Dear all,

I wanted to update you on behalf of the Affiliations Committee that we are now considering the application of a proposed thematic organisation to support WikiVoyage, the WikiVoyage Association, the erstwhile stewards of the project.

You can see the proposal at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage_Association

We would like to invite you to participate in the discussions, express your interest to join the organisation and inform your home communities about this proposal. In particular, we would like to encourage people from around the world to apply for membership to represent the diversity of the Wikivoyagers.

We will be monitoring the talk page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikivoyage_Association to see if there is any new information that might influence the recognition process. If you have any related information you would like to share with the committee privately, please write to affcom@lists.wikimedia.org.

---- A bit of background: Wikimedia thematic organisations are a new type of movement organisation, that are similar to chapters in supporting the Wikimedia mission through their activities in the real world, but instead of focusing on a given country, they focus on a given topic or theme. For more information please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations.

Usually we send out announcements of new thematic organisation applications roughly in the middle of the recognition process to allow the wider community to express any concerns they might have and to be able to join the organisation when it is founded. This is done in the hope that it will help new organisations reach critical mass earlier and that the wider community is informed about emerging entities in the movement.

Next steps in the process include the review of the organization's bylaws, and the finalization of the standard thematic organization agreement, before AffCom will be able to make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees to recognize the thematic organization.

Best regards, Bence (Chair, Affiliations Committee)