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The next Board Meeting will happen in the irc:wikimedia-uk-board IRC channel on Tuesday 25 November 2008 at 20:30 GMT/UTC. All are welcome to attend, but only board members will be voiced. General discussion will be in irc:wikimedia-uk.

Template:WMUK

Template:Chapters

Wikimedia UK v2.0 is the second attempt at a Wikimedia chapter for the UK. The Company is called Wiki UK Limited; it intends to operate under the name "Wikimedia UK" after approval by the Wikimedia Foundation. Board members were elected in September 2008, and the company was incorporated on 5 November 2008. Membership applications are now being invited, to be processed as soon as we have a bank account.

Discussion is taking place on the Wikimedia UK mailing list (see the archives), as well as in real time on the following IRC channels:

• General Chapter discussion: irc:wikimedia-uk
• Discussion of the Oxford bid to host Wikimania 2010: irc:wikimania-oxford
• Board meetings: weekly in irc:wikimedia-uk-board.

The first attempt failed due to problems with getting set up and is in the process of being dissolved. In order to avoid some of these problems we are committing now to being open, transparent and democratic from the word go.

Objectives

See also: Wikimedia UK v2.0/AoA

The Memorandum of Association sets out a formal "Object" of the company which forms an absolute restriction on its activities. The contents are hard to change and therefore have been drafted in a general form so that the chapter has maximum flexibility for its future operations, yet also complies with the requirements of the, and Wikimedia Foundation's Requirements for future chapters including Wikimedia's Mission Statement. We have also considered the Wikimedia Foundation's Guidelines for future chapters where appropriate.

The charity's Object is to aid and encourage people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or under a license that allows everyone to freely use, distribute and modify said content, by means including (but not limited to):

1. promoting freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable;
2. acting as a voice and representative for the community of UK residents and citizens who use and edit such repositories;
3. preserving world heritage, and particularly that of the UK, through such repositories;
4. supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation;
5. enabling, assisting, promoting and promulgating wider participation in the creation, dissemination and expansion of information and educational resources covering the world's knowledge and languages to all persons, everywhere;
6. furthering the development of electronic, printed, and other resources required to support such participation;
7. producing, publishing and developing, or cause to be produced, published and developed, information resources, whether in printed, electronic, or other forms;
8. making use of or encouraging the use of information resources for the advancement of education; and
9. encouraging the adoption of practices and policies to widen education, participation and dissemination of information worldwide    —Memorandum of Association (extract)

Goals

• to create a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge by empowering and engaging people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate educational content under a free license or in the public domain;
• to act as a voice and representative for the UK Wikimedian community;
• the advancement of education for all in particular by supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation;

Potential future activities

The interim board is focussed on the practicalities of setting up the chapter - incorporation, opening a bank account, gaining official Chapter status, processing membership, arranging Gift Aid and organising the first Annual General Meeting. However, once this has been completed, we intend to turn our attention to substantive actions we can do to support the Wikimedia projects.

This is a preliminary list of ideas that have been suggested; please add yours too and add your comments on the ideas proposed:

1. Public relations
2. Supporting Wikipedia v1.0
3. Running campaigns in universities and schools encouraging students and academics to edit
4. Installing new tool servers in Kennisnet that we would have (some) control over (probably no legal issues with this)
5. Giving sessions at teacher training "top-up" days on the responsible use of Wikipedia (et al.) in the classroom
6. Working with the community to increase coverage of e.g. historical sites
7. Supporting the Wikimania 2010 Oxford bid
8. Employing developers
9. Hosting an annual UK Wiki-conference, combined with AGM. Details
10. Sourcing and digitising public domain works located in the UK (e.g. documents, books, pictures, ...)
11. Encouraging the release of new and currently copyrighted works under free licenses
12. Stimulate research into the use of wikipedia as an educational and communication tool. Seek academic partners to further this aim and bid for research funds.
13. Donating back to WMF, subject to charitable restrictions
14. Hosting/funding a local mirror ("squid server") of the Wikimedia websites, subject to legal issues regarding libel law
15. Supporting the German Chapter owned, Amsterdam located toolserver, subject to charitable restrictions
16. Events along the style of en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes The City?

Board members

The initial board members, responsible for setting up the company and then turning it into a charity, are:

Name	Username	Position
Kwan Ting Chan	User:KTC	Chair
Michael Conn	User:Warofdreams	Communication Officer
Tom Holden	User:Cfp	Treasurer
Michael Peel	User:Mike Peel	Membership Secretary
Andrew Turvey	User:AndrewRT	Secretary

These members met the 50% support requirements in the elections held in September 2008. If by May 2009 (6 months after becoming a company) we have still not held an AGM at which all of the board stood down, or if we have not processed more than 95% of the membership applications received more than one month before the AGM, by the time it happens, then we will ask the WMF to withdraw any trademark license and official UK chapter status they have given us. We hope to arrange for WMF to commit to doing this.

