Hi SJ, James, and everyone,
Just want to say I'm very happy to hear there's interest in formalizing the Boston / New England group! :)
For those that don't me, I'm a Wikipedian in Washington DC where we are working to form a chapter.
We are in the discussion phase, busy at the moment with our Wikimania 2012 bid, but are moving forward soon with the process.
I think we all want local/subnational chapters, but there may be areas where we / NYC / other US Wikimedians can coordinate, hence the idea for the US chapters council and the WALRUS :) committee which would be an informal, voluntary group.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_United_States_Chapters_Council#WALR...
Cheers, Katie (@aude)
On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Great. Sunday the 10th it is.
To formalize a chapter, you need
- interested people!
- a mission statement, aligned with other Wikimedia missions
- bylaws, generally indicating the geography represented, how people
can join, and what work is supported. --> chapters tend to be membership orgs supporting aligned projects within their geography
- incorporation as a legal entity
- a webpage (or wiki page) describing the group and its work
You normally discuss the process with the Chapters Committee once the first three steps are underway.
Once all of these documents seem to be in order and aligned with the goals of the movement, the ChapCom will vote on whether to recommend the chapter to the Foundation for recognition (sometimes pending incorporation).
It is good practice to apply for non-profit status as well, but not required to become a Chapter.
James has been looking at bylaws recently, and may be able to offer his own take on best practices.
SJ
On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:55 PM, Baruch Stone baruchstone@gmail.com wrote:
I would very much enjoy to attend a Sunday meeting. In fact Sunday is the only day I have free. I will forward this to the BU professor whom I am CAing for.
What would be involved in formalizing a Wikimedia New England chapter?
Baruch
On 3/22/11 7:16 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
Let's invite the local Ambassadors to join us next meeting. We can invite some of the profs involved as well. The Tufts profs outside of public policy who were interested may also want to come.
I think we're leaning towards Sunday April 10 -- Mr. Lees, correct me if I'm wrong. We could reserve a classroom and bring food there, for easier discussion.
On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Baruch Stonebaruchstone@gmail.com wrote:
As for me, I have been editing Wikipedia for *several* years. I have
two
Good Articles to my credit and have experience in new page patrolling, anti-vandalism, copy editing and other areas.
I would like to create a formal Boston/New England Wikimedia Chapter
and
would be happy to do a bit of the legwork in getting it off the ground. Who is interested?
This sounds like a good idea to me. I am happy to support the process and can offer general feedback, as I am currently an observer on the Chapters Committee. You might take a look at the bylaws and focus of other chapters and pending chapters (NYC and Canada come to mind; Brasil and Australia discussions may also be of interest) for reference.
Active meetup groups and chapters around the US have been talking recently of forming a national council -- to help regional chapters grow, and to address questions of whether to form a national group and how to support work in sparser regions of the country without a thriving metro or big universities to make organizing events easy. We should discuss who's interested in participating at our next meeting.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_United_States_Chapters_Council#WALR...
Sam.
-- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
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