On 9/4/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
Casey Brown wrote:
> On 9/4/07, *Ray Saintonge* <saintonge@telus.net
> <mailto:saintonge@telus.net>> wrote:
>
> > I've made preliminary contact with a lawyer with the intention of
>
> > getting some assistance in drafting the various bylaws
> > that are required to give Wikimedia Canada a legal footing. I'm
> hoping
> > having someone with skill and knowledge will
> > shorten the time that it is taking us to tackle this task at
> present.
> The only thing that contacting a lawyer at this late stage can do is
> make sure that the process drags on even longer, not to mention
> additional costs out of a bank account that does not yet exist.
>
>
> I disagree, many chapters should have their own lawyer remove any
> bylaws and ask them to help them follow the steps properly for their
> local jurisdiction. ChapComm is great, but it has a lot on its plate
> and they review the bylaws for their own purposes, a lawyer will
> review it for different purposes. The problem about money, they could
> hold an unofficial fundraiser or the founder's could pay the lawyer
> costs. I think the involvement of a lawyer is a good idea.
Remove bylaws?
review, sorry, typo :-) Although now that I just read his statement that the lawyer would help "draft bylaws", I'm a little confused, you've already drafted them! :-)
I've set up corporations and written bylaws on several
occasions before. In my conversations with Delphine I have seen no
potential conflicts between what the Foundation wants, and what we would
put in our legal documents. Most of the concerns there are with the
purposes of the organisation, and I think that is somewhere that the
accommodation will be easy. My past experience is that when writing
bylaws is being considered for any organisation most people tend to run
away.
Well, I didn't realize that we actually had an experienced person like yourself (no sarcasm at all), you're a good asset to WikimediaCA then. :-D I also don't mean to say that the Foundation would ever do anything to cover itself and leave its chapters hanging, but it's just a possible way of double-checking.
>
> For me the tricky issue remains defining the nature of meetings, given
> that the directors would be scattered across the country, and getting
> physically together would be unnecessarily expensive.
>
>
> This could be fixed rather easily. A chapter does not need to hold
> all their meetings face to face (though it is rather good if they have
> a few); some could be held over IRC or teleconference. I'd suggest a
> minimum of 1 face-to-face meeting per year.
One of the problems for a Canadian national chapter is geography. For
most European chapters everything is reasonably close, but when people
have to travel 3,000 miles it's a different story.
The issue is the same for the United States. :-) But we're doing "hub" or "state"-based Chapters for the US (although that is still a problem, because some European countries are the size of US-states).
Ec
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Looks like we don't need a lawyer after all. :-)