I am media consultant at dow jones and I am a member of this group and a member of wikimedia uk and I am not telling anyone.

When we are ready I can give anything the board wishes to emea editor at dow jones newswires personally. I also know editor of wall street journal too.

But nothing comes from me before the board sanctions it.

I am 'onside' and 'ally'. I want to help not be an obstacle.

-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com; wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sat Apr 25 14:12:55 2009 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Fwd: Charity application rejected

2009/4/25 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:

All,

I cannot speak as to the formalities behind the current WMUK, but a number of points do arise.

1. "In your letters of 23 November 2008 and 4 March 2009 you state that

the primary purpose of setting up the company is to support the 'Wikipedia' website." if true, whomever wrote and signed off on those letters appears to have caused the initial confusion and, indeed, current problem. Somehow this needs to be retracted big time. In the WMUKv1 Memorandum we had clearly separated ourselves from WMF/WP and wrote clearly Charitable (within the meaning of the relevant laws) terms to pass those hurdles. So far as I read the discussions for WMUKv2 the MoA wasn't so clear in that respect being much looser.

I think the objects in the MoA are fine, but too much emphasis has been put on our connections to the WMF in other communications - the same mistake was made with opening a bank account and caused considerable delay. Hopefully everyone has learned from that mistake now.

2. From Re Shaw, Public Trustee v Day [1957] "(a) increase of knowledge is

not a charitable purpose unless combined with an element of teaching or education," is one of their reasons for the rejection. Certainly, with WMUKv1, I undertook a number of teaching / education activities on behalf of the Chapter, including training days for the British Library et al.

3. Re Thomas's "We need either stop using the word "charity" entirely ..."

I would suggest that it should never have been used in the first place. WMUK/WER has only ever been "a Charitable organisation" until such time as it may be recognised as such.

Exempt charities are charities and do not need to recognised by anyone unless someone actually contests our charitable status and a judge orders us to stop calling ourselves a charity - I doubt this HMRC decision is enough, but we should err on the side of caution.

4. Regarding early comments about "going to the media", by definition once

it was on this public list it is already there. Arguably the Directors and their advisors should have sorted out a position on these matters - and with the assistance of those at the AGM tomorrow - before making this public at all. Instead brewery matters come to mind.

Do many (any?) people from the media read this list? It is public knowledge now, but that doesn't mean it is likely to end up in the media unless we take action to make that happen.

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