On 1/22/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK we find past meetings
listed as follows:
* 9th October 2005: London
* 16th October 2005: IRC
* 13th November 2005: IRC
* 27th November 2005: London
* 15th January 2006: London
And Jimbo was present at the 27th November meeting.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Royal_Oak_bootstrap_meet.jpg
:-)
Ok, I can see two ways to set up the chapter (as apposed to the
charity / company). (1) The foundation could agree to call the charity
a chapter, and all members of the company would be members of the
chapter. (2) The foundation could agree to let the company found a
chapter as a separate and possibly informal membership organisation.
In both cases there would have to be agreement between the foundation
and the UK company, but there are advantages and disadvantages to the
two approaches. One issues is that the company can not have aims that
exactly mirror the foundations (i.e. to run the wiki* websites) as
this would not be seen as charitable in the UK. The aims (objects) in
the current draft are relatively broad and would allow the company to
pass funds on to the foundation (as well as performing other
charitable activities), but the foundation may not want a chapter to
have such broad aims. A second problem is that, as I understand it,
under 18s could not subscribe to the company and so would not be able
to become members of the chapter. In the second model the foundation
could have more control of the bylaws of the chapter, that would just
be managed by the charity in fulfillment of its objects. One thing we
would have to look into is if subscriptions paid to the chapter (via
the charity) and passed on to the foundation would be eligible for
gift aid. The advantage of this more complex arrangement is that under
18s could join, and the bylaws of the chapter could include clauses
such as "the member must be a regular editor of wikipedia" - something
that would be possibly illegal for a chapter set up under option (1).
Views?
Andrew