[Foundation-l] Draft charter of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

[Ziko van Dijk]

Dear friends,

After weeks of full work, this is the draft charter that has been
worked on. I copy for you here the introduction and the link to meta.

If you have questions about it, you may put them on the talk page or
send them to me.

Kind regards
Ziko


In February 2012, in Paris, Chapter representants agreed on creating a
new organization. As there was no person or group assigned to write a
draft charter, finally, after having talked to some people on general
questions, I took the task on me. Subsequently I presented this page
(March 7th) which was very much altered in the meanwhile.

I have tried to integrate Paris texts, parts from the models B and
KISS, and I have contacted a lot of the people who are going to Berlin
(end of March; alas I did not find all e-mails but I believed I
contacted every participating chapter). There were some phone calls
and chats e.g. with Sebastian Moleski. There is also another draft, by
Tango, which I (and others) have read carefully.

Now we nearly arrived March 18th, on which, according to the timeline,
a draft charter is supposed to be ready. Whatever that means, I would
like to call the draft provisorily ready (there will be certainly
changes, especially for the final incorporation) and invite people
again to read.
...

The idea is to have an organization with a kind of parliament
(Council) and a kind of government (Secretariat). A Judicial Board has
the task to arbitrate in severe cases of conflict; this could have
been a simple Council committee, but for general reasons a seperate
organ is better: the Council or Council members could be part of a
conflict. We hope that the Judicial Board will have nothing to do.

Normally, the members of the organs are elected for a certain term.
This is important to give them a certain independence. There must be a
relationship between work, responsibility and the right to make
decisions. But if there is a severe problem, then the Council can
dismiss people (by a 2/3 majority).

There was a lenghy discussion on several levels about the position of
the Council members, the Representatives. Now, according to the
general principle, the Representative has a fixed term and can be
dismissed in certain cases. But the Representative can have a position
in a chapter (in contrary to a former model).

Maybe the most important question to be answered: If a chapter joins,
what are the consequences and obligations? First of all: A chapter
joins only if it wants to, it does not become a member automatically.
A chapter agrees to elect a Representative and pay an annual
contribution. Later in the year 2012, there will be a budget.
Possibly, the chapters will have to pay some % of their annual chapter
budget. Of course the Wikimedia Chapters Association will consider the
financial possibilities of the chapters.

Why is it good for a chapter to join? The Association will support the
chapters and represent their interests. A lot of international
coordination work, that now has to be done by chapter boards, will be
done (or supported by) the organs of the Association. Even if a
chapter is already big and mature - it is good for every chapter to
belong to a big family of well organized chapters.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_Council/Draft_charter_of_the_Wikimedia_Chapters_Association
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Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/

Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
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