Meeting:Board (2025-03-18)
See also the list of all meetings.
Introduction
- Date: Tuesday 18 March 2025
- Time / time zone: 2pm AWST / 5:00 pm ACDT / 4.30 pm AEDT /
- Meeting channel: Zoom = https://us06web.zoom.us/j/4127540823
Attendance
- Attendees: Elliott, Shravan, Jeremy, Emily, Peter and Belinda (in ex-officio)
- Apologies: Kassi
- Absent:
Acknowledgement of Country
Previous minutes
Minutes of previous meeting:
- Tuesday 18 February 2025 Meeting:Committee (2025-02-18)
Reports
Executive Officer report
APNIC Foundation grant for the Ian Peter archive digitisation project
Thanks to everyone for the discussion on email around the copyright clearance work required for the Ian Peter project. If there are no further questions from the email Proposal and quote (email date 7 March) then the work will commence as soon as possible to ensure it’s completed within the required time frame.
RightsCon 2025 Taipei
Belinda and Elliott met with representatives and staff of various major organisations while at RightsCon in Taipei. Some of the meetings included:
- Timid Robot, Director of Technology from Creative Commons
- Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikipedia Asian Month teams
- WMF Global Advocacy team including Rachel Irini Judhistari from our ESEAP region
- Children’s Online Safety and Privacy Research (COSPR) team from University of WA Tech & Policy Lab, Dr Kate Sim (Director of Program) and Associate Professor Julia Powles
- Kiki Fong Lim, Vice Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia
- Leeanne O’Donnell, Board Director at the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) who is now a consultant but held policy roles with Vocus, Communications Alliance, NBN and iiNet.
- The WikiTongues team
- Wiki staff from various affiliates, including Ceslause Ogbonnaya from WikiIndaba, Vanj Padilla from the Philippines, and Sandra Acheng from Wikimedia Uganda
Belinda and Lotus presented a joint session on the First Nations report by Distinguished Professor Bronwyn Carlson, and Belinda also outlined our plans regarding the ICIP Protocol with Terri Janke and Company. It was well-received by participants and we had useful discussions with the WMF and wider movement.
Belinda has provided a Reflections on RightsCon blog piece on our WMAU website.
Partner Projects 2024-2025
- State Library of Victoria project partner is going well with Kerrie and Ellie creating and expanding pages. Dashboard here.
- SA Museum Mike Dickison will be visiting Adelaide around 13 April for a couple of days to talk with staff, and align the Wiki Strategy with their collections.
- 2SER-FM WiR have some events planned and Alice and Annie have been providing some additional support. Dashboard here.
ESEAP Strategy Summit attendees
The Scholarship team for the ESEAP Strategy Summit in Manila in May 2025 advises that the following people have accepted scholarships:
- Elliott Bledsoe
- Belinda Spry
- Alice Woods
- Amanda Lawrence
- Jeremy Ludlow
- Alex Lum
Belinda will attend as a member of the ESEAP Preparatory Council and Elliott will attend in the role of President of WMAU.
Scholar’s costs will be covered by the Summit conference budget, however Belinda may need an additional night’s accommodation to arrive early and prepare with the ESEAP Preparatory Council members for the Summit. Waiting for travel plans and flights to be confirmed.
Some recent successful editathons:
- Franklin Women - ABBVie in Sydney on 19 February (Alice). 20 people attended
- 2SER-FM - Sydney on 20 February (Alice) tbc
- Artbank - Sydney on 7 March (Ali and Annie) 6 in-person and 4 online attended
- Women’s Art Register - Melbourne on 8 March (Pru and others in Melb) 30 people registered but only 3 came to the session. This is a surprise for this traditionally well attended event. Waiting on feedback from WAR coordinators.
Anne Dangar and Ethel Carrick exhibition/NGA - Canberra on 15 March. 15 people attended.
Australian Communities Foundation (ACF) grant
No update at this stage.
Communications
Social media report:
February Statistics
Total followers as of 31 December, 2024 Twitter: 4050 (up by 48) Facebook: 2008 (up by 32) Instagram: 666 (up by 6) Linkedin: 387 (up by10) Mastodon: 224 (up by 5) YouTube: 214 (up 11) Humanitix: 75 (0) switched from eventbrite to Humanitix Announce monthly newsletter: 503 (up by 2)
January 2025 Statistics
Total followers as of 31 January, 2025 Twitter: 4063 (up by 13) Facebook: 2019 (up by 19) Instagram: 675 (up by 11) Linkedin: 387 (up by 0) Mastodon: 234 (up by 10) YouTube: 219 (up by 5) Humanitix: 77 (2) switched from eventbrite to Humanitix Announce monthly newsletter: 505 (up by 2)
On our WMAU website we published 4 news stories for January 2025: 17 Inspiring Australian Women to Celebrate This Australia Day APNIC Foundation Announcing 2025 Partner Projects Public Domain Day 2025
WMAU website we published 4 news stories for December 2024:
- Celebrating a Milestone
- Celebrating Women in Biomechanics
- The Open GLAM Toolkit
- Tribute to JarrahTree: an exceptional Australian Wikimedian
President’s report
Please read this report in addition to joint activities with the EO as outlined above.
