Hey,
I wish all of you an amazing new year. For the ones that do not know who I am my name is Arie Robert Scheurwater, but please call me Rob or Robert.
I have some questions for people and about other people's decisions that have been made so far.
Below are the points that I will be addressing in this email:
1. Surnames on the website (www.wikimedia.org.za)
2. The responsibilities of a 'Board of Directors'
3. The legal structure of Section 21 companies
4. Wikimedia ZA not Wikimedia SA
5. Difference between Reply To and Reply All buttons
1. Surnames on the website (www.wikimedia.org.za)
It would be a good idea if people put their surname on the Wikimedia ZA website next to their name, because it will make it easier to reference people in emails.
2. The responsibilities of a 'Board of Directors'
A lot of people in the 'community' currently wanting to become a 'director', but understanding of the term 'director' is misunderstood:
- Your first responsibility of a 'director' is too giving legal responsibility of the organization to the government.
- Your second responsibility is to make sure everyone is doing their duty.
- Your third responsibility is to take up responsibility for other people's mistakes.
People think that a director is a person that leads an organization which is not true, because the person that leads the organization are all the members together.
3. The legal structure of Section 21 companies
I know the legal structure has already been decided by Mr. Tobias (unknown surname). Section 21 Companies are, and will always be the most difficult and irratating legal structure to use when starting an organization. Section 21 Companies are intended for organization that have a bigger quanity of members and higher cashflow e.g. Red Cross, St Johns Ambulance, Heart Foundation of America, etc. The Section 21 Companies can be registered according to two different acts: Companies Act 61/1973 or Co-operatives Act 91/1981 neither one if favourable for a starting organization. Most organizations that are currently Section 21 Companies, started off as a plain partnership NPO. Section 21 companies were created so that the government could have more insight in the finances of the organization (we have no finances at the moment). A plain NPO Partnership is the best starting legal structure for an organization. Below is a hierarchy structure for the organization that I would have advised at the time.
4. Wikimedia ZA not Wikimedia SA
I have noticed that a lot of people are calling the chapter and organization Wikimedia SA which is an issuse that needs to get address, because SA means Saudi Arabia not South Africa according ISO 3166 code standards. I do not think we want people to misinterpret 'us' (the chapter and organization) as Wikimedia Saudi Arabia.
P.S. if you do not know the ISO 3166 code standards I am sure the standards will be on Wikipedia or you can always just Google them otherwise.
5. Difference between Reply To and Reply All buttons
People say time is money, its true., so please don't use reply to all if its not nesserary to do so, because it wastes people's time.
In conclusion there are several things we as a community should seriously take a look at. You can ask anyone that works for me or has partnered with my company I view things with a more coporate risk angle instead of the 'lets try it' attitude. I am not saying my inturpretation is better, but it has saved me a lot of legal problems and time.
I also got a new email: me@ariescheurwater.com
Yours Sincerely and God bless,
From Robert
Arie Robert Scheurwater
Founder & Chairman of
Scheurwater Industries
Mobile:
+27 72 537 9748
Email:
me@ariescheurwater.com
Address:
Eikenlaan 83 Dordrecht, 3831XH Zuid-Holland, NL
Alumni: University of Cambridge (UK), London School of Business and Management (UK)
PLEASE INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS CORRESPONDENCE IN YOUR REPLY
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Hi Robert,
Thanks for your input. I have some comments which i hope will lead us to a productive dialogue.
On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Arie R. Scheurwater me@ariescheurwater.com wrote:
- Surnames on the website (www.wikimedia.org.za)
It would be a good idea if people put their surname on the Wikimedia ZA website next to their name, because it will make it easier to reference people in emails.
This is an excellent suggestion, and I'll do that for myself. Note, however, that those of us who are active on the mailing list can be easily identified from our email signatures.
- The responsibilities of a "Board of Directors"
A lot of people in the "community" currently wanting to become a "director", but understanding of the term "director" is misunderstood:
- Your first responsibility of a "director" is too giving legal
responsibility of the organization to the government.
I'm not quite clear what you're saying here, can you please rephrase it?
- Your second responsibility is to make sure everyone is doing their
duty.
- Your third responsibility is to take up responsibility for other
people's mistakes.
I'm surprised by the priority which you give to these points. Certainly it is true that our directors will have a direct management role to an extent, but this won't be a normal company. I'd rather say that the directors will be there to take the input from the members on what we want to achieve, to frame it in terms of a program with individual projects and actions, to identify which volunteers have the right level of expertise and enthusiasm to carry the actions out, and to entrust them with the tasks. The directors will also be responsible for outside communication - primarily with the media and with funding bodies.
People think that a director is a person that leads an organization which is not true, because the person that leads the organization are all the members together.
I applaud your democratic spirit here, but with respect, I feel that you're confusing the issue. The members will certainly own the organisation and have final power through their vote, but they entrust the leadership (in terms of setting and following an agenda, and managing the assets of the organisation) to their directors.
- The legal structure of Section 21 companies
I know the legal structure has already been decided by Mr. Tobias (unknown surname).
Tobias Schonwetter did not decide the structure. He gave a well-argued legal opinion which was then discussed on the mailing list. Please find it attached. We acknowledge that there is more overhead to running a Sec. 21 company, but we don't know how big this chapter will get (hopefully big enough that it's worth it!), we would like a structure that protects the directors/members from legal and financial liability, and we want a structure that will inspire trust in our potential donors.
I don't think we should re-open this discussion now.
- Wikimedia ZA not Wikimedia SA
I have noticed that a lot of people are calling the chapter and organization Wikimedia SA which is an issuse that needs to get address, because SA means Saudi Arabia not South Africa according ISO 3166 code standards. I do not think we want people to misinterpret "us" (the chapter and organization) as Wikimedia Saudi Arabia.
While I agree that ZA is the best abbreviation for formal purposes (for example in the logo that Bence and I created) because of its language-neutral stance and connection to our internet TLD, we will have to resign ourselves to the fact that most South Africans talk about "SA" when referring to South Africa, and that we will see people referring to Wikimedia SA in informal settings. I sincerely doubt that this will cause the confusion that you fear.
- Difference between Reply To and Reply All buttons
People say time is money, its true, so please don't use reply to all if its not nesserary to do so, because it wastes people's time.
I have a different opinion on this point. Let's have as much as possible of our communication on the mailing list and on the wiki site: that way everyone is in the loop. I know we're all busy people, but I'd rather have to spend 2 minutes ignoring and archiving 10 emails than miss one important one at this stage.
Kind regards,
David
-- David Richfield e^(πi)+1=0
wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org
