Cliff, Welcome to Wikimedia Kenya, and my apologies for the delayed response. Before I start explaining to you the whys and wherefores of registration, I'd like to address a request to the person who introduced you to Wikimedia Kenya, and to all other people who will introduce their friends to Wikimedia as well: If you introduce somebody to this list, please make an initiative of debriefing him/her of what we are doing and redirect him/her to the archives so that that person can follow the discussions at his own spare time. This will save us alot of time -- rather than just subscribing him to the list and leaving him unawares, which will results in the whole group being dragged back trying to explain stuff from square 1. Okay, back to you Cliff: Wikimedia Kenya is in the proces of chosing the most appropriate legal mechanism that we will use to register as a chapter. To cut the long story short, we (or at least some of us) have decided that the best way forward is to register as a Company Limited by Guarantee. This is after consultation with a lawyer, ofcourse. We also managed to redact the curent bylaws (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Kenya/bylaws) to Keep It Simple n Stupid (KISS) -- although I haven't amended the bylaws to reflect the most recent changes. So the lawyer will have a look at our bylaws, and write up an Memorandum and Articles of Association as required by the law before we submit these docs to ChapCom (Wikimedia's Approving Body) for approval. When we get our approval, we will now register at the local authorities and then apply for non-profit status/tax exemption at the Ministry of Finance. That is the registration process. Sincerely, ------------------------------------- Abbas Mahmood t | +254722215101 f | www.facebook.com/abbasjnr s | abbasjnr Wikimedia Kenya Member "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's our commitment." Please donate: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Now/en Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:05:58 +0300 From: caargwings(a)gmail.com To: wikimediake(a)lists.wikimedia.org CC: wikimediake-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] WikimediaKE Digest, Vol 9, Issue 35 Helo Good people, Am new to the group. Someone to please explain to me what you guys are upto with the registration stuff. I really don't understand what you guys are discussing. Regards, Cliff. On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:26 PM, &lt;wikimediake-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Send WikimediaKE mailing list submissions to wikimediake(a)lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediake or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to wikimediake-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at wikimediake-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of WikimediaKE digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Meetup Minutes: 09/04/2011 (Oliver Stegen) 2. Re: Saturday meetup (oscar okwero) 3. Re: Meetup Minutes: 09/04/2011 (Isaac K. Kosgei ) 4. Re: Meetup Minutes: 09/04/2011 (Abbas Mahmood) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:40:50 +0300 From: "Oliver Stegen" &lt;oliver_stegen(a)sil.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] Meetup Minutes: 09/04/2011 To: "'The discussion list for the upcoming Wikimedia Kenya chapter.'" &lt;wikimediake(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Message-ID: <8247E8AA55B7427DAA73EB8DDD737EBC@Oliver> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Well said, Abbas, I wholeheartedly support us going ahead with co.ltd by guarantee and requesting the lawyer to suggest changes to our bylaws accordingly. Haya, tusonge mbele! Oliver (aka BT) _____ From: wikimediake-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediake-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Abbas Mahmood Sent: 11 April 2011 15:36 To: Wikimedia Kenya Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Kenya] Meetup Minutes: 09/04/2011 Hello, At this stage, I'm assuming that the active members all know the difference of a trust, society and co. ltd by guarantee. I don't mind writing them down again, but the issue that has just been raised is that this is not a voting matter. I am the person liaising with the lawyer and I have tried my level best to repeat over and over again what he told me and the ones that were at the iHub meetup. And, despite Oscar being tired of this monotony, I have still taken the initiative to answer most, if not all, queries regarding the bylaws and the legal mechanism to the best of my ability. But the issue here is that some people don't want to vote in the first place. So why set a voting date, if this is not an issue that requires voting? Lastly, timely and official What documents, in particular? If it is the minutes, they are on the mailing list. If it's the bylaws, they are on meta, on wikimedia.or.ke and on etherpad. As far as I know, all important documents are shared. It is up to the members themselves to take an initiative of keenly following up the discussions on a day-to-day basis. Not for the well being of the Foundation. The Foundation and the chapters are two different entities. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's for the well being of Wikimedia Kenya.