Why does it matter who incorporates it? As long as its member base and the representative board of directors is Canada-wide it shouldn't matter. I think there needs to be central local presence that handles the bulk of the administration and that should be in the city with people willing to put some volunteer sweat into it.
In the same vein, I don't think we need to be necessarily waiting on C-4 getting proclaimed to get everything started. The corporation can be under a provincial corporations act. It would be nice to have it under the CCA to give it that red maple leaf sheen but it really doesn't matter. The Ontario Corporations Act, for instance, can serve just as well. The charity application is the big concern by far and as many people have pointed out it will not be trivial.
I didn't realize that the bylaws would need to be vetted by WMF (it makes sense now that I think about it). Does it have to done at a Wikimania or can it be done at anytime?
Given the amount of administration headache a nascent charity has to get off the ground, I think the bylaws should be still worked on if only to save the corporation that headache then. Jeffrey, I'll be more than happy to help with the bylaws. I can start with double checking the bylaws against the new CCA. I assume the bylaws are the ones located at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada/Proposed_by-laws?
Regards, Jit
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Alan Walker wrote:
The key issue here is the lack of an organized group who are dedicated enough to form the corporation. I wasn't speaking about the raising of funds. As well, what is the purpose of the organization. That was completely lost in all the debates about policy. Organizing a local bid for Wikimania would at least bring the people together for a purpose that had a tangible result.
Organizing Wikimania and WMC need to be looked upon as two different issues, and perhaps they need to move along different tracks. For Wikimania a local organizing group is sine-qua-non, and, as I have already said, I don't much care whether that group is in Toronto or Montreal.
Assuming that C-4 comes into effect before the end of the year incorporation could take place shortly afterwards, and by-laws could be submitted to a first AGM in the Wikimania city for approval. (This assumes, of course, that a Canadian city will win the bid, but any other North American city could be made to work if enough people show up.)
Under the new law, having our purposes sorted out is still an important pre-condition to incorporation. This is no longer the case for most other organizational details. I did raise some questions about purpose on the by-laws talk page, but the response was less than spectacular. Meeting the charitable purposes test for Revenue Canada is tricky business since it still depends on a definition that goes back to an English law during the time of the first Elizabeth. The Canadian government has never seen fit to bring about a modern 19th century interpretation, let alone one for the internet age. So what else is new?
I don't agree that incorporation should be left solely in the hand of an Ontario group.
Ray
2010/1/18 Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net <mailto:saintonge@telus.net
brian.chick@left-button.com <mailto:brian.chick@left-button.com> wrote: > Hi Alan, > > I'm not sure what the status is, but I for one have been following > this thread, but haven't had much to say. I'm still interested in MWC > but haven't heard much in the way of updates lately either. > > As for Wikimania, I don't know enough about it to comment > intelligently. Having an organizing body (like MWC) might make a > coordinated bid a little easier, no? It would help, but is not essential. The organizing committee for
the
successful city would still need to maintain separate accounts to avoid miscegenation of funds. The long term interests of WMC should take precedence over a single event. Unlike the Olympics a Wikimania cannot and should not depend on bottomless sources of funds. Ray
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