Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/17 March 2020

Wikimedia ZA - Board Meeting 17 March 2020'

Attendance

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

Apologies

• Rossouw
• Deon

Minutes

No offline meetings with WMF Grant Money

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

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

WMF grant meeting 18 March

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

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<econtermsgmail.com > as they have done these sorts of events very recently.

Banner ad - "edit in your language" - for not logged in users

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

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

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

Admin

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

Letter sent and acknowledged

Waiting for the copyright amendment act

Afrikaans Wikipedia funding request

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

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