Let's talk about founding an association

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Let’s talk about founding an association in order to get things on a more solid basis regarding the Thrive project.

There’s more talk about this topic here:

Unless someone has a different feasible idea, I say we found an association in Finland.
Here’s a website in English that guides how to do that: PRH - Associations - How to found an association
(the same page in Finnish: PRH - Yhdistykset - Yhdistyksen perustajalle)

I recommend people to check out some things there to get a better picture of what is needed. But here’s the immediate stuff that’s needed:

  • Three members (that would be me + 2)
  • Official association rules in Finnish. I suppose I’m the only one who can write them, hopefully with feedback from someone. There is a template here: https://www.prh.fi/stc/forms/yhdistyksen_saantomalli3_etaosallistuminen.doc which is pretty hilarious if you put it through google translate. Once the rules are finished I think it would be good to have a professionally done English translation, which hopefully doesn’t cost too much.

Some important things I found while reading through that website I linked:

  • Rules must be in either Swedish or Finnish, so Finnish it is.
  • The chairman has to reside in Finland (without special permission application). And probably needs to be over 18, otherwise they can’t enter into legal agreements on behalf of the association
  • The 3 founding members must be all over 15. When residing outside Finland the following information is needed (which is a bit brutal if someone who has previously been mostly anonymously participating in Thrive): “If a committee member or a person entitled to sign for the association has no Finnish personal identity code, you will need their date of birth, citizenship, and home address. Enclose a copy of their passport or other identification document with the notification.”
  • The registration costs 100 euros and takes like a month and a half. The cost is already well covered with Patreon money, but things like opening bank accounts, a PO box etc. might get a bit more costly.

For the association founding members I’d primarily want people who have been part of Thrive for a while already, but are still at least pretty active.

Please let me know what you think.

Edit: here’s the relevant law in Finnish: Yhdistyslaki 503/1989 - Ajantasainen lainsäädäntö - FINLEX ®

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Hmm, this is a very interesting suggestion. What would be some of the possible benefits of founding an association? Is it to allow for more organized and legal handling of funds we receive and spend via Patreon?

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I suppose I’ll need to copy all the questions about this I answered on discord here.

For now I’ll just quickly link this English translation of the law: PRH - Associations - Associations Act

And say that currently accepting more of the Patreon money is going to be a bit problematic for me tax-wise in a month or so.

Yes, opening separate bank accounts etc. for Thrive would be one of the main benefits.

What I didn’t mention on discord before:

  • It would be nice to form an association before releasing on steam
  • It allows us to prepare for the future by setting up contributor license agreements to collect the work copyrights, which is something we need if we ever want to console ports, or if someone violates the GPL license of the game, it makes it possible to sue with a single copyright owner.
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Ah I see. After reading the replies on the Discord I agree with what’s already been said, and if you want to go ahead and do it I’m all for it.

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Problem is that I need 2 founding members in addition to myself.
If there aren’t anyone willing to do such a thing, I’ll have to instead start researching personal tax law and faux-entrepreneurship to continue running the Patreon.

I posted the link to the actual law above as reading that might give people an idea of what’s this all about and what they would sign up for.

I’ve always heard that associations are a common thing in Finland, compared to some other places, and as such it isn’t such a big deal to join one. I tried to look for statistics but I didn’t really find anything recent. The best I found was some info from the 90s that there are 3 times as many association members in Finland than there are people, meaning that the average person that is part of an association is also part of more than 3.

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I finally got around to copying my comments about various things from discord to here.

Also if there still aren’t any takers, I’ll do one more thing: do a rough translation of the association rules template to English to try to reinforce that this isn’t a huge deal.
If still no one steps up, I’ll assume that everyone is fine with me personally taking the Patreon money, putting the game on steam myself, etc.

Now on to the comments on discord, I’ll include the questions for clarity but I won’t include who asked what.

Does a Finnish organization need to be led by a legal resident of Finland?

by default, yes
you can submit an application that costs 100e to have that restriction lifted, but it looks like you first need to form an association before you can apply for that

and what would happen if you quit?

someone needs to apply for that through international mail and a translator, probably

what are the advantages of us going finnish instead of something else?

