Hi Jeffery,and thanks for pushing that again. I know there are a lot
of people on this list who have been motovated and demotivated in
turn, for reasons that are not always clear; so a push is a good
thing.
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 03:27, Jeffery Nichols <arctic.gnome(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think having both a national group and provincial
groups makes
sense. The current bylaws allow regional wings within WMC to deal
with local issues, and those wings have representation on the board.
Alternatively, if a region thinks that it would be better to
incorporate on their own, I hope WMC can work in harmony with them.
However, I think it would be useful to have a country-wide chapter to
organize large-scale initiatives and to make sure that every Canadian
has a chance to join and that every Canadian wanting to donate to WMF
can get a tax receipt.
Just for the record, while in theory sub-national chapters and
national chapters don't exclude each other, in practice, I believe
that unless a Real Damn Good Reason (TM) is given to have both from
the start, they actually do in terms of recognition by the Wikimedia
Foundation as "official chapter". As such, I would urge you and anyone
here to consider the right course in advance.
Here are the scenarii I can imagine, please keep in mind that I do not
know Canadian Law, so there might be things that make absolutely no
sense.
SCENARIO 1
- Creation of X sub-national chapters (Wikimedia Ontario, Wikimedia
Québec, Wikimedia BC for example), this requires active communities in
each of these provinces to support the making of a local chapter. By
default, their territory will probably be defined by the geographical
reach of the province, although this can be amended following needs.
SCENARIO 2
- Creation of a Wikimedia Canada (national entity) with input from
people from diverse provinces to start with. This would mean that
people are scattered across the territory and decide on a national
entity.
- This scenario may allow for sub-national "sections" of the national
chapter to grow organically from the people who first joined.
SCENARIO 2.5
- Creation of a Wikimedia Canada (national entity) starting with a
group of people in one province (For example, the Ottawa Wikimedians
create Wikimedia Canada) but aiming at covering the whole territory.
-The difference with the previous is that a group of people in one
place decide to give the start to a national endeavour, rather than
have people scattered across the country do so.
- The critical point here is to make sure that the bylaws and the
demeanour of the founding members allows for other people to join in
the mid/longer term
- This scenario alose allows for sub-national sections.
I called it 2.5 because I am not sure that it is that different from
Scenario 2. The thing I want to point out here is that the start of a
national chapter does not require input from every single province,
but could well be carried by a local group to start with and then
allow for the legal form to be there for others to join at their
convenience.
Cheers,
Delphine
(also member of the chapters committee)
--
~notafish
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