Apologies for the duplicate - gmail is having a funny five minutes.

On 28/08/2008, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au> wrote: What does "incorporated as an Association" mean? In the UK, an association is a type of *un*incorporated charity and offers little or no protection for the board. I take it Australia uses different terminology. There is a new type of charity in the process of being designed, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, which gives you the advantages of being a company without all the extra paperwork, but that won't be available for at least 6 months by the look of it. We can, however, convert to it once it is available - it will apparently be designed to make conversion quite simple. At the moment, however, a company limited by guarantee is pretty much the only option that protects the board. Much appreciated, thank you.

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 6:20 AM, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia(a)alisonwheeler.com Assuming the organization has a need to hold assets and collect funds for non-immediate use in the first place.

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 2:06 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Depends on the activities, and whether they'll be funded by participants or by strangers.

2008/8/29 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: Fancy titles will get you the ability to talk to people we would not otherwise be able to talk to. -- geni

2008/8/29 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: Well consider suppose we wanted to get access to a collection to photograph it. Titles may get you that individuals not so much. So far the only thing we have managed to organise without a chapter are meetups. Reason being is that as soon as you start dealing with third parties you hit the "who are you?" question. -- geni

2008/8/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: So something organised by two chapters of "Free Culture @" and with further help from creative commons doesn't need a chapter? While there are other structures that could do that kind of thing the fact is they haven't. At present none because no such funding exists. Nor does any chapter exist to do anything with it. Given the failure of the previous chapter to complete setup distractions from the goal of setup are not exactly welcome at this time. Still if you insist: 1)The UK has some very large undigitalised photographic archives that are public domain. Digitalised the material would be of significant value to both wikimedia projects and the UK public in general (he's an aerial photo of where you live from 1948). Even with volunteer labor there are equipment costs to consider. 2)There are cases where free access is unlikely with various organisations being very controlling of their archives. 3)The usual consideration of local servers while direct hosting is a very bad idea there are other things that could be done with them. 4)sponsoring programs similar to the SOS schools CD. There are others. Finding ways to spend money is never hard. Donation drives, memberships, premium memberships, sales of items using wikipedia logo. There are various ways. An American charity acting within the UK creates issues. In addition the WMF has other priorities and has expressed no desire to pursue such activities anywhere. -- geni

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 11:22 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think you got the cart before the horse. Who's going to donate money to someone who doesn't have any plans for what to do with it? How can you set up a chapter when you don't have any idea what its purpose is? Still if you insist: Thanks. My questions weren't meant as rhetorical. I'm truly interested in the answers. > There are others. Finding ways to spend money is never hard. Well, yeah, but finding ways to spend money that are going to attract strangers to donate money is, at least it is to me! On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: > > What types of activities do you have planned that would require outside > > funding? > Whatever the community can think of. I haven't given it a great deal > of though myself in anything more than general terms. I see the > chapter as existing to facilitate the ideas of the community, there's > no need for those running the chapter to come up with the ideas. I'm sorry, but that seems incredibly strange to me. It sounds like a Monty Python skit. "Why do you want to form a chapter?" "Because that's the only way to protect funds." "Why do you need funds?" "Because if we didn't have funds, the chapter wouldn't serve any purpose." "So what is the chapter going to do?" "Not sure yet, we need to set up the chapter in order to figure something out." Good luck though, honestly. And I hope you don't take my last paragraph as rude. I know I'm exaggerating what you've said in this thread, and taking things a bit out of context. Anthony

2008/8/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: Strangely we don't appear to be asking for donations at this point. Need any more straw? Which is why we will deal with the issue at the proper time rather than when our resources are focused elsewhere. -- geni

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Well, my initial questions were directed at everyone, not just at you. I only started directing my questions primarily at you because you were the one who responded to me. The impression I've gotten is that the chapters are mainly just used for social networking and meetups. The German chapter seems to be doing a bit more, but I don't know if they get significant donations from non-participants, and, well, most of the information on the chapter is in a language I don't speak. This impression might very well be wrong. Finding out information about Wikimedia matters is extremely difficult. I try to keep up with all the blogs and mailing lists and unofficial and official websites, but I still don't know more than a small fraction of what's going on.