10 year Strategic Plan and 3 Year Activity Plan
Elliott and Belinda have undertaken considerable work on developing the 10 year plan and incorporating community feedback, ideas and suggestions.
From this long term plan we have developed a 2025-2028 Activity Plan with key initiatives for the next 3 years, which builds on and extends our previous achievements (2022-2024). This will form the basis of our triennial grant application.
We invite the Board to give feedback.
Scoping a First Nations Protocol for WMAU - Update
As per the email circulated by Belinda on 7 March, the ICIP and IDSov Protocols and Scoping Documents from TJC, have now been received and Board members have had time to review them. This will be one of the main Agenda items for discussion and decision tonight.
Casual vacancies on the Board
Following on from last month's discussion, we will hold this item over to the next Board meeting due to the high priority of other items in tonight’s Agenda.
Note - Our Rules of Association do allow us to leave the vacancies until the AGM in September, or we could appoint to fill these roles for the next six months.
Secretary's report
Membership report
- New members: One new member application. Membership currently at 86. If approved this will rise to 87.
- WAR Editathon - Update on International Women’s Day Editathon hosted by Women’s Art Register (WAR) and follow on Wikidata Editathon
- Noongar Online Course
Treasurer's report
- Profit & Loss and Balance Statements
Financial reports provided:
Profit and Loss Statement February 2025 Balance sheet February 2025
We are on track to expend this year’s Grant in full, a high level summary:
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- Waiting for refund of approx $3500 on Elliott’s travel to The Hague and Berlin which will bring the net expenditure for Capacity Building to $29,000.
The President and Secretary are now signatories on the Westpac accounts and have been able to access online banking.
Motion: That the Treasurer’s Report be accepted
Matters for Decision
ICIP and IDSov Protocol and Scoping Documents from TJC
As discussed in previous Board meetings, we are continuing towards the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) protocols for WMAU. In January, we held three information sessions with Terri Janke and Company (TJC) who also conducted additional research.
TJC has now provided a Draft Report and costings for developing ICIP and IDSov protocols for WMAU’s organisation, staff and Board. TJC have also updated the initial Scoping Document (previously reviewed and commented on by Bunty and others) for final revision. Elliott has reviewed both documents and provided comments and suggested changes.
We acknowledge that the costs are significant although they are spread over 3 years. Elliott and Belinda are discussing potential funding approaches to the Wikimedia Foundation, particularly with how this work could scale internationally to support other First Nations communities. However, our primary focus is to ensure we get this right for Wikimedia Australia first.
Motion: That the Board gives in principle agreement to the documents received from Terri Janke and Company dated 28 February 2025: Wikimedia Australia Preliminary Assessment: Managing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Indigenous Content on Wikimedia Platforms Cultural Protocols in Focus: Setting the Standard at Wikimedia Australia and will now prepare an application to the WMF for full funding.
ACTION: Board members have until 2 April 2025 to provide feedback and comments. Then Elliott and Belinda will meet with Terri and her team.
10 year Strategic Plan and 3 Year Activity Plan
From the 10 year long term plan we have developed an 2025-2028 Activity Plan with key initiatives for the next 3 years. This will form the basis of our triennial grant application to WMF.
Documents for review here:
- 10 year Strategic Plan (in final stages)
- 3 year Activity Plan
- Draft Budget
Please provide input, suggestions and feedback so that we can finalise and progress to submitting our grant application.
Motion: That the Board approves the Strategic Planning documents and accompanying Budget and supports an application to the WMF for triennial grant funding.
ACTION: Belinda to finalise documents and undertake application for funding through WMF Fluxx platform.
Proposals passed by email and documented below
N/A
Matters for Discussion
Query/Discussion: Impact of US Admin science and research budget cuts on Wikimedia Foundation overall Query/Discussion: Article on Trove API restrictions by Tim Sherratt.
Matters for Noting
Subcommittees
Subcommittees Board members:
Membership subcommittee : Emily, Jeremy Grants (Volunteer Support grant, and/or Standing Grants): Elliott Finance committee? (Elliott, Peter, Belinda and 1 other?)
Activities
WMAU and other local events 2025
Editathons Upcoming 2025:
- Drop in and Wikidata March 2025 - Thursday 20 March
- La Trobe University, Immunology students - online on 31 March (Belinda and Alice)
- 2SER-FM editathon at UTS Sydney - 11 April (Alice)
- SA Museum with Mike Dickison, Adelaide - 13 April (Belinda and Ali)
- Willunga Heritage on women artists, Adelaide - 21 May (Belinda and Ali)
National activities
Global activities
RightsCon - February 2025, Taiwan ESEAP Strategy Summit, 23-25 May 2025, Manilla Philippines
Meeting close: 6:12 pm (AEDT)
- Next Community meeting: Wednesday 14 April 2025