General Assembly - How To??
Hey folks,
As determined we are aiming for a meeting on Nov 25th to have our Kiez Burn Verein General Assembly.
To do so I think we need (please feel free to add):
1) a location - DONE
2) an invitation to the community - DONE
3) an agenda
Location
We will go to Noize Fabrik: Elsenstr. 52, 12059 Berlin, Germany
Invitation
I think the best way currently is to do a Facebook invitation, and also email the whole community from the newsletter list this year.
Can you please comment on the wording of the invitation below? Also - do we need to send out the proposed Satzung when we send out the invite?
Kiez Burn e.V. General Assembly
Big news - we are founding a Verein to help create a stable vision and culture for our growing Kiez Burn community. This is our first official General Assembly where we will gather new member information and elect a board.
We welcome any and all who are interested in joining the Verein. The newly appointed Board will be tasked to set rules for the Verein, and will be the vision guides for the Kiez Burn community for 1 year.
Wondering what is happening in Kiez Burn 2019? This is a great place to start. Initial brainstorming and discussions are happening in smaller groups over the past few months on how we want to shape our culture to create a more sustainable event, community and base here in Berlin.
Agenda
Proposed Agenda items (needs more)
- Introduction to the new Verein (why, how, etc)
- Current thinking and direction (overview of structures, philosophy/culture, etc)
- Proposal for election of the board
- Everyone who wants to be on the board speaks
- Election
Misc: Gathering membership information from those who would like to join. For this first general assembly, no membership is needed to partake in the decision making process. However, at this general assembly, we will need to make a decision on what the membership fee WILL be.
Steffen Lepa Tue 13 Nov 2018 9:04AM
Natacha is right, we should in any case strive to become "gemeinnützig". I know some people who have founded several Vereins if you need someone to review the Satzung in terms of "Gemeinnützigkeit". It is also possible to ask a Notar if we wanna be really sure.
Hanna-Maija (Animal) Tue 13 Nov 2018 10:25AM
I can write something about the blog!
Hanna-Maija (Animal) Tue 13 Nov 2018 10:29AM
In my experience - the less things there is to discuss the better. Without clear "this is what we decide yes or no" agenda the meeting might just never end. So I also think it would be great to discuss about it here and then just get the approval in the meeting. I think for the president and the treasurer there is some qualifications (I could imagine german language skills and basic knowledge on finances would help) so those chairs could be voted for separately. The rest could go ask bulk. This is what we did for Lovelies in our last annual meeting.
Franzi Tue 13 Nov 2018 12:17PM
@natachakromatik @alexcuthbertson @stefanapel hey folks, we have already been looking into the question of Gemeinnuetzigkeit, talked to several communities and lawyers. So this particular piece is solved for the moment. There is a lot of opportunity costs o be Gemeinnuetzig and its not necessarily at our benefit. We have worked out a first draft of a first Satzung that we have currently under review.
Franzi Tue 13 Nov 2018 12:18PM
I agree with all :) So, lets start a question doc and sort most of it out online before. And I very much agree with what Hanna-Maija said, with this size of a meeting etcetc to get the best out of it, it needs to be framed and not too detailed.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WBzIRgO8mivnu3bNoe2DYdhB3hqspJY7ckrDljaZh98/edit?usp=sharing @remyschneider @waldo @hannamaijahelvi here is the questions doc
Henrik 🤖 Wed 14 Nov 2018 2:47PM
I'd love to read over that Satzung! Is it available?
Henrik 🤖 Wed 14 Nov 2018 2:58PM
hey @franzi6, I'd be super curious about your decision process regarding the Gemeinnützigkeit. For me it's a bit intransparent and I reckon a lot of people will ask about it. Could you write up a somewhat detailed post about it?
Franzi Wed 14 Nov 2018 4:14PM
sure thing. so, remy, waldo and myself have been working on several questions over the last months. One was, what is the right legal body for kiezburn? we choose the Verein (for insurance, liability and democracy/participation reasons). second question was, do we go for Gemeinnuetzigkeit? we have done a lot of research, talked to lawyers, tax consultants etc and came to the conclusion, doesn't make a lot of sense for us. Yes, there is a tax benefit and that's interesting but to keep (not to gain Gemeinnuetzigkeit) the accounting and bureaucratic effort on yearly base will cost us as much (or more) as we save over the tax benefit. So, not really worth the huzzle for us. This might be different for other communities (depending on members, knowledge, budget, number of receipts etcetc).
Also, this is only a decision for now, with an adjusted Satzung you can always after the founding request Gemeinnuetzigkeit (yeah double in work) but we don't loose the possibility.
I hope that gives some insights... wasn't sure how deep I should go in details (love to nerd out about it if someone thinks taxes are as exciting as I think they are). Let me know if anything isn't clear or isn't making sense. @indecisiveibis
Franzi Wed 14 Nov 2018 4:17PM
Sure thing! its currently under legal review (lawyers figuring out if we compile with Vereinsrecht) but we probably share it here when he have a pre-final draft. It's mostly a very German document that regulates our necessary (legally speaking) routines as a Verein. @indecisiveibis
Jan Thomas · Tue 13 Nov 2018 7:42AM
I like the wording! Just wondering whether we should add to this newsletter also the census, which i believe wasn't yet sent out? and/or add info about the blog HM started on the website? or would you rather send that out separately? I'm shitty with writing, but happy to help with putting the NL into Mailchimp and sending it out...