Wikimedia Canada Bylaws

The first draft of the Canada group's bylaws have been posted on meta. This is a pretty big step, and I am sincerely hopeful that we will see a Canadian chapter formed and approved sometime in 2009.

Wikimedia Ukraine

Short update today. The chapcom has received notification today that that group in Ukraine has had their first general meeting and elected a board of directors.

As a short disclaimer, the Ukraine group has not yet been approved as a chapter by the WMF board and has not signed the chapters agreement, so they are not yet a "chapter". When and if that status changes, I will write about it here.

Wikimedia Macedonia

I've just received word that the organizers from Macedonia have completed their bylaws and submitted them to the Chapters Committee for approval. Assuming the Chapcom approves the bylaws as-is, we could end up with a Macedonia chapter in the not-too-distant future.

Wikimedia UK Board Meeting

The next WM UK online board meeting will held tomorrow on IRC. Here's the announcement from the mailing list:

The next board meeting is tomorrow evening; Tuesday 12 May 2009,
8.30-10.30BST, in the #wikimedia-uk-board channel on
irc.freenode.net, with discussion in #wikimedia-uk. The draft agenda
is at:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2009-05-12/Agenda

Board members: please confirm whether you'll be present or not on the agenda page.

As they have done in previous meetings, they will be hosting two channels: One that is for board members only and one that will be open for all community members to participate. I think this is a particularly good system so that the board can get business done in an open and timely manner, and the community still has a forum to voice their opinions/concerns.

Trip to Norfolk VA

I'm taking a trip down to Norfolk Virgina to meet some people that I'm doing some Wikimedia-related work with. I'll be in town on May 30th and 31st, although we will be doing some planning work for most of the time. Are there any Wikimedians in the area that would be interested in meeting up while I'm in town?

Wikimedia India Planning Meeting

Just got the first news back this morning about the Wikimedia India Planning meeting. Apparently it was a good success, and the team looks like they have a solid plan in place going forward.

Information is scarce right now, and I'll report more as I have it.

I want to post a big "Thank You" to Achal Prabhala for organizing this whole thing in person, something the ChapCom could probably not have done by itself. I also want to thank the rest of the WMF staff members who have been making an Indian chapter such a high priority.

Here's hoping that all this good momentum finally produces a strong and active Indian Chapter!

Wikimedia Chapters Agreement

We've received word today from Mike Godwin, chief legal council of the WMF, that the first draft of the new Wikimedia Chapters agreement is nearing completion, and parts have been posted on the internal wiki to solicit feedback from the existing chapters.

I haven't read the new agreement yet myself (I will soon) and I probably don't feel comfortable talking about the details until we get closer to an "official" version of it, but I can say that from what I've heard it's going to be a huge step forward in the way the WMF and the chapters interact. I hear tell that the document is longer and more legally precise, which is going to help immensely with many of the common questions and uncertaintys that were present in the old "classic" chapters agreement.

I don't currently know how the new agreement is to be rolled out, whether existing chapters will have to sign the new agreement or not. Again, I haven't read it and probably won't give out any details till it's time.

So things are moving forward in the world of WMF chapters, and that's always a good thing.