Hi Abbas,
I agree that the society is not a reasonable way to go given the liability of the members. So don't bother to find out the costs. My question was not reasonable. Sorry for the confusion I might have caused
Manuel Schneider
Sent via mobile phone (+49 170 7740589).
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Abbas Mahmoud" abbasjnr@hotmail.com An: "Wikimedia Kenya" wikimediake@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: "Ali Mahmud" aliyyi2002@yahoo.com Betreff: [Wikimedia Kenya] The Legal Perspective Datum: Sa., Feb. 19, 2011 15:36 Am 9.2.2011 schrieb "Abbas Mahmoud" abbasjnr@hotmail.com:>>Society - The registration process is tedious, slow and requires alot of pushing. When we register as a society, WMKE will be an amorphous institution, meaning it can't be sued on it's own. Rather, it is the officials or trustees that can be sued. Property/assets are registered under the trustees. The Society should file annual returns (e.g. indicating any change in trustees).>Manuel: What are the costs of this option?I never bothered to ask the lawyer. Due to a Society's drawbacks, I instantly ruled it out as an option. But I'll find out how much it costs and get back to you, nonetheless.>>Tax ExemptionAfter getting the Certificate of registration, we should contact the Minister for Finance and apply for tax exemption. The by-laws should clearly indicate that we are a non-profit organisation. A petition letter should be written to the Minister when applying for tax exemption with supporting documents (from WMF and/or ICT Board and/or Google Kenya). Tax exemption requires political pushing/influence -- so the duration of us getting tax exemption could be as short as a week and as long as decades!>Manuel: Does this apply for Trust or Society or both?It applies to both.>>Bylaws:The lawyer has proposed some changes to the bylaws:-That we have a two-tier board structure: The Board Of Trustees & The Executive Committee. The EC could be in charge of funding/project proposals etc while the Board oversees and has the final say in whatever the EC might suggest. We could have 2 board members in the EC as well.>Manuel: hmm, I don't understand why making it so complicated. I haven't heardof one chapter that has this kind of construction. In contrast, normallyyou have the problem of not being able to find enough members tocandidate. This will be even worse if you have two committees>I think that all this is not an issue of WMKE and even if it becomes anissue in the future it will take some years - then you can still changethe bylaws accordingly - if your members really want that. WMDE forinstance has still trouble finding enough members for their board ofeight.>For now, with much less ressources, keep it stupid and simple. Try toavoid overhead where possible.I agree that something simple and stupid is better. Lodewijk, Delphine and all,Thanks so much for your comments. I expected some of the local WMKE participants to give their feedback as well...Anyway, since we were colonized by Britain, I gave the lawyer WMUK bylaws so that he could check out how WMUK registered. He found out that WMUK was a limited liability company by guarantee, and told me that he'll assess our chapter and explore the possibility of us registering as a limited liability company. Anyway, I don't have all the info with me right now, so to cut the long story short, I think we should arrange a meetup with the lawyer so that we can discuss and decide which mode of registration suits us best, whether or not to make the changes that the lawyer proposed in the bylaws, and any other related matters.And BTW, I promised that I'd have posted the revised bylaws but that's not possible at the moment since apparently we have to decide on whether we want a Society, Trust or a Limited Liability Company so that the lawyer can redact the current bylaws to suit the mode of registration we'd decide on. So I expect that the final bylaws will be published after we meet and agree on the above-mentioned issues.I suggest that we meet on Saturday 26 Feb 2011 (at iHub?). --Abbas.
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