I’m like the de facto team lead now, it makes sense to do where I can
and it seems that all countries have it difficult for non residents or non language speakers to found an association

Are there any particular downsides to us being based in finland that you can think of?

collecting donations without a permit (that costs 300e and is available for associations only) is illegal
benefits include not being sued in an American court by angry companies

Is that permit a one time transaction or do you need to renew it?

I think you’ll need to reapply each year, at least the time period in it is limited, so I don’t know if you can like ask to hold a donation collection thing for 5 years

And you have to pay out the full cost each time or is it discounted for renewal?

yeah, but I don’t think we should do that before we expect to make at least 300 in donations
The patreon doesn’t count because it’s not a donation, it’s selling a service product

That does remind me, what exactly does being a registered member of such an organization entail? What responsibilities would someone need to maintain as part of the 3 you need to register?

Looks like that PRH page I linked has in the sidebar the actual law translated into english: PRH - Associations - Associations Act

I haven’t read that myself but that seems to cover everything that is spread around the other pages, though it probably doesn’t easily answer all specific questions

Some comments from me to very long not-questions, that I also want to include here:

Tax wise the patreon income is going to become very inconvenient for me in a month or two, that’s why I want to do this now
Also this comment I posted on the community forums: “also I’ve wanted to hold off on releasing on steam until a legal association is set up for the game.”

I think that this just needs to happen now because of tax reasons it’s going to be a pain in the ass for me to accept a little bit of patreon money as I’ll have to do a bunch of tax filings and stuff, but it still wouldn’t like be enough to employ me. That’s why I want to setup an organization so that I can make an employment contract for myself (if the money is enough) so that I can then use an accounting service to take care of all the annoying things

It would be simple to setup a one person company here as well, but that wouldn’t be the same as having an association (a non-profit entity)

I haven’t wanted to do that as that would muddy the things even further. So far I think under Finnish law we are kinda like an unregistered association where we can say that we work together under some name for a goal, but it’s not a legal entity so the unregistered association itself can’t have assets or make agreements, instead all members are personally responsible for any agreements they make to run the project

Out of all the presented alternatives, I think I’m selecting the only feasible one (to be fair only found an association, do nothing are the presented choices)

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I wish I could be more helpful on this front but this is wading into territory I’m unfamiliar with. Based on all the points you provided, it does seem like founding the association would be a good move to make it easier for you to rely on the income from working on the project and therefore dedicate more time to it. Plus, you’ve done so much for the project already I think you’d do a good job managing the association aspect as well as all the work related to that.

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I agree with doing this. Having some sort of fund for the project and having a way to compensate skilled volunteers (like yourself) would be huge. I’d join as a member but, I’m still trying to prove myself here. But I’d do it.

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It’s been some time now and I suppose I should share that I am open to acting as a founding member of this association in the event that no one else is available. I was and still am somewhat apprehensive to becoming legally tied to a foreign entity but I recognize that it’s important for you and this project so I am willing to make the leap if necessary.

I know I havent been part of this team for particularly long, but I am here if needed, should no one else step up to the position.

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As promised, here it is, finally the translated rules template (by me, a bit rough in places):

1. Association name and home municipality

The association is named Revolutionary Games Studio ry. and it is based in Oulu.

2. Purpose and what it tries to accomplish

The association’s goal is to develop Thrive game.
To fulfill this goal the association will gather funds and spend them on furthering Thrive’s development by hiring employees to work on the game. The association will also perform activities that support Thrive’s development and community building.

3. Members

As an “actual” member of the association, a person can be accepted who agrees with the association’s purpose. A supporting member can be an individual or a legal entity, which wants to support the association. Actual and supporting members are accepted by the committee based on applications. The committee can suggest a person to be accepted as a honorary chairman or a member, if that person has greatly pushed the association’s agenda forward.

4. Joining and membership fees

The yearly assembly decides on a joining fee and yearly membership fee for actual and supporting members. The fees can be different for the two groups. Honorary members don’t pay membership fees.

