Charity Commission application
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For an overview of the process, see Charity status application
This page summarises the proposed contents of the chapter's application to the charity commission (from 2009).
A blank copy of the original form is here. These Guidance notes must be considered when completing the form.
Items surrounded by [ brackets ] are explanatory notes that will not be included in the final application.
A About the organisation seeking registration
A1 What is your organisation’s name?
Main Name: Wiki UK Limited
Working name/acronym: Wikimedia UK
A2 Contact for the purpose of this application
Full name: Andrew Turvey
Address: Wikimedia UK, 23 Cartwright Way, Beeston, Nottingham
Postcode: NG9 1RL
Email address: secretary
wikimedia.org.uk
Telephone number: 07754 881 562
Alternative: 07988 013 646 [from Contact us ]
A3 Assessing eligibility for registration
Please confirm your organisation is required to register for all of the following reasons:
(a) it has a gross annual income of more than £5000 a year: YES
(b) it is not exempt or excepted from the requirement to register: YES
(c) it is governed by the laws of England and Wales: YES
A4 Operating in Scotland?
Is your organisation registered or will it be registering with the Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator (OSCR) as well? NO
[ Per this OSCR guidance, we are exempt from registering with the OSCR because, although we represent ourselves as being a charity in Scotland:
- We are applying to be a charity in England & Wales
- We are not established under the law of Scotland
- We are not managed or controlled wholly or mainly in Scotland
- We do not occupy any land or premises in Scotland, and
- We do not carry out any activities in any office, shop or similar premises in Scotland
This situation may change in the future if we end up with a Scottish majority on the Board, start a Scottish branch or open an office there. ]
Have you ever had an application rejected by the OSCR? NO
A5 Finance and funding
If your organisation has existed for more than a year and you have published accounts, please provide the gross income as recorded in the accounts: £NIL
Otherwise please enter: the estimated gross income in the first year of operation: £5,300
The amount currently received: £5,066
[ We need to enclose a bank statement and the AGM balances as evidence, also the WMF grant notification if not included in the bank statement ]
[ TO BE UPDATED; Calculated as: £418 from Figures to AGM plus $8,150 from Initiatives/Bid divided by 1.7534 (rate from post office on 10/7) = £4,648 = £5,066
Figures to the anniversary date of our incorporation (5/11/09) I've added a rough estimation of ~£200 ]
Financial year end date: 31/01/2010
[ It was decided to run the financial year to January; this gives two months to prepare the formal annual accounts in time for their approval at the spring AGM and is after the completion of the winter fundraiser]
How has your organisation raised its funds and/or how does it intend to do so in future?
Our funds will come from membership subscriptions, donations from members and supporters and grants from related organisations including the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. The current split in our income is £246 subscriptions, £172 donations and a £4,648 grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Do you intend to use professional fundraising consultants? NO
A6 Special circumstances
Are there any special circumstances concerning your application that you wish to bring to our attention? (Please see the accompanying notes for the kind of information we would like to know.)
[ The guidance notes state:
We consider the following to be special circumstances that we would like you to bring to our attention:
- there is a deadline by which you need a registered charity number, such as a planned public launch of the organisation, or in connection with proposed funding;
- the organisation’s purpose is novel or innovative or may attract comment or criticism;
- there may be significant media, political, or other interest;
- the organisation has links with central or local government initiatives and/or is funded by them; or
- the organisation has links with one or more major organisations and/or is, or will be, funded by them. ]
Wikimedia UK is the local "chapter" for the Wikimedia Foundation, the US charity that operates the Wikipedia online encyclopedia and related projects. Wikipedia is the seventh most-visited site on the internet and the most popular online reference work. Local chapters are independent self-governing associations of Wikimedia supporters formed to support the aims of the Foundation. There are currently twenty four chapters established throughout the world.
Given the high profile of these projects, there is likely to be significant media interest in our application. The nature of our activities is also novel and innovative in the context of charity law in England and Wales.
We have scheduled a joint annual fundraiser with the Wikimedia Foundation to run from November 2009 to January 2010 and we would like to be a registered charity by then.
B Governing document
B1 Governing document
Please indicate which type of governing document your organisation has by ticking ONE of the following boxes:
Constitution
Will
Memorandum and articles: 
Trust deed
Act of Parliament
Registered company number: 6741827
Other - please specify below
Date governing document became effective: 5/11/2008
B2 Complete ONLY if you have set up a company to replace an existing charity
N/A
B3 Approved governing document
Have you adopted an approved governing document? NO
C Assessing the organisation’s public benefit
Object 1 - Please enter in the box below the first (or only) object exactly as it appears in your governing document
The charity's Object is to aid and encourage people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or under a license that allows everyone to freely use, distribute and modify said content, by means including (but not limited to):
- promoting freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable;
- acting as a voice and representative for the community of UK residents and citizens who use and edit such repositories;
- preserving world heritage, and particularly that of the UK, through such repositories;
- supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation;
- enabling, assisting, promoting and promulgating wider participation in the creation, dissemination and expansion of information and educational resources covering the world's knowledge and languages to all persons, everywhere;
- furthering the development of electronic, printed, and other resources required to support such participation;
- producing, publishing and developing, or causing to be produced, published and developed, information resources, whether in printed, electronic, or other forms;
- making use of or encouraging the use of information resources for the advancement of education; and
- encouraging the adoption of practices and policies to widen education, participation and dissemination of information worldwide.
