Grants:Project/Rapid/UG BG/National Conference 2016

Socialize with community members
24 editors registered, 6 of whom live outside of Sofia and further 2 outside of Bulgaria.
Increase skills for existing editors
The results of our pre-conference survey show that the registered participants are willing to learn about conflict management, the rights system, GLAM (especially Archives), the international wikiverse, article-writing contests, methods to bring new editors, tools (visual editor, scripts, mobile apps), sister projects, creation of templates, creation of maps.

Project Plan

Activities

What is the purpose of the meeting and why is it important to your community?
We want to organise the first wikimeeting with participants from the whole country in the 13 years of existence of the Bulgarian wikicommunity. All but a few meetings have been held in the capital Sofia. As a step towards the registration as a chapter we are willing to give opportunity to people from outside Sofia to learn and meet other Wikimedians, because only in this way we can move towards becoming a nationwide organisation. Our meetings last year have involved between 2 and 11 participants, thus if financed, this would become our largest meeting in recent times.
If applicable, what benefits have you seen from doing this kind of meeting in the past?
During wiki seminars held in Sofia since early 2015, there has been increased engagement in community and user group issues, increased interest in participation in onwiki and offwiki events. These seminars however have never been attended by editors from the rest of the country, and have never been formalised as conferences. Given the good examples from other attended wiki conference (Wikimania, Central and Eastern European Meeting, Wikimedia Conference, WikiLive Conference of our neighbours Wikimedia Serbia) we are willing to try this meeting format in Bulgaria and use the opportunities it gives for more intense exchange of knowledge, skills and inspiration.
How will you let participants know about the meeting?
A registration form was shown to all logged in users for two weeks and 23 editors registered.
How will you keep participants engaged after the meeting is over?
We will start having local meetings in cities different from Sofia. We will also increase the number of active participants at the work of the User Group from currently 14 to 20.
Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?
We would like to expand this conference to a yearly gathering of all Wikimedians from Bulgaria, those living in Sofia, in the province and abroad. The days were determined and scheduled in the most inclusive way, to allow non-resident Bulgarian Wikimedians attend the meeting. The atmosphere of the conference will be even more inspiring and motivating given that it happens soon after the 13-th Birthday of Bulgarian Wikipedia (6 December 2003) and a week before Christmas.

Impact

Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some Global Metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

Number of total participants
30
Number of people who will help organize the event
9
Number of different speakers
10, 3 from abroad

Budget

300 BGN for travel with second class train or nationwide bus lines for 7 people
600 BGN for 5 double rooms (7 from the province and 3 international guests) including breakfasts
500 BGN for a conference hall for two days
1350 BGN for lunch and dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday for 30 participants
600 BGN for printing WLE 2017 calendars and other giveaways
200 BGN for coffee breaks
20 BGN for name tags

Total: 3570 BGN (1980 USD)

Endorsements

As it has already been mentioned this will be the very first National Conference of the Bulgarian Wikimedia community. This is a great opportunity for new and old editors alike to learn new things, discuss ongoing issues and work as a team. Not only will we exchange experience with each other but this will also pave the road towards a Wikimedia Chapter in Bulgaria. ShockD (talk) 22:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Support Great idea to engage the community like this. --Tobias1984 (talk) 17:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Great Initiative. I would like to suggest to try and minimize the pressure of organizing on volunteers but it would not be much of a problem for 30 people. Satdeep Gill (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Bulgaria is already the heart of at least three CEE- and world-wide projects (CEE Spring, #100wikidays, Archives Challenge). Let the Bulgarians have a conference already! Gikü (talk)

would be very helpful for the community Mardetanha ^talk 10:23, 15 November 2016 (UTC)