Hi Abbas,
On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Abbas Mahmoud abbasjnr@hotmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
We have already submitted the bylaws to ChapCom and are awaiting their approval. I greatly appreciate ChapCom's advice, especially from Lodewijk and Delphine. Sometimes back in December, i asked Lodewijk about when we should expect to be approved. He told me that we should have a look at the draft bylaws and seal all the remaining loopholes and submit a final draft and hopefully ChapCom would give their approval probably 2weeks later.
I must say that I read this and was "ooops!, I've missed a step", as i didn't recall any request for bylaws approval sent to the chapcom in the past few weeks for Wikimedia Kenya.
So I looked back on the history of our exchanges and came to the following timeline: * July 2010, Abbas sends us the byalws to get approved * after which he and I have a quite long conversation about whether or not to start with founding the chapter or maybe start getting into the nick of things and organize wikipedia centered events/happenings/projects. * You all pull together the Wikipedia at School project, which is officially launched a few days ago *along with Ting's and other WMF people visit.
I have to say that between July and now, I personally had completely forgotten that there was a "pending approval" of bylaws.
As such, I first want to apologize for this misunderstanding, because in my mind's eye, the chapter idea was put on hold until more people were found and active supporters gained to the cause of a chapter.
So to be fair, chapcom has not reviewed the bylaws at all. So it's not like we're taking our time, we just weren't that clearly aware that the bylaws were awaiting approval.
At that time, we were all engaged in making preparations for Ting's arrival, the Wikipedia 10 Anniversary & the Wikipedia Schools Project so I really didn't prioritize reviewing the bylaws. Since we've relieved most of our burden now, I guess it's now time to review and make the final touches in the bylaws and we'll hopefully submit a final draft to ChapCom by 1st February.
Anyway, my mistake, how do we get forward? Well, your outline above makes perfect sense. So here goes:
*Your group reviews the bylaws that are on meta, to see if they still suit your needs/wishes *You fill the little "questionnaire" Chapcom put together to give us something of an "identity card" of what the active people is all about [1] * Once you all agree on the final version of the bylaws, you (re)submit to chapcom and we will look at them and go through the discussion process.
I just want to make sure that the bylaws submission reflects the people involved today, and make sure that founding a chapter is really the goal you want to pursue as a group and not some proposal that once was and that we're pulling out of our drawers for convenience.
I am really looking forward to working with you all and hoping we can get Wikimedia Kenya on tracks as soon as possible. :) I want to apologize if you had been under the impression the chapcom was not doing its job... we were not, but because we didn't really consciously know we had a job to do. :D
Best,
Delphine [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Pipeline/Follow-up_questio... (fill it on the meta page for Wikimedia Kenya, for example, or on a subpage of the same.