On 1/23/06, Delphine Ménard <notafishz@gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/23/06, Andrew Walker <keggers@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, I can see two ways to set up the chapter (as apposed to the
> charity / company). (1) The foundation could agree to call the charity
> a chapter, and all members of the company would be members of the
> chapter. (2) The foundation could agree to let the company found a
> chapter as a separate and possibly informal membership organisation.

My view of the whole thing is 1)

> In both cases there would have to be agreement between the foundation
> and the UK company, but there are advantages and disadvantages to the
> two approaches. One issues is that the company can not have aims that
> exactly mirror the foundations (i.e. to run the wiki* websites) as
> this would not be seen as charitable in the UK. The aims (objects) in
> the current draft are relatively broad and would allow the company to
> pass funds on to the foundation (as well as performing other
> charitable activities), but the foundation may not want a chapter to
> have such broad aims.

As I tried to make clear in the FAQ, it is of course normal that a so
called "chapter" tries to stick to the Foundation aims, and "of
course" adapt them so as to get non-profit (or charity) status in the
country they are based in.
So for me, any aim that is broad enough to encase the Foundation's
goals is fine. As for passing funds on to the Foundation, this has
been a standing issue with most chapters anyway, and should be
resolved on a one to one basis. Stick to the law, do your best, is my
motto.

A second problem is that, as I understand it,
> under 18s could not subscribe to the company and so would not be able
> to become members of the chapter. In the second model the foundation
> could have more control of the bylaws of the chapter, that would just
> be managed by the charity in fulfillment of its objects. One thing we
> would have to look into is if subscriptions paid to the chapter (via
> the charity) and passed on to the foundation would be eligible for
> gift aid. The advantage of this more complex arrangement is that under
> 18s could join, and the bylaws of the chapter could include clauses
> such as "the member must be a regular editor of wikipedia" - something
> that would be possibly illegal for a chapter set up under option (1).

I, for one, am not at all in favour of a complete control of the
chapter (whatever its legal form) by the Foundation, at any time.
Not to say that I am totally against (and this is a very personal
point of view) of restricting access to chapters to wikipedia-editors
only.
As for under 18s joining, well, that might be a difficult call, but I
don't believe it should stop you from doing the right thing.

I am totally amazed that we should even *have* this conversation. If
"Wiki Educational Resources" is not planning to be "recognized" as a
"Wikimedia chapter", then what have we been talking about this whole
time? ie. Why is "Wiki Educational Resources" even discussed on a
Wikimedia list?

(a baffled) Delphine
--
~notafish