Grants talk:PEG/WM EE/Start up II

A couple of questions

Kudos for the people working in Wikimedia Estonia and the work done on the projects. You really have listed very interesting projects, so I'm curious to ask few questions. How do you plan to organize the conference? Did you have an available venue? Have you already get in touch with interested sponsors to support it? And what is the agenda of the conference? Could you explain more detailed what do you mean by covering the costs of the other planned projects? There are clearly some examples of projects, but with less information. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski 19:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Let me say that it's wonderful to see WM-EE with so many ideas for projects that can be run. I have a couple of questions about this request though:

1. A previous grant (lets call it Start up I) was made in 2010 with a nominal completion date of December 2011. Is there any reason to believe that the remainder of this amount won't be completely spent by December 2011?
2. The provisional request date on this grant is also December 2011, is that correct?
3. While I understand that some of the under-spend was due to factors beyond your control (ie: not as many schools taking an interest as you had hoped), what will you handle differently this time around to make sure that the money is all used and the cool projects that you have listed actually take place?

Cheers, Craig Franklin 08:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC).

More questions :)

1. There are $1600 to WLM and other competition. Since WLM is in 2 months, what exactaly WMEE is planing in that project, and how many is planned to be used in each one of other competition?

2. The travel expenses ($440) are to cover any member presence in the meetings? Or only board members?

3. There are $ 1600 allocate to "other projects". Can you explain what are those projects - don't need to provide too much details, but as is now is too vague - Why $1600 to all of they? How much is planned to be used in each project?

4. Legal and administrative fees ($900): is not clear for me in what that will be used. Can you explain?

Cheers, Béria Lima ^msg 13:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

There are indeed some interesting ideas here, but it is, as others have said, rather short of details. I think you need a more detailed budget. How much of the chapters own money can go into these start up projects? Have you been involved in the fund-raiser? If not are you planning to be so involved this year, and would some start-up funds be needed to make the fund-raiser participation easier? --Bduke 02:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I see a very interesting set of ideas and projects. I would like to see some analysis of why the last year grant was not used and the actions to take to ovoid those causes. I think it could help you in succeeding this time if you identify the team in charge for the activities, define who will be responsible for doing what, and raise their commitment with the project by asking them to sign in the proposal. --Josepnogue 08:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I really would like to see a little more detail about how are you expecting to use the money. In my opinion, the amounts mentioned in the grant submission are too general. For example, there is a request of 1600 USD for the Picture collecting project. The idea sounds really cool, but what are those 1600 going to be spent on? I can’t get a clear idea. The same goes for the 800 USD requested for promotional materials. How did you get to that amount? Do you have a detailed budget for that? I really would like to see that kind of information in the submission.

Regarding the measure of success I would like to see some measurable items in that section. For example, instead of saying “many projects are carried out and the chapter becomes well known, good working and financially supported”, I would like to see something like “15 schools around Estonia were visited, the picture collecting projects gave 1000 new pictures to Commons, and we were financially supported by x Local government and appeared 5 times in national media”. Best regards. --Isha 23:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Is it now better? Kruusamägi 22:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Opinion

While I agree with the points mentioned above, I understand that development is usually slow in the beginning of any new project - as an example just look at the rate of Wikipedia articles accumulation. I think that there is no point in moving money backwards and forwards and WM EE deserves a second chance at spending the money providing they answer the questions above.--Victoria 10:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Some answers

"Start up II" grant was made to specify how we are planning to spent this $6000 that was given to us with "Start up" as we have made some changes in the original plans (for example: Wikipedia in schools $1200 → $260). At a moment we have spent 1/6 of that money and most of the spending is planned into September-October. Thous activities that do not need (much) funding are not listed (for example: 2 ECTS course "Wikipedia" in Tartu University).

We have not been involved in the fund-raiser and we are not planning to do this in 2011. All the money from donations goes directly to WMF.

At a moment we have very few active members and so we constantly need to make some changes and planning is pretty hard. It is difficult to predict that how many project we could carry out and so it is also possible that some of the money will not be spent by the end of 2011 (but not more than $1000 will be left anyway).

We are also working hard to cut all the cost related to projects to absolute minimum – in Estonia it not a virtue to just spent the money in random. When a project is carried out with a less costs that planned then this is a good thing in here. Even this is not rare when I pay some expenses from my own money or hitchhike to reduce the transportation costs. We also don't cover the cost for food.

Travel expenses ($440) are to cover any member presence in the meetings + to compensate travel expenses when giving lectures (for example when I gave a lecture in Haapsalu to librarians of Lääne County). At a moment we have spent 1/6 of this but in 8–10th July there will be Estonian Wikipedias summer meeting and because of the projects the Board needs to meet more often and we are planning several lectures.

Legal expenses would be made for example when we make some changes in the register (i. e. change board members or renew their mandate). Thous expenses related to registration of our chapter were covered from founding members and not from the WMF money (this is also one of the reasons why be reduced the need from 600 → 100). Thous "Administrative costs" are related to the board. Currently it is so that 2 member of the board make about 90% of the chapters work. Here we also have schooling costs for the board members (at a moment we have spent ~ $42 to compensate participation in 2 trainings (1 + 2 persons)).

$1600 for thous two photo competition is not specified because we are still waiting for responses to several money request and we will know how much we'll use after we have the answers to thous request (but if we will not get any funding then we'll need to take additional money from "other projects" section). $1600 allocated to "other projects" is not specified as we do not have any budgets related to thous projects jet.

At a moment we have letter of intent with the National Heritage Board and soon we'll sign it with the Estonian Institute. We are expanding our contact network rapidly and I predict that by the end of the 2011 we have started cooperation with at least 10 institutions.

Kruusamägi 18:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response with your answers. It seems like the cost allocation is very well done, but I have only one remark and a suggestion based on it. You mentioned that the $1,600 for the "other projects" is not yet specified and no budget is created to warrant this sum. My advice is to re-allocate this sum, list another project with specified budget, or even to reduce the total value of the application. Else, it seems to make a flaw on the whole application. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski 21:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

We will deal with this sum (i.e. autumn and winter projects) in our summer meeting at July. Kruusamägi 11:57, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Now it seems more reasonable, and I think that the application should be approved.--Kiril Simeonovski 14:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)