Hi Jeffery,and thanks for pushing that again. I know there are a lot of people on this list who have been motovated and demotivated in turn, for reasons that are not always clear; so a push is a good thing.
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 03:27, Jeffery Nichols arctic.gnome@gmail.com wrote:
I think having both a national group and provincial groups makes sense. The current bylaws allow regional wings within WMC to deal with local issues, and those wings have representation on the board. Alternatively, if a region thinks that it would be better to incorporate on their own, I hope WMC can work in harmony with them. However, I think it would be useful to have a country-wide chapter to organize large-scale initiatives and to make sure that every Canadian has a chance to join and that every Canadian wanting to donate to WMF can get a tax receipt.
Just for the record, while in theory sub-national chapters and national chapters don't exclude each other, in practice, I believe that unless a Real Damn Good Reason (TM) is given to have both from the start, they actually do in terms of recognition by the Wikimedia Foundation as "official chapter". As such, I would urge you and anyone here to consider the right course in advance.
Here are the scenarii I can imagine, please keep in mind that I do not know Canadian Law, so there might be things that make absolutely no sense.
SCENARIO 1 - Creation of X sub-national chapters (Wikimedia Ontario, Wikimedia Québec, Wikimedia BC for example), this requires active communities in each of these provinces to support the making of a local chapter. By default, their territory will probably be defined by the geographical reach of the province, although this can be amended following needs.
SCENARIO 2 - Creation of a Wikimedia Canada (national entity) with input from people from diverse provinces to start with. This would mean that people are scattered across the territory and decide on a national entity. - This scenario may allow for sub-national "sections" of the national chapter to grow organically from the people who first joined.
SCENARIO 2.5 - Creation of a Wikimedia Canada (national entity) starting with a group of people in one province (For example, the Ottawa Wikimedians create Wikimedia Canada) but aiming at covering the whole territory. -The difference with the previous is that a group of people in one place decide to give the start to a national endeavour, rather than have people scattered across the country do so. - The critical point here is to make sure that the bylaws and the demeanour of the founding members allows for other people to join in the mid/longer term - This scenario alose allows for sub-national sections.
I called it 2.5 because I am not sure that it is that different from Scenario 2. The thing I want to point out here is that the start of a national chapter does not require input from every single province, but could well be carried by a local group to start with and then allow for the legal form to be there for others to join at their convenience.
Cheers,
Delphine (also member of the chapters committee)