[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

[Andrew Whitworth]

I'm cross-posting this message to both the foundation-l and the now-defunct 
wikimediaus-l lists. Many people here may already be aware of the new 
Wikimedia Pennsylvania chapter that is in active development, either from 
the various pages that have sprung up on meta from it, from our blog on the 
planet, or from word of mouth.

For those who are not aware, We are working to create a local chapter for 
the Pennsylvania area. It will be the first state chapter, and possibly the 
first north american chapter (unless the canadian chapter can get rolling 
before we do). Our chapter is going to be focused primarily on a grass-roots 
community outreach effort, in an attempt to drum up both new contributors 
and new content consumers. Some of the people we would like to target 
initially are public school systems (including the financially-distressed 
Philadelphia area school district, which could benefit significantly from a 
free textbook alternative), universities, and community organizations. We 
would also like to do some fundraising, but the extent to which we have 
organized fundraisers is yet to be determined.

We are instituting an open membership policy: No membership fees, and no 
residential requirements on membership. Due to the community-oriented 
mission of the chapter people from distant areas may have a difficulty 
participating, but we do not intend to disenfranchise anybody because of 
their geographical location. We are hoping that this policy will help to get 
many people involved, will help other state chapters get started, and will 
serve as an organizational model for future state chapters.

We have created a new mailinglist for the chapter at wikimediapa-l. We have 
an irc chatroom on freenode (#Wikimedia-pa), and a homepage on meta: 
[[meta:Wikimedia Philadelphia]]. People who are interested in more 
information can turn to any of these sources. We will be submitting the 
first draft of our bylaws to the chapters committee soon (hopefully in a 
week or two) and are already looking at the paperwork to become 503(c) 
(although that step will be saved for the future when we see how well the 
chapter is working out).

--Andrew Whitworth

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