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The next Board Meeting will happen in the irc:wikimedia-uk-board IRC channel on Tuesday 14 April 2009 at 20:30 BST. All are welcome to attend, but only board members will be voiced. General discussion will be in irc:wikimedia-uk. |
Wikimedia UK is the local Wikimedia chapter covering the United Kingdom. The chapter is incorporated under the name "Wiki UK Limited" and uses Wikimedia UK as its operating name. It was approved as a chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation on 12 January 2009.
This is the second attempt at a Wikimedia chapter for the UK. The earlier chapter was wound up due to external problems and is being dissolved.
Board members were elected in September 2008, and the company was incorporated on 5 November 2008. Membership applications are now being processed in time for our first Annual General Meeting
Discussion also takes 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.
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 Charity Commission, Companies Acts 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):
- promoting freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable;
- acting as a voice and representative for the community of UK residents and citizens who use and edit such repositories;
- preserving world heritage, and particularly that of the UK, through such repositories;
- supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation;
- 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;
- furthering the development of electronic, printed, and other resources required to support such participation;
- producing, publishing and developing, or cause to be produced, published and developed, information resources, whether in printed, electronic, or other forms;
- making use of or encouraging the use of information resources for the advancement of education; and
- encouraging the adoption of practices and policies to widen education, participation and dissemination of information worldwide|Memorandum of Association (extract)
Projects
We are currentlly working on three projects:
- Oxford's bid to host Wikimania 2010
- Wikipedia Loves Art - this project generated over 11,000 free-content photographs in February 2009, which are currently being processed
- Copyright law consultation - we responded to an issues paper from the UK Intellectual Property Office in February 2009, and are expecting a follow up discussion paper in the autumn.
We are currently seeking proposals for new projects in the forthcoming year. Suggestions so far have included:
- London Loves Wikipedia - a follow up to Wikipedia Loves Art to be held in February 2010
- Wikipedia For Schools
- Content liberation project, along the lines of Wikimedia Germany's successful projects
Over twenty project ideas are also listed here.
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Join up!
- See Membership
We are now inviting applications for membership! Membership is open to all; there are no restrictions in the location or age of members, and members do not need to be editors of any of the Wikimedia Foundation projects.
Members have the right to elect the Board, submit motions and vote at AGMs, thereby playing a central role in determining the activities of the chapter.
The current annual subscription costs £12 (£6 for concessions). Please apply using the form 
and note that applicants under 18 need to have the form countersigned by their parent or guardian.
These applications will be processed as soon as our bank account is opened. We have recently applied for the account and hope that this will be up and running by mid February.
Board members
Main page: Board of Trustees
| 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 |
Newsletter
If you would like to be kept informed of developments by receiving a copy of the monthly newsletter, please sign up here.