Re: [Fsfe-uk] Where are we now?

[Alex Hudson]

On Wed, 2001-12-19 at 17:58, Philip Hands wrote:
> I seem to remember that the reason for rejecting Charity status was
> something to do with not being able to get involved with politics.

I think it was twofold - basically, we couldn't be 'just' a charity,
because we want to be political. We could be a Ltd. + Charity, but the
point of having a charity would be quite limited: we will probably want
people to be members of AFFS, but after that point people who want to
donate to the FSFE(UK). FSFE-UK will probably need to be a charity
anyway, and it doesn't make a huge amount of sense to have two orgs.
collecting for the same cause - but perhaps other people will think
differently.

> The only thing I can see stopping us being a charity would be the bit
> about all our objects needing to be charitable -- Are they?  I would
> have thought so, but I'm not certain of the rules.

I would think we can be a Ltd.+Charity if that was what we wanted -
basically, the Ltd. would do everything the charity wasn't allowed to.
Legally, the two would be separate entities (I think).

> I'll be going over to The 1990 Trust tomorrow to do some work, so can
> run this by their legal advisor, so if people still have objections to
> the idea of doing it this way, or feel that one of the other forms
> would suit us more closely, please tell me why, and I'll run the
> arguments past him to see what he thinks.

I think in the long term, it's either a Ltd. (+-charity) or a I&PS. The
point of being an I&PS would be to be more robust against people trying
to change the aims of the society. The advantages of a Ltd (which we all
pretty much know about) are the price, speed, etc., but an I&PS may be
better suited to our other needs. We know people who've setup as Ltds
(UKUUG, 1990 Trust..), any information on I&PSs they might be able to
contribute would be well worth having. I would be interested to know
what other forms they considered before incorporating, and why they
chose Ltd+Charity.

> P.S. What's the current situation as far as people wanting to get
> involved with the AFFS? 

We ought to setup a separate list as soon as possible - I'm also of the
opinion that we ought to get some sort of website up as well, so that
people at least know we exist. However, while that's taking place here
is as good a place as any really - I don't see that we're going to
depopulate this list immediately on forming AFFS, and although AFFS is a
separate entity to FSFE(-UK), the FSFE are giving us a lot of help
getting started.

Cheers,

Alex.

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