2008/10/3 Andrew Turvey raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:

As a chapter we will be geographically focussed on the United Kingdom. however, for legal purposes we have to be incorporated in a particular jurisdiction, which will be one of:

• England
• Wales
• England and Wales
• Scotland, or
• Northern Ireland

In practice, companies incorporated in all these jurisictions can operate in the other parts with no problems. The only practical restriction is that the Registered Office - often the home of the Secretary - has to be physically located in that jurisdiction.

Given that most of us seem to be based in England, I suggest "England and Wales" as the location. This gives us maximum flexibility, should we end up with a secretary who lives, say, in Cardiff, it wouldn't be a problem. If the secretary lived in, say, Edinburgh, we would just have to make some kind of arrangements for someone else - possibly another director - to host the registered office.

The alternative is to focus this chapter on, say, England and Wales only, and let Scotland form their own. Given there is currently no initiative to form a separate chapter in Scotland I suggest we dont go down that route until then.

While you can incorporate in "England and Wales", I think you need to decide on one or the other for the registered office. It doesn't necessarily have to be the home of the Secretary, although that would be ideal. Anywhere that someone can receive official mail will do, it doesn't even need to be a board member as long as they can forward it on as required. I'm optimistic that at some point in the not too distant future (2 or 3 years, maybe, unlikely to be less, could easily be more) we'll be in the position to have an actual office that could be the registered office.

I don't see any need for a separate Scottish chapter, although my idea about committees (if it proves legally feasible) would give a good alternative. The Committee for Scotland could almost be a sub-chapter.