Glad to see interest in formal organization. Perhaps we can continue this conversation at Meta?
I, too, think we could have a successful application to obtain user group status. This would mean official recognition from the Wikimedia Foundation, provides funding opportunities, and is a step towards chapter status. Before we worry about bylaws, etc., I think we should focus on user group recognition. Pine, Mako, would you two be interested in being co-contacts for the Wikimedia Cascadia user group? I can be one, too, which makes three already. I had hoped to get some people together for an in-person Cascadia meetup at the upcoming WikiConference USA, perhaps for the purpose of putting together a user group plan. Perhaps this is easier to do remotely since there is already interest. Jason On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 5:25 PM, ENWP Pine <[email protected]> wrote: > I may have some time in the next few weeks to get us more organized on > Meta. Becoming a user group looks relatively lightweight and I think we > would qualify if we put in an application. Of course, anyone else who wants > to curate the Meta pages and submit a user group application can do so! > > If we start to do regular business, especially with people outside the > immediate Wikimedia volunteer community or if we start to accept grant > money, I think we should incorporate for liability protection and tax > reporting reasons. Being an unincorporated nonprofit association that gets > sued, such as because someone in our group made a copyright violation, > would be bad. Also, incorporation may provide us more ability to get grants > and in-kind contributions especially if we qualify for 501(c)(3). > Incorporation is not difficult but it involves some time for applications > to be created and processed. What gets tricky is selecting board members, > drafting bylaws, and doing other necessary administrative work beyond the > capacity of volunteers, so we'll need to think about that when the time > comes. We are small enough now that all active participants could be board > members, but if we scale to 30 members we will likely need an elected > board. That is a good problem to have, and the Affiliations Committee can > provide guidance for us throughout the organizing process. > > > http://nonprofit.about.com/od/faqsthebasics/f/unincorporationassociation.htm > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affcom > > Pine > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-Cascadia mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-cascadia > >
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