> Being a member of a company (and in future a member of a charity)
> will bring a certain responsibility, which some may find is not what
> they want.
Technical point: Wiki UK Ltd. is a charity now - a charity is defined
as a non-profit company with charitable objects. Registration is not
required to be a charity, just to be a "registered charity". That's
not important, though.
I agree people should have the option of supporting us without the
responsibility (however small) that goes along with membership of a
company, however it should be up to them, not anyone else.
> A company with 1,000 members will be hard to manage. However, a
> company with 100 members and 1,000 friends will be much easier to
> keep running.
I don't see anything particularly hard to manage with a 1000 members
company. Most people won't attend the AGMs and will vote by proxy. If
a significant number do attend the AGM then it would need to be run a
little more formally, a show of hands isn't likely to work for
anything but the most uncontroversial resolutions, but that's not too
difficult. I don't see how you can disenfranchise 90% of the
membership just for convenience, it goes completely against the
democratic ideals of the chapter.
> I believe most people would want to be a "friend" rather than a
> "member", and I mean "member" in the technical sense of "guarantor
> member".
At this point, you're just guessing. The lists of people interested in
being guarantor and supporting members were pretty similar in length.
2008/12/1 Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com>:
> At 22:36 +0000 30/11/08, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> > Not a problem to have 1000s of guarantor members? Is that what you mean?
>>
>>Yes, what we call "member" is what WMUK v1.0 called "guarantor member".
>
>
> So, is there only one class of membership for WMUK 2.0?
So far, yes.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
> I assert that that model is wrong. Maybe not for inception, but
> certainly for the future.
>
Why?
--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler(a)gmail.com
Ok, I have no idea if I've done this right, but please go to
http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.m.dalton/wmukmap.html and add yourself so we
can get an idea of where people interested in attending the AGM are
based. (If it turns out I have done it right, I'll post the link on
meta as well.)
2008/12/1 Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com>:
> At 17:33 +0000 1/12/08, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>2008/12/1 Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com>:
>>> At 22:36 +0000 30/11/08, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>>> > Not a problem to have 1000s of guarantor members? Is that what you mean?
>>>>
>>>>Yes, what we call "member" is what WMUK v1.0 called "guarantor member".
>>>
>>>
>>> So, is there only one class of membership for WMUK 2.0?
>>
>>So far, yes.
>
> But really there are two: directors and members, surely?
Directors are members of the company, they are also members of the
board. It's the same class of membership, technically speaking, they
just hold another position in addition to their membership.
> I am member of several charities, and a Trustee of one (which has no
> members other than the Trustees).
>
> I have sat in AGMs and wondered what it would be like if people
> rocked the boat, which is so easy to do....
>
> Does every member have a voice?
Yes, rocking the boat is certainly possible. It could make meetings
take a lot longer than necessary, but if it's just an individual they
wouldn't be able to actually force a change in policy.
> Yes, nice to agree.
>
> The Governance of WMUK is far from settled AFAIK. A very large group
> (hundreds or thousands) cannot have a single voice with some
> hierarchical or other structures.
The Governance is pretty much determined by the Companies Act 2006,
the Memorandum of Association and the Articles of Association. There
are members who elect a board at the AGM and the board runs the
charity. The members have certain additional powers which can be
exercised in writing, at AGMs or at EGMs. "Member" is this context
means "guarantor member".
The part that isn't settled yet is membership fees and what forms of
membership we'll have (if any) in addition to membership of the
company proper, but whatever is decided, they won't get a vote at
AGMs.
Having 100s or over 1000s of members shouldn't be a problem - most
will probably vote by proxy at the AGM. There are public companies
with 10s or even 100s of thousands of shareholders that manage just
fine, the vast majority just fill out a proxy statement that is sent
to them in the post and never go near the actual meeting.
michael west said:
>> A board seat for a representative of indigenous non English speakers would Ipresume only represent a member of the Celtic language speakers. The facts are that non-indigenous people who contribute to the WMF who speak languagesat home or in prayer outweigh those whose languages are official languages of the UK. It just seems bizarre.
The reason why I think Wikimedia UK should focus more on, say, Sottish Gaelic with its 50,000 speakers than, say German, with its 500,000 speakers in the UK, is that we already have a German chapter which can promote German language projects. We are the only chapter which could ever promote Scottish Gaelic, and, as I said before, we may be able to unlock public funds in order to do so. I don't remotely agree that this is racist.
There is clearly a danger that Wikimedia UK will end up just being Wikipedia London; recognising the diversity of UK Wikimedians - across projects, languages and the constituent countries, would I think be a positive step.
My suggestion of 2 had in mind a board of around seven. Of course it would be fewer if there were fewer board seats.
From: Andrew Turvey <raturvey(a)yahoo.co.uk>
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, 29 November, 2008 0:40:35
Subject: Re: Election Rules (non-english speakers)
Q5: Is there any way that you think the election should be run differently to the election of the interim Board?
I wanted to answer one of the questions I put with a suggestion regarding minority languages.
Most of the people active in Wikimedia UK seem to be active in the english Wikimedia projects. However, there are some other smaller Wikimedia languages where UK editors form a vital part of the editing and readorship base. I'm thinking particularly of the native languages of the UK such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and maybe Irish, Scots/Ullans, Cornish, Manx etc.
As well as recognised the diversity of the Wikimedia community, there are also significant public funds available for promoting these languages which could be used by us to support these projects.
The Board has already reached out to these projects by asking if the newsletter could be translated into these languages. My suggestion is we set aside two reserved seats on the Board for people who actively contribute to at lease one wikimedia project in a minority language of the UK.
What do you think?