2009/3/18 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sw...@hotmail.co.uk>: > I think that making preparations for both drafting a complaint to HMRC and > preparing an application to CC should start now. Even if the preparations are > only minor. Delaying either by any real length of time could affect Wikimania > significantly. > > Our estimates for the venue are based on having charity status and bookings > need to happen in quick sucession to winning the bid. If we can start making > preparations now it may also alleviate any concerns that the jury/public may > have with this.
We are a charity now, just an exempt one that doesn't have tax-free status. I agree it is something we need to work on ASAP, though - perhaps something for after the AGM, however, since I think the current board are rather busy! If we win the bid, there are all kinds of legal stuff we'll have to sort out - if everything will be done through us (rather than WMF), which I think is likely, we will need to open a trading subsidiary. I think the business risk of hosting Wikimania is too great for a charity to do it directly. (We'll worry about that after we win, though!) PS I am thinking of adding another £10k to the budget for admin, though - there will be lots of legal fees and accounting fees, at least some of which should be allocated to Wikimania (some can be considered general expenses and paid for out of the main WM UK accounts). Hopefully we can get it done pro-bono, but it should probably be on the budget. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