5. Committee

The committee runs the association. The committee is elected in the yearly assembly and consists of chairman and 2-8 other members with 0-8 backup members. The committee is elected for one year at a time (for the time between the yearly assembly). The committee picks among themselves a vice-chairman and among themselves or from the outside a secretary, treasurer and other needed roles. The committee is assembled on invitation by the chairman or if the chairman is not able to, then the vice-chairman, when the committee feels the need to or at least half of the committee members demand it. The committee is able to make decisions when at least half of its members (including the chairman and vice-chairman [the wording is a bit unclear here, maybe I’d like to change it to require either chairman or vice-chairman to be present]) are present. When voting on an issue a single majority determines the winner. If the votes are even, the chairman’s vote decides. In elections the tie is broken with a random decision.

6. Signing on behalf of the association

The chairman, vice-chairman, secretary or treasurer can sign legal documents on behalf of the company.

[I’d like to allow the chairman to sign alone but the other members needing 2 each, there is an example wording in another template about this]

7. Accounting period

The association’s accounting period will be calender year.

8. Meetings and assemblies

If the committee or a yearly assembly so decides, it is possible to join meetings or the general assembly remotely through the internet. The yearly assembly is held yearly on a day decided by the committee between January and May [I think I’d like to move these to be more around the summer to make participation easier for students]. In the yearly assembly each actual association member, as well as honorary members, have each one vote. A supporting member has the right to join an assembly and voice opinions there. A single majority of votes decides the winning decision. If votes are even, the chairman’s vote is the tie-breaker. In elections random choice is used as the tie-breaker instead.

[I want to rework this section to basically be “by default” remote and always require remote participation to be possible, and maybe with technical issues the voting needs some grace period to not miss on people’s opinions due to technical issues]

9. Assembly summons

The committee must notify association members at least 7 days before the yearly assembly through mail or e-mail.

10. Yearly assembly

The following agenda is used in the yearly assembly:

  1. Assembly is declared started
  2. Assembly chairman, secretary, and two proceedings checkers, and if needed 2 vote counters, are selected
  3. The assembly is found to be lawful and able to make decisions
  4. The agenda for the assembly is accepted
  5. The financial statement, a recap of the year, and statements from auditors are presented
  6. Decision is made on accepting the financial statement and relieving the committee and other responsible people out of any misdemeanor is decided
  7. Action plan, estimates on income and expenses, joining and membership fees for next year are confirmed
  8. The committee chairman and other members are elected
  9. One or two auditors and backup auditors are selected
  10. Other matters that have come up, and have been mentioned in the invite, are handled. If an association member wants some matter to be handled here, they must make a written requrest to the committee early enough that the matter can be included in the invite to the assembly.

11. Rule changes and association dissolving

The decision to change the rules or dissolving the association must be made in the yearly assembly with a \frac{3}{4} majority out of the cast votes. The invitation to the assembly must mention rule changes or dissolving. In the case of the association being dissolved the funds of the association must be used to further the association’s goal in the way decided by the assembly that decided on dissolving the association. If the association is abolished, the funds shall be used the same way.

This took quite a bit of time, hope you appreciate it. Once the final Finnish version of the rules is done, I can pay for a professional translation to help alleviate fears that I have included something dubious in it.

I’d like some feedback on this. I included already some comments, but after I’ve had some more time to think I might post some. The additions will primarily be to ensure that a hostile takeover can’t happen, so I kinda want things like the project committee being able to throw people out and long time members getting more votes included in the rules.

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Are these mentioned members all the developers for Thrive, or is there going to be a new class of actual “members” separate from the volunteer developers? Are chairmen going to be the organization’s analogue to our current team leads, or a presiding individual as the name suggests? What is going to be the role of regular members, as opposed to volunteer developers and chairmen?

Looking at all of this, I am assuming that the team is going to have some serious organizational changes to how everything works. I suppose that this is a given when translating from a loose team to an organized legal entity.
All I can ask right now is, what is going to stay the same? I’m looking at some really unfamiliar territory right here, as I’ve never been a part of any such organization before.

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Association members are different. The people need to apply to join the association specifically (and pay any fees as decided by the yearly assembly).
I was thinking that the committee should make a policy (maybe not written in the official rules to be a bit flexible) to only accept accepted thrive developers to join the association. That will stop people who aren’t serious and have the skills to develop thrive, from voting on the things the association does.