Voting pages were at Wikimedia UK v2.0/Vote and Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Candidate_FAQs. Minutes of board meetings are at Wikimedia UK v2.0/Board meetings.

Newsletter

If you would like to be kept informed of developments by receiving a copy of the monthly newsletter, please sign up here.

Guarantor members

If you are interested in becoming a guarantor member (a legal member of the company), add your name below. Being a guarantor member will give you a vote at AGMs. It can have some legal repercussions, so should not be entered into lightly, for instance you would be liable for up to £1 of the company's debts if it gets wound up.

Adding your name to this list lets the board know that you are interested; you will then need to fill in a guarantor membership application form later, once the company is set up, in order to become a guarantor member.

1. Tango
2. Cfp
3. Skenmy
4. Majorly
5. Kaihsu Tai
6. Dev920
7. Ryan Postlethwaite
8. KTC
9. Kate
10. Theresa knott
11. Mike Peel
12. Cormaggio
13. the wub
14. Thryduulf (en,commons)
15. Warofdreams
16. OwenBlacker
17. User:Privatemusings
18. Algebraist
19. AndrewRT
20. Colds7ream
21. Rwendland
22. RexxS
23. Rebroad
24. Owain
25. Gazimoff (en)
26. Guy Cosnahan (Cosnahang)
27. Fr33kman
28. Ross Gardler
29. Hughcharlesparker
30. Andrew Cates
31. filceolaire
32. Sam Korn
33. Poeloq
34. MrWeeble
35. Andrew Gray
36. Gordo
37. LondonStatto
38. Peter cohen
39. Scarian
40. Throwawayhack
41. Ironholds 01:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
42. Mcginnly

Supporting members

If you are interested in supporting the chapter, add your name below. This has no legal standing and just shows you support our goals. There will, most likely, be an annual membership fee (concessions available) — the other two lists don't require paying anything. You can be a guarantor member without being a supporting member, but if you can afford the fee, we could use the money!

1. Tango
2. Cfp
3. Skenmy
4. Majorly
5. Geni
6. Kaihsu Tai (maybe)
7. Dev920
8. Rodhullandemu
9. KTC
10. Theresa knott
11. Mike Peel
12. the wub
13. Thryduulf (en,commons) (maybe, depending on whether I can afford the fee when I know what it is)
14. Warofdreams
15. Microchip08 en:User:Microchip08 · m · simple:User:Microchip08
16. User:Privatemusings
17. OwenBlacker — obviously depends on the fee ;o)
18. Rwendland
19. Mstislavl
20. 82.4.172.153
21. RexxS
22. Rebroad
23. PamD
24. Hughcharlesparker
25. Sam Korn
26. Poeloq
27. MrWeeble
28. LondonStatto (subject to fee level being determined, natch ;) )
29. Peter cohen (with the same proviso as others above)
30. Scarian

Interested in being kept informed

If you do not wish to be a member at this time but wish to be kept informed or can help in other ways please add your name below.

1. Following proceedings with interest. Adambro 06:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
2. Particularly interested in being involved if the new entity is Not-For Profit Open Research 08:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC).

   It will most certainly be non-profit, we will eventually be registering for charitable status (there are hoops to jump through first). — Tango 18:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

3. I'd like to know what's going on. Axl 07:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
4. Please keep me informed...Zir 00:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
5. Hiding 11:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
6. Please keep me informed.82.29.255.162 08:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
7. I need to know what the fees are before I commit, but I'm interested in seeing whats happening. Anonymous101 10:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
8. Interested. Please don't call it a "chapter" though. Unless it's actually a section of a book. Or possibly Hell's Angels. Does it come with a leather jacket? --Dweller 11:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

   "Chapter" is the correct term for something like this. Even if we didn't like it, we have little say in the matter since that's what the WMF calls organisations like ours. --Tango 17:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

   Although we don't have to call it that ourselves if we dont want to! AndrewRT 21:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   It's not a name, it's a description. I don't think there is a better way of describing ourselves. --Tango 22:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   To my delicate ears, it's a horrible Americanism. I'm sure there are UK organisations with "chapters" (Google is your friend), but it makes me shudder. --Dweller 14:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

   And to mine, good sir. --Celestianpower (wp, wikt, books) 21:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

9. Martinp23 17:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
10. Celestianpower (wp, wikt, books) 21:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
11. I'm interested, but been very busy. Looks like I missed the vote and all of the discussions :-( -- Harry Wood
12. J Milburn 19:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
13. --MichaelMaggs 18:11, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
14. I'm not much interested in joining, but I would be willing to make a donation if and when you are registered for Gift Aid. Angus McLellan (enwiki talk) 00:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)