASA Conference in October - Potential Opportunity - Partnership strategy/ies

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Discussed free stage time for LIASA Partners at upcoming LIASA Conference (pending not being cancelled). This potentially means 10 minutes for LIASA partners being WikimediaZA, Knowledge Management Association etc. (Wynand)
Opportunity for WMZA to address 800 librarians for 10-20 minutes. Banner stand was turned down
Having WMZA embedded in LIASA strategy is the goal
Librarians are Information Scientists - and their role has adapted, and there is scope to align with WMZA
LIASA is a membership association for Librarians - they have a Wikipedia practice group

Matters from previous minutes

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Admin

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Financial matters
Loan outstanding
50% recovered, agreed to pay outstanding R6k by July
Reimbursements
CIPC Registration
Still not up to date
Mailing address

Maroela Media

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Letter sent and acknowledged
Waiting for the copyright amendment act

Afrikaans Wikipedia funding request

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Conversation was not had, but we can't use WMF funds for offline events at the moment.
Recommendation that Deon looks at doing online editing sessions

Communication and social media channels, infrastructure

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From 3 March to 17 March:

  • Twitter: 1552 followers -> 1559
  • Facebook (English): 971 follows (895 likes) -> 973 (893)
  • Facebook (Afrikaans): 625 members -> 638
  • Mailing list (Afrikaans): 314 members. Suspect most are fake, aol addresses, no valid activity for years -> 314
  • Mailing list (English): 271 members -> 271
  • Instagram 154 Followers -> 155
  • Meetup: 122 members -> 123
  • Youtube: 51 subscribers -> 51
  • Zulip: 13 users -> 14