There can be only one chairman per the rules, that person is kind of the head of the association organization. I think we’ll have the association organization structure separate from the development teams, though I think the association committee is the one who will have the final say on who are the team leads, and maybe they can also veto applications to join the team.

The regular members are the ones who get to vote once a year on the committee members as well as any official rule changes. I think it’s not strictly necessary that the committee chairman is a member of the association, but I think that will always be the case.

Basically the regular members are the pool of people deciding on the overall direction the association is taken. So their role is to be sensible people and voting, which granted seems to be pretty hard in this day and age…

I think we can keep the development organization the same, but the team leads would be managed by the committee. So the committee gets to set some rules about what they do. The default rule template leaves a lot of stuff undefined, so the committee can make decisions about the day to day details on how to go about things. If I’m the first chairman (of course I’ll need at least 50% of the committee members to agree with me in any meetings deciding things), I’ll try to keep things the way they are now, but require some kind of reporting to the committee in big decisions, or something. I’m not really sure yet, but we can start with very minimal set of decisions about how we’ll go about the future development.

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Here’s a finished draft of the association rules with the few tweaks to the rule template I made:

Yhdistyksen säännöt

1. Yhdistyksen nimi ja kotipaikka

Yhdistyksen nimi on Revolutionary Games Studio ry ja sen kotipaikka on
Oulu.

2. Tarkoitus ja toiminnan laatu

Yhdistyksen tarkoituksena on kehittää ja jakaa Thrive-peliä. Thrive on
peli, joka kertoo evoluutiosta niin että pelaaja ohjaa lajin
yksisoluisesta elämästä avaruuteen asti. Pelin lähdekoodi tullaan
jakamaan jonkin avoimen lähdekoodin lisenssin alaisena niiden
alustojen osalta, jotka sallivat sovellusten käyttämän lähdekoodin
jakamisen valitun lisenssin ehtojen mukaisesti. Peliin sisältyvä
taide, musiikki, mallit sekä muut resurssit (muu sisältö kuin
lähdekoodi), tullaan myös jakamaan vapaan lisenssin alaisena, joka on
filosofialtaan samankaltainen kuin avoimen lähdekoodin lisenssit.

Tarkoituksensa toteuttamiseksi yhdistys kerää varoja ja käyttää niitä
edistämään Thriven kehitystä sekä toteuttaa kehitystä ja jakamista
tukevaa toimintaa. Varojen keräämiseksi yhdistys voi myydä pääsyä,
kehitystiimin ulkopuolisille henkilöille, uusiin pelin versioihin
ennakolta, tarjota eksklusiivisia viestejä pelin kehityksestä, tarjota
vaihtoehtoisia latauksia valmiiksi tehtyihin paketteihin Thrivesta tai
tarjota Thrivea alustoilla, joilla ei ole mahdollista tarjota peliä
lähdekoodin muodossa. Yhdistyksen hallitus voi myös päättää myydä
vastaavanlaisia palveluja ja tuotteita, jotka eivät sisälly suoraan
edellä olevaan listaan.

3. Jäsenet

Yhdistykseen varsinaiseksi jäseneksi voidaan hyväksyä henkilö, joka
hyväksyy yhdistyksen tarkoituksen. Kannattavaksi jäseneksi voidaan
hyväksyä yksityinen henkilö tai oikeuskelpoinen yhteisö, joka haluaa
tukea yhdistyksen tarkoitusta ja toimintaa. Varsinaiset jäsenet ja
kannattavat jäsenet hyväksyy hakemuksesta yhdistyksen
hallitus. Kunniapuheenjohtajaksi tai kunniajäseneksi voidaan
hallituksen esityksestä yhdistyksen kokouksessa kutsua henkilö, joka
on huomattavasti edistänyt ja tukenut yhdistyksen toimintaa.

Jos yhdistyksen jäsen on aiheuttanut huomattavasti vahinkoa
yhdistykselle, ja on nähtävissä, että vahinko jatkuu, voi yhdistyksen
hallitus äänestää tämän jäsenen erottamisesta. Muussa tapauksissa
jäsenen erottaminen käsitellään yhdistyksen kokouksessa. Jos jäsen on
erotettu hallituksen toimesta, voi tämä pyytää, että erottaminen
käsitellään uudestaan seuraavassa yhdistyksen kokouksessa.

