On 07/03/13 12:14, Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 7 March 2013 09:54, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
I see this as a confusion of the legal situation. I understand the aspiration, of course.
Board - a dozen, or so..........
Membership - several hundred
Community - several thousand
The board and the membership (since WMUK is company limited by guarantee) have a legal footing. The wider community does not. Wouldn't it be nice if all 5,000 joined the current membership?
It's always been the nature of the Wikimedia community that people get involved in those things they consider interesting or worthwhile and leave other things to other people. The membership is the subset of the community that has chosen to get involved with the chapter (a little more effort to ensure that everyone makes an informed choice about whether or not to get involved would be good - I know Katherine was working on a plan to increase membership, but I suspect it ended up taking a back seat during the governance stuff).
Increasing the membership has to be planned. If there were 5,000 members overnight, it would not be good at all.
Previously I have suggested multiple levels of "membership"..... such as members of the charity, and a wider group of members of a "friends" group, who would not be able to vote at general meetings, but would benefit from association to WMUK. Maybe a mug?
Gordo