On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I think the two are intertwined though. Distance and autonomy are interconnected. For instance, California itself may not be ripe for a state-wide chapter: it may merit a NoCal and SoCal chapter (north and south). Whereas, Pennsylvania really has two major population centers connected by a highway, it's not so hard to get between Philly and Pittsburg. Same thing with DC....it's trivial to get between Baltimore and DC, but it's an all day trek to get to Boston, and at least a half day to New York. For those purposes, regional chapters don't necessarily work quite as well as Metro area chapters.
Take Florida for instance. The capital is in north florida, but it's over 6 hours away by car from the major south florida metro area (miami, ft. lauderdale, palm beach). and slightly less than that from Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, and 4 from Orlando. So it makes sense to have a chapter for Florida located somewhere in the south of the state (probably Tampa or Orlando). But the distances tie directly into the issue of autonomy, i.e. is the chapter state based, or metro area based?
On the other hand, some areas work quite well for regional chapters: the New England area being a prime example of this. Similarly, South Carolina and Pennsylvania work well as a state chapter. DC is so closely tied to Maryland and northern virginia that it would work best as a metro area chapter.
The point is, I don't think a mandatory structure works well for the US. Some areas are better suited to state, others metro area, others still regional. But no single structure works for everything, so it's better to "mix and match" as necessary to best serve the constituency of each chapter.
I could not agree more with your last sentence. The problem I see with "mix and match", which for the record, is definitely the approach I believe the situation in the US calls for, is that if we let all the "metro-areas", "states", "regional sections" create chatpers as they see fit, with no way to tie them together somehow, then we're facing the problem that at some point some might overlap. One exmaple might be: if you have a metro area Philadelphia chapter, where do people who live elsewhere than in that metro area, in Pennsylvania and still want to do stuff on a local level, fit? In which structure? Do we dissolve the metro-area chapter to get a state-level chapter? If they incorporate, who gets to fundraise? The Foundation, which has been seeking tax-deductibility US-wide? The metro area chapter? The state chapter? All of them? I mean... this could get really messy.
I think that Pharos' approach, ahving the WMFoundation dedicate specific resources to a "US local chapter" (which by the way, does not have to operate US wide, but could just be the point of communication of more regional chapters) actually makes sense, and it is definitely one approach I am going to take into consideration, among others.
This staid, I still believe we should be looking at other organisations before we reinvent the wheel. We're definitely not the only ones who had to ask ourselves that question.
Delphine