4. Liittymis- ja jäsenmaksu

Varsinaisilta jäseniltä ja kannattavilta jäseniltä perittävän
liittymismaksun ja vuotuisen jäsenmaksun suuruudesta erikseen
kummallekin jäsenryhmälle päättää vuosikokous. Kunniapuheenjohtaja ja
kunniajäsenet eivät suorita jäsenmaksuja. Jos jäsen ei ole maksanut
jäsenmaksua kuuden kuukauden sisällä eräpäivästä, yhdistyksen hallitus
voi päättää tämän jäsenen erottamisesta jäsen maksun maksamatta
jättämisestä.

5. Hallitus

Yhdistyksen asioita hoitaa hallitus, johon kuuluu vuosikokouksessa
valitut puheenjohtaja ja 2-8 muuta varsinaista jäsentä sekä 0-8
varajäsentä. Hallituksen toimikausi on vuosikokousten välinen
aika. Hallitus valitsee keskuudestaan varapuheenjohtajan sekä ottaa
keskuudestaan tai ulkopuoleltaan sihteerin, rahastonhoitajan ja muut
tarvittavat toimihenkilöt. Hallitus kokoontuu puheenjohtajan tai hänen
estyneenä ollessaan varapuheenjohtajan kutsusta, kun he katsovat
siihen olevan aihetta tai kun vähintään puolet hallituksen jäsenistä
sitä vaatii. Hallitus on päätösvaltainen, kun vähintään puolet sen
jäsenistä, puheenjohtaja tai varapuheenjohtaja mukaanluettuna on
läsnä. Hallituksen ollakseen päätösvaltainen pitää joko puheenjohtajan
tai varapuheenjohtajan olla läsnä. Äänestykset ratkaistaan
ehdottomalla ääntenenemmistöllä. Äänten mennessä tasan ratkaisee
puheenjohtajan ääni, vaaleissa kuitenkin arpa.

6. Yhdistyksen nimen kirjoittaminen

Yhdistyksen nimen kirjoittaa hallituksen puheenjohtaja yksin,
varapuheenjohtaja, sihteeri tai rahastonhoitaja kaksi yhdessä.

7. Tilikausi

Yhdistyksen tilikausi on kalenterivuosi.

8. Yhdistyksen kokoukset

Yhdistyksen kokoukset järjestetään pääasiassa etäyhteyksien
avulla. Lisäksi kokouksella voi olla fyysinen sijainti, josta
kokoukseen voi osallistua, niin hallituksen tai yhdistyksen kokouksen
päättäessä. Yhdistyksen kokoukset järjestetään englanniksi, elleivät
kaikki kokoukseen osallistuvat henkilöt puhu jotain muuta yhteistä
kieltä. Yhdistyksen vuosikokous pidetään vuosittain hallituksen
määräämänä päivänä touko-elokuussa. Yhdistyksen kokouksissa on
jokaisella varsinaisella jäsenellä, kunniapuheenjohtajalla ja
kunniajäsenellä yksi ääni. Yhdistyksen hallituksen nykyisillä ja
entisillä jäsenillä, jos he ovat yhä yhdistyksen jäseniä, on kaksi
ääntä käytössään joka äänestyksessä. Kannattavalla jäsenellä on
kokouksessa läsnäolo- ja puheoikeus. Yhdistyksen kokouksen päätökseksi
tulee, ellei säännöissä ole toisin määrätty, se mielipide, jota on
kannattanut yli puolet annetuista äänistä. Äänten mennessä tasan
ratkaisee kokouksen puheenjohtajan ääni, vaaleissa kuitenkin arpa.

Vaaleissa äänestys suoritetaan laittamalla ehdolla olevat henkilöt
mieluusjärjestykseen. Hyväksyttävässä äänessä pitää olla ainakin
merkittynä ykkösehdokas. Äänten laskenta suoritetaan niin, että
ensimmäiseksi merkitty ehdokas saa äänestäjän omaavan äänimäärän
mukaisesti ääniä, seuraava ehdokas saa puolet ensimmäiseksi valitun
ehdokkaan äänistä, kolmas saa kolmasosan ja niin edelleen. Valituksi
tulevat ehdokkaat määräytyvät äänimäärän mukaisessa järjestyksessä.

