Just to be clear from the WMF board side, there is absolutely no reluctance or problem with the approval of the UK chapter, and even I am not 100% sure what the status is ("different replies through different routes" is Alison's very apt description).
Because we now have Brad as fulltime legal counsel, doing a trademark agreement is something that can happen in a timely fashion, so I am confident that whenever whatever technical hurdles are cleared somewhere, this can easily happen in a timely fashion.
--Jimbo
Alison Wheeler wrote:
Hello all,
Well, first, the result of the competition to hold Wikimania 2007 is in. London's candidacy - which we've been working hard on for the last few weeks - had a lot of support but was, in the end, unsuccessful, and Taipei in Taiwan was chosen as the host city for next year.
On other matters, For reasons which were publicised at the time we founded the Chapter here we chose to not include the word "Wikimedia" in the legal title because some people (David Gerard was one I recall) were concerned that if something untoward happened to the UK chapter then by having a different name it could be 'cut adrift' and a new one started. This meant that although we cleared the legal structure with the Foundation in advance because "Wikimedia" wasn't included in the name som complications have set in in getting us a formal agreement. Complicated by a decision of which we wre advised in the Spring that we couldn't be made 'official' until there was a proper Trademark agreement set up and that hadn't happened. Since then some newer Chapters have been recognised and we've been trying to ascertain exactly what is happening - and receiving some different replies through different routes.
I will say thuogh that the recent interest on this list about the status question has resulted in some activity and I'm hopeful that at the Wikimedia Board meeting and 'retreat' that is happening next month in Frankfurt - to which James and myself have been invited - we shall be able to progress it to a satisfactory conclusion.
On other matters, we've had some abscence of action by one of the directors who has neither been pro-active in sorting out what they've need to nor responded regularly to contact. I'm not going to detail it further here, suffice it to say we are considering how best to progress this, which might include looking for a replacement. Althugh delaying some activities we are still progressing with others.
On the 'external' side, we have been contaced by a major PR firm who would like to offer their services to us pro bono. I met with them in July and whilst I was impressed by what they could offer I feel it might be sensible to first see who else might be interested in working with us (and any of you in that industry please feel free to contact me directly.
Finally, although London did not win the bid to host Wikimania (you can read the full bid at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2007/London ) it was very useful research and has showed us that there are quite a few organisations who would be interesting in working with us to raise the profile of the Wikimedia projects and attracting new editors, especially from the non-English language citizens we have.
Regards
Alison
====================================================== Alison Wheeler Chair, Wikimedia UK e: alison.wheeler@wikimedia.org.uk d: 020 7419 1017 m: 077 1017 2564 Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki Educational Resources Ltd, company limited by guarantee #05708269
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