I am not comfortable with it being formed as a single member, single director company, but that is almost by the by. My most significant reservation is that I really don’t think it will represent a net time saving. If we do things by post all directors will have a reasonable amount of time to double check all the paper work, massively reducing the risk of errors and leaving us better off in the long run. Tom From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 05 October 2008 16:07 To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Company Formation practicalities Hi all, I've mentioned on meta and briefly on this list the practicalities of company formation. I know that everyone is keen for us to register the company and complete all the other formalities as fast as reasonably possible so that we can hand over to a Board which can start doing things that actually fulfill our objects! I have been thinking of the ways we can register with Companies House in the quickest and easieist way, given that the five directors live in different parts of the country. I've come up with three main ways: 1) Form full company from the start, by post Each initial Director has to sign paper form (Form 10, the Memorandum and the Articles) where they "consent to act" and "agree to form the Company". This is because Company House's webfiling system does not allow you to submit these forms directly online and the Software Filing service, which allows commercial company formation agents to file online, is generally used only for companies formed with standard Memorandum & Articles. The advantage of this method is that the company is formed with all the correct directors and members from the start. In practice, we would have to get each of the directors to print, sign and post a copy of the signature pages to the company secretary who then puts them all together and submits them to Companies House. 2) Form full company from the start, by meeting An alternative is to arrange a physical meeting where all five directors get together and sign the papers. This would take time to organise. 3) Form single member, single director company and then appoint remaining directors on incorporation The third option is to form the company with a single member and a single director (being me). I would sign all the forms myself, submit to Companies House and then admit the other directors as members and appoint the others as directors as soon as the company is formed This way the other directors can sign their consent forms on-line using the webfiling system. I think it would be easier and we would save time doing it this way. However, I would only want to do this if everyone was comfortable with this approach. We would need a minor change to the standard Articles to reduce the minimum number of directors to one in the first month from incorporation. How do people feel about this? ---- Original Message ---- From: Andrew Turvey <raturvey(a)yahoo.co.uk> L: Number of Directors 1) Standard number (at least 3 but no maximum) 2) Fixed number (changeable with 75% membership vote) 3) Range We haven't discussed this yet - what are people most confortable with? Can I also ask for a derogation in the first month so that its easier to set up the company (reduce the minimum number of directors to one for the first month from incorporation)