I did some investigation into the requirements for registration in Ireland last year. Andrew, you said you wouldn't be surprised if English and Irish law was very similar. From my investigation, the Friendly Societies Act 1896 may be a relevant avenue to go down. If so, the questions is really how much you have changed your law since then :-) The relevant page on the Companies Registration Office page is for registration of a Friendly Society is: http://www.cro.ie/en/business-registration-friendly-society.aspx If we were to go down the Friendly Society line, I have made a check-list of questions we would need to answer here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Ireland/Bylaws/Requirements_for_re… A straight-up company is another route. The relevent page for a company is: http://www.cro.ie/ena/business-registration-company.aspx There is no such thing as a "charity" in Irish law. Charity status is instead merely an arrangement between a company and the tax man, from what I can tell. There are likely other routes we could go but I think it would be better to get legal advice before making these decisions. Are there any solicitors on the list? If no, we might look to someone who give free legal aid in Ireland. Given our public good mission, they might be willing to help out. Does anyone have any experience with FLAC (http://www.flac.ie/)? Oliver On 25 Jul 2010, at 11:22, Michael Peel wrote: User:Rannpháirtí anaithnid