9. Yhdistyksen kokousten koollekutsuminen

Hallituksen on kutsuttava yhdistyksen kokoukset koolle vähintään
seitsemän vuorokautta ennen kokousta jäsenille lähetetyllä
sähköpostilla tai kirjeillä.

10. Vuosikokous

Yhdistyksen vuosikokouksessa käsitellään seuraavat asiat:

  1. kokouksen avaus
  2. valitaan kokouksen puheenjohtaja, sihteeri, kaksi
    pöytäkirjantarkastajaa ja tarvittaessa kaksi ääntenlaskijaa
  3. todetaan kokouksen laillisuus ja päätösvaltaisuus
  4. hyväksytään kokouksen työjärjestys
  5. esitetään tilinpäätös, vuosikertomus ja
    toiminnantarkastajien/tilintarkastajien lausunto
  6. päätetään tilinpäätöksen vahvistamisesta ja vastuuvapauden
    myöntämisestä hallitukselle ja muille vastuuvelvollisille
  7. vahvistetaan toimintasuunnitelma, tulo- ja menoarvio sekä
    liittymis- ja jäsenmaksujen suuruudet
  8. valitaan hallituksen puheenjohtaja ja muut jäsenet
  9. valitaan yksi tai kaksi toiminnantarkastajaa ja
    varatoiminnantarkastajaa taikka yksi tai kaksi tilintarkastajaa ja
    varatilintarkastajaa
  10. käsitellään muut kokouskutsussa mainitut asiat.

Mikäli yhdistyksen jäsen haluaa saada jonkin asian yhdistyksen
vuosikokouksen käsiteltäväksi, on hänen ilmoitettava siitä
kirjallisesti hallitukselle niin hyvissä ajoin, että asia voidaan
sisällyttää kokouskutsuun.

11. Sääntöjen muuttaminen ja yhdistyksen purkaminen

Päätös sääntöjen muuttamisesta ja yhdistyksen purkamisesta on tehtävä
yhdistyksen kokouksessa vähintään kolmen neljäsosan (3/4) enemmistöllä
annetuista äänistä. Kokouskutsussa on mainittava sääntöjen
muuttamisesta tai yhdistyksen purkamisesta. Yhdistyksen purkautuessa
käytetään yhdistyksen varat yhdistyksen tarkoituksen edistämiseen
purkamisesta päättävän kokouksen määräämällä tavalla. Yhdistyksen
tullessa lakkautetuksi käytetään sen varat samaan tarkoitukseen.

I made all the changes I mentioned beforehand. Also I added a note how elections in the association work (voters can rank all candidates in the order they want).

If you want a good laugh you can try to put that through Google translate, but I was thinking I probably need to get it professionally translated. Unless that’s really expensive, I’ll try to get that done next week.

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I hired a translator to translate the rules, here is the result:

Rules of the Association

This is a translated version of the official rules. These are not the
effective rules, if there is a disparency between this and the
original version.

1. Association name and domicile

The name of the Association is Revolutionary Games Studio ry, and its
domicile is Oulu.

2. Purpose and form of activities

The purpose of the Association is to develop and distribute the Thrive
game. Thrive is a game about the evolution of life in which the player
controls a species from a unicellular level of life to the space
age. The source code of the game will be distributed under an
open-source code license for the platforms that allow the source code
used by applications to be distributed following the terms and
conditions of the license. The graphics, music, templates and other
resources included in the game (other content than the source code),
will also be distributed under a free license, which is similar, in
terms of its philosophy, as open-source code licenses.

In order to achieve its purpose, the Association shall collect funds
and use them to promote the development of Thrive as well as to carry
out activities that support development and distribution. For the
purpose of collecting funds, the Association can sell access to
individuals outside the development team, to new game versions in
advance, offer exclusive messages on the development of the game,
offer alternative downloads to premade packages of Thrive or offer
Thrive on platforms, which cannot provide the game in the form of a
source code. The Board of the Association can also decide to sell
similar services and products, which are not directly included in the
aforementioned list. The Board of the Association can also choose to
collect funds in the form of donations.

