Dear friends, After weeks of full work, this is the draft charter that has been worked on. I copy for you here the introduction and the link to meta.
If you have questions about it, you may put them on the talk page or send them to me. Kind regards Ziko In February 2012, in Paris, Chapter representants agreed on creating a new organization. As there was no person or group assigned to write a draft charter, finally, after having talked to some people on general questions, I took the task on me. Subsequently I presented this page (March 7th) which was very much altered in the meanwhile. I have tried to integrate Paris texts, parts from the models B and KISS, and I have contacted a lot of the people who are going to Berlin (end of March; alas I did not find all e-mails but I believed I contacted every participating chapter). There were some phone calls and chats e.g. with Sebastian Moleski. There is also another draft, by Tango, which I (and others) have read carefully. Now we nearly arrived March 18th, on which, according to the timeline, a draft charter is supposed to be ready. Whatever that means, I would like to call the draft provisorily ready (there will be certainly changes, especially for the final incorporation) and invite people again to read. ... The idea is to have an organization with a kind of parliament (Council) and a kind of government (Secretariat). A Judicial Board has the task to arbitrate in severe cases of conflict; this could have been a simple Council committee, but for general reasons a seperate organ is better: the Council or Council members could be part of a conflict. We hope that the Judicial Board will have nothing to do. Normally, the members of the organs are elected for a certain term. This is important to give them a certain independence. There must be a relationship between work, responsibility and the right to make decisions. But if there is a severe problem, then the Council can dismiss people (by a 2/3 majority). There was a lenghy discussion on several levels about the position of the Council members, the Representatives. Now, according to the general principle, the Representative has a fixed term and can be dismissed in certain cases. But the Representative can have a position in a chapter (in contrary to a former model). Maybe the most important question to be answered: If a chapter joins, what are the consequences and obligations? First of all: A chapter joins only if it wants to, it does not become a member automatically. A chapter agrees to elect a Representative and pay an annual contribution. Later in the year 2012, there will be a budget. Possibly, the chapters will have to pay some % of their annual chapter budget. Of course the Wikimedia Chapters Association will consider the financial possibilities of the chapters. Why is it good for a chapter to join? The Association will support the chapters and represent their interests. A lot of international coordination work, that now has to be done by chapter boards, will be done (or supported by) the organs of the Association. Even if a chapter is already big and mature - it is good for every chapter to belong to a big family of well organized chapters. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_Council/Draft_charter_of_the_Wikimedia_Chapters_Association -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter http://wmnederland.nl/ Wikimedia Nederland Postbus 167 3500 AD Utrecht ----------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