Ways of carrying out Object 1. Include here details about how your organisation’s aims, as expressed in this object, are, or will be carried out for the public benefit.
Our goals have two focuses. The first focus is on making educational, cultural and historical content (both textual and multimedia) easily and freely accessible on the internet, greatly increasing its accessibility and ease of reuse in a wide variety of applications. The second focus is on educating the public at large on how to participate in the creation of, and the use of, that content. Currently, our primary means of making said content available is via the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation - including Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, etc. - but also include such services as Flickr (an image hosting website). The types of activities we will likely be undertaking include:
- Presentations and workshops at schools, universities or to the public at large on how to both use and interact with free content websites such as Wikipedia
- Cooperating with museums, libraries and other content holders to organize digitization events, such as the recent "Wikipedia Loves Art" event, and also other methods of making their content freely available online
- Producing documents (both paper and digital) on how to use such content
- Assisting with the development of software to aid the creation and distribution of free content, such as the MediaWiki software that sites such as Wikipedia run on
- Organizing conferences and other such events with a focus on free content
- Acting as a UK media contact for queries about Wikipedia and the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but not formally representing them
We will also be promoting and encouraging the availability of content in minority languages used within the UK, such as Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish.
In the above, "free" is used both in terms of no financial cost to the user, and in terms of being available under open licenses e.g. the Creative Commons license
Whilst we will be working closely with the Wikimedia Foundation in our role as a chapter, we will only be supporting such activities of theirs as are deemed charitable within the UK. We also remain a completely independent legal entity, bound to the WMF only through the Chapters Agreement (a copy of which is enclosed) and other such agreements that may be signed in conjunction with them, e.g. for joint fundraising.
We hold that all of these activities are for the public benefit. The most notable benefits include:-
- Increased provision of freely accessible, reusable and improvable textual and multimedia content, and
- Engagement and education of the public both via organized events and in an ongoing manner online.
We believe that our object represents the advancement of education, rather than the "mere increase of knowledge" as, similar to libraries, the information on the projects we support is in the form of a "structured arrangement of accessible resources for broader educational activities." Such content is made verifiable both by the references it contains and by its links to related material. These links also structure the content so that it can be explored in a logical way. As such, it has educational merit and value. For more information, please see the attached appendices on "Use of Wikimedia resources in structured learning" and "The “Advancement of Education” as applied to the Wikimedia Foundation projects ".
[ Pages 3-5 of File:File-HMRC Response Letter.pdf should be included as appendices ]
D Vulnerable people
D1 Vulnerable people
Please confirm by ticking the box that you have read and understood the guidance about CRB checks.
D2 Working with children
If your organisation will work with children you must complete this section.
(a) Does your organisation have a child protection policy? YES [ Child protection policy ]
(b) Are you required by law to carry out CRB checks on your trustees? YES
(c) Are you allowed by law to carry out CRB checks on your trustees? YES
(d) If you have carried out CRB checks on all your trustees AND are satisfied that they are all suitable to act as trustees of a charity that works with children tick box A on the trustee declaration form. You can now move on to part D3 of the form.
(e) If you are neither required nor allowed to obtain CRB checks on all trustees then tick box B on the trustee declaration form, and explain why not in the box below.
(f) If you are required to carry out CRB checks and have not done so, please explain why.
None of our current activities require us to carry out CRB checks.
However, Wikimedia UK is currently setting up a new project that will involve working in educational establishments. Once this project has started, we will become a "childrens charity", which will require all trustees to be checked. No other projects are intended to work specifically with vulnerable people.
We are currently obtaining CRB checks for all trustees and establishing our child protection policies and procedures to comply with applicable legislation. Our new project will not commence until all these controls have been completed.
(g) If you are allowed to carry out CRB checks and have decided not to do so please tick box C on the trustee declaration form, and explain in the box below what safeguards you have implemented to ensure that no unsuitable person has access to any children with whom the charity works. N/A
D3 Vulnerable adults
If your organisation will work with vulnerable adults you must complete this section. N/A
[ We may work with vulnerable adults, but that would likely only be in individual, isolated cases e.g. if they came along to an event. ]
(a) Does your organisation have a policy for working with vulnerable adults?
(b) Are you required by law to carry out CRB checks on your trustees?
(c) Are you allowed by law to carry out CRB checks on your trustees?
(d) If you have carried out CRB checks on all your trustees ANDare satisfied that they are all suitable to act as trustee of a charity that works with vulnerable adults tick box D on the trustee declaration. You can now move on to Part E of the form.
