<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi,</div><div><br></div><div>Talking as myself the human here, not as the Board member.</div><div><br></div><div>I agree that it is important for "national organizations" to represent the entire local community, and not just one subgroup. Currently this is checked by looking at the statutes and asking directly through the local communication channels. Is there anything else we could do?<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Op ma 22 jul. 2019 om 00:54 schreef Simon Poole <<a href="mailto:simon@poole.ch">simon@poole.ch</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">But, back to Joosts question, yes, IMHO, we shouldn't in general
be accepting organisations that have not established their
standing both by being an outgrowth of an active OSM community in
the territory in question, and themselves having a proven track
record of being capable of actually running and financing a
formally incorporated organisation, but actually nailing that down
is difficult. For example while OSM-UK clearly was and is a
product of an existing active OSM community, the actual formal
organisation had essentially no track record at the time it was
accepted, had there been hard criteria with respect to the
organisations maturity they very well might have had to postpone
the official LC status process for a number of years. <br></div><a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div>I agree with the "being an established outgrowth of an active OSM community", but "
being capable of actually running and financing a
formally incorporated organisation" isn't really an issue, since the Local Chapter can 'outsource' that. If I understand the wiki correctly, OSM Belgium is the only Local Chapter where a part of an incorporated organisation joined. This requiered both OSM Belgium and the mother organisation Open Knowledge Belgium to be screened, but I believe that most weight was given to the bylaws of OSM Belgium itsefl.</div><div>So we don't actually need to run an incorporated organisation. For Germany and Italy the consequence is the same (the OSM people do not necessarily need to run an organisation), though there it seems it is the mother organisation that is officially the Local Chapter.</div><div><br></div><div>Is there a preference between the Belgian and the Italo-German model? Or is this to low a bar in both cases?</div><div>For some international context: I've heard people propose to copy this model to make it easier to join. For example, we could have one OSM Africa organisation with individual national organisations being a chapter within that organisation. I don't know if that would work.</div><div>Alternatively, one could look for other local organisations. But I've understood that if those are present, they might simply not trust the OSM people enough to allow them to become an official part of their organisation.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Is everyone still in agreement that Local Chapter can be national organisation, subnational and supranational too?<br></div><div><br></div><div>What makes it hard for me to think about this, is that I'm not really clear about the purpose of the whole construction. For us in Belgium, there was the clear benefit of more legitimacy as an organisation. But does the OSMF really win much? On the other hand, if you are a more established organisation why would you bother to join at all?<br></div><div><br></div><div>-- <br></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Joost Schouppe</div><div dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/joost%20schouppe/" target="_blank">OpenStreetMap</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/joostjakob" target="_blank">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/joost-schouppe/48/939/603" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> | <a href="http://www.meetup.com/OpenStreetMap-Belgium/members/97979802/" target="_blank">Meetup</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>