[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

[GerardM]

Hoi,
Let me be clear/understood I am all in favour of having people organise
themselves. What I do not think is a good idea is set up many organisations
all with their chairman, treasury and secretary all with statutes and
by-laws .. really it is a great if you can prevent the waste of time that
comes with it.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On 7/11/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Dan Rosenthal wrote:
> > On Jul 11, 2007, at 4:10 PM, GerardM wrote:
> >
> >
> >> When you create many "chapters" not based on legal necessity, the
> >> administrative overhead is such that it would be mind boggling.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >> I do not think it makes sense to allow such local chapters the same
> >> status
> >> as national chapters.
> >>
> >
> > One problem with that line of reasoning is that many of our US states
> > are comparative in size to european countries (of all sizes, from the
> > biggest to the smallest). They should be equally represented the same
> > way.
> >
> > Another is that there are differing laws between states, so I'm not
> > sure where you get that statement from, nor do I get where the
> > administrative overhead comes from.
> >
> > -dan
> >
> The only thing that becomes a major issue when crossing state lines is
> dealing with things like real estate and employees who physically work
> in multiple states... and that can be dealt with through reasonable
> means as well.
>
> I served on the governing board for a Head Start agency that crossed
> into two different states, and had to deal with the real estate and
> issues of employment in two states.  In that particular case, there was
> still only one corporation set up but we did have to keep the financial
> transactions seperate between the two states (Idaho and Utah) and broken
> that activity down for financial reporting purposes.  This may be an
> issue for Wikimedia chapters that cross state lines, but it doesn't
> affect fundraising so much other than knowing what kinds of fundraising
> activities might be discouraged or encouraged by local governments.  A
> bake sale or garage sale in one place might be fine but not OK somewhere
> else.... just to give some examples.  And people in those local areas
> would know this information.... or be able to find out in a hurry.
>
> The main advantage here is just trying to get people organized without
> having to put people on airplanes and organize something akin to a
> Wikimania conference, but step it up a notch from just a group that gets
> together and drinks coffee while complaining about Wikimedia projects.
> IRC channels work plenty fine for that last issue, but sometimes you
> like to have conversations face to face as well.
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
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