(e) If you are neither required nor allowed to obtain CRB checks on all trustees then please tick box E on the trustee declaration form and explain why not in the box below.
(f) If you are required to carry out CRB checks and have not done so, please explain why.
(g) If you are allowed to carry out CRB checks and have decided not to do so please tick box F on the trustee declaration form, and explain in the box below what safeguards you have implemented to ensure that no unsuitable person has access to any vulnerable adults with whom the charity works.
E Private benefit
E1 Conflict of interests policy
Do the trustees have a conflict of interest policy in place? YES
[ See Conflicts of interest policy ]
E2 Connected persons
Does any connected person (this could include an organisation or company) receive a benefit that has a financial value from the organisation? NO
[ see guidance notes for more info as to what is included here - I would expect reimbursement of expenses not to be included ]
E3 Private benefit details
N/A
F Information required for the Register of Charities
F1 Contact
Title: Mr
Honours:
Personal Names: Andrew
Family Name: Turvey
Prefered Name: The Secretary
F2 Organisation’s addresses
(a) Organisation’s public address to be displayed on the register and used for correspondence
Wikimedia UK
23 Cartwright Way
Beeston
Nottingham NG9 1RL
Is the address at F2(a) the address from which the charity operates? YES
If you do not want the operating address made public please explain why in the box below. (See the notes for the kind of situations where we would be willing to publish the alternative address.)
N/A
Organisation’s telephone number: 07988 013 646
Organisation’s fax number: N/A
Organisation’s website address: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Email address for public display: infowikimedia.org.uk
Email address for Commission use: secretarywikimedia.org.uk
F3 Classification
Select at least one category in each of the three sections to describe what the organisation will do. Please read the notes carefully before completing this.
What does your organisation do?
- General purposes
- Education/training YES
- Medical/health/sickness
- Disability
- Accommodation/housing
- Religious activities
- Relief of poverty
- Overseas aid/famine relief
- Arts/culture
- Sport/recreation
- Animals
- Environment/conservation/heritage YES
- Economic/community/development/employment
- Other or none of these
Who does your organisation help?
- People with disabilities
- People of a particular ethnic or racial origin
- Other charities/voluntary bodies YES
- Other defined groups
- The general public/mankind YES
How does your organisation operate?
- Makes grants to individuals
- Makes grants to organisations
- Provides other finance
- Provides human resources
- Provides buildings/facilities/open space
- Provides services
- Provides advocacy/advice/information YES
- Sponsors or undertakes research
- Acts as an umbrella or resource body
- Other or none of these YES
If your organisation operates in more than ten local authority areas in England or Wales, select one of the options below. Otherwise complete part (b).
- throughout London (more than ten London boroughs)
- throughout England (more than ten local authority areas)
- throughout Wales (more than ten local authority areas)
- throughout England and Wales (more than ten local authority areas) YES
If the organisation’s funds or resources are used in any countries outside England and Wales, please list these. We only accept the country names listed in the guidance notes. Please attach a separate sheet if you operate in more than twelve countries.
Scotland
Northern Ireland
F5 Trustee details
If your organisation is administered by a corporate trustee, please complete the corporate trustee’s details.
N/A
If the organisation has individual trustees, please provide the following details for each person.
[ Details will be as per the Register of Directors ]
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names: Michael William
Family Name: Peel
Preferred Name:
Other names used now or previously: None
Date of Birth: [tbc]
Address [tbc]
Email adddress chairwikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number 07988 013 646
Trustee is chair of the organisation YES
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Andrew Rowan
Family Name Turvey
Preferred Name
Other names used now or previously Rowan Andrew Turvey
Date of Birth
Address 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL
Email adddress secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number
Trustee is chair of the organisation
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Thomas
Family Name Holden
Preferred Name Tom
Other names used now or previously
Date of Birth 13/04/1983
Address Holywell Manor, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UH
Email adddress treasurerwikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number 07815 067305
Trustee is chair of the organisation
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Joseph
Family Name Seddon
Preferred Name
Other names used now or previously
Date of Birth [tbc]
Address [tbc]
Email adddress conferenceswikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number
Trustee is chair of the organisation
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Paul
Family Name Williams
Preferred Name
Other names used now or previously
Date of Birth [tbc]
Address [tbc]
Email adddress volunteerswikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number
Trustee is chair of the organisation
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Zeyi
Family Name He
Preferred Name
Other names used now or previously
Date of Birth [tbc]
Address [tbc]
Email adddress initiativeswikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number
Trustee is chair of the organisation
Title
Honours & Qualifications:
Personal Names Steve
Family Name Virgin
Preferred Name
Other names used now or previously
Date of Birth [tbc]
Address [tbc]
Email adddress corporatewikimedia.org.uk
Telephone Number
Trustee is chair of the organisation
If this person feels that they have good reason NOT to have their name published on the Public Register, please explain below. The Commission is not obliged to concur with a request for a waiver and will only normally do so in the interests of the safety of the individual concerned.
N/A