----- Original Message -----
From: "rupert.thurner" <rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com>
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, 10 May, 2009 20:12:30 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Minutes of yesterday's Board meeting
> would it be possible to slightly adjust your
"bylaws" and add
> education as most other wikimedia chapters do?
When the by-laws were written we talked about "educational content". This was
our attempt to marry the charitable aim of "promoting education" with the
Mission of the Wikimedia Foundation stated at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission. Our
correspondence made clear and repeated reference to "promoting education" so
they were in no doubt how our Object links into the law on charitable activities.
Adjusting the bylaws would be a long process. We would need to call a general meeting of
members, and get 75% approval for the change. We would also need the Foundation to approve
the change which could take months.
The tax authorities' objection was not based on the wording of our Articles - their
interpretation of the law was that producing an encyclopedia did not count as
"promoting education" under UK law. We're contesting that interpretation -
see
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission_to_HMRC for the draft of the response we are
writing.
If we fail in this appeal one route we could go down is to revise the objects but our
immediate response is to ask the matter to be referred to the Charity Commission who are
more familiar with the law in this area.
Regards,
Andrew