3. Members

An individual who accepts the purpose of the Association can be
accepted as a permanent member of the Association. A private
individual or community with legal capacity, who wishes to support the
purpose and activities of the Association, can be accepted as a
supporting member. Actual members and supporting members are approved
upon application by the Association’s Board. Upon the Board’s
proposal, an individual who has significantly promoted and supported
the activities of the Association can be invited as Honorary President
or honorary member at the Association’s meeting.

Suppose a member of the Association has caused significant damages to
the Association, and it is apparent that the damages are
continuing. In that case, the Association’s Board can vote for the
said member to be dismissed. In other cases, the dismissal of a member
is reviewed at the Association’s meeting. If the Board has dismissed a
member, the said member can request that the dismissal is reviewed
again at the Association’s next meeting.

4. Accession and membership fee

The amount of the accession fee and annual membership fee for
permanent members and supporting members shall be decided individually
for each member group by the General Meeting. The Honorary President
and honorary members are liable to pay membership fees. If a member
has not paid the membership fee within six months following the due
date, the Board of the Association can decide on the dismissal of the
said member based on non-payment of the membership fee.

5. Board

The matters of the Association are handled by the Board that includes
the President and 2-8 other permanent members as well as 0-8 deputy
members who are elected at the General Meeting. The term of office of
the Board is the period between General Meetings. The Board selects
from amongst its members a Vice President and the Board also appoints
a Secretary, Treasurer as well as other necessary personnel from
amongst its members or from outside the Board. The Board convenes at
the invitation of the President or, if the President is unavailable,
the Vice President, when they deem it necessary or when at least half
of the members of the Board demand it. The Board constitutes a quorum
when half of the members of the Board, as well as the President or
Vice President, are present. For the Board to have decision-making
power, the President or Vice President must be present. Votes are
decided by absolute majority. If the votes are tied, the President
will cast the deciding vote, except in elections where tied votes are
decided by drawing lots.

6. Signing authority for the Association

The Board’s President may independently sign on behalf of the
Association, the Vice President, Secretary or Treasurer may sign on
behalf of the Association, two together.

7. Accounting period

The accounting period of the Association is the calendar year.

8. Meetings of the Association

In principle, the meetings of the Association shall be held
remotely. In addition to this, the meeting may have a physical
location, where the meeting can be participated in, upon the decision
of the Board or the meeting of the Association. The meetings of the
Association shall be held in English unless all the participants of
the meeting speak another common language. The General Meeting of the
Association shall be held annually on a date defined by the Board in
May-August. At meetings of the Association each permanent member, the
Honorary President and honorary member have one vote. The current and
former members of the Board of the Association, if they are still
members of the Association, have two votes in each voting. Supporting
members have the right to presence and the right to speak. The
decision of the meeting of the Association is unless otherwise
stipulated in the rules, the opinion that received over half of the
votes that were cast. If the votes are tied, the chairperson of the
meeting will cast the deciding vote, except in elections where tied
votes are decided by drawing lots.

In elections, the voting is carried out by placing the candidates in
order of preference. An acceptable vote must include at least a
primary candidate. The counting of votes is carried out in such a way
that the candidate marked first receives the number of votes held by
the voter, the next candidate receives half of the voter’s votes, and
the third receives a third and so on. The elected candidates are
determined in accordance with the number of votes.

9. Convening the meetings of the Association

The Board must convene the meetings of the Association at least seven
days before the meeting by email or post.

10. General meeting

The following matters are handled at the General Meeting of the Association:

  1. opening of the meeting
  2. selecting the chairperson, secretary, two examiners for the minutes
    and, if necessary, two vote counters
  3. establishing the legality and quorum of the meeting
  4. approving the agenda for the meeting
  5. presenting the financial statement, annual report and statement
    from the performance auditors/financial auditors
  6. deciding on the confirmation of the financial statement and
    granting the Board and other responsible persons the freedom from
    liability
  7. confirming the operating plan, ingoing and outgoing estimate as
    well as the amounts of the accession and membership fees
  8. selecting the President and the other members of the Board
  9. selecting one or two performance auditors and deputy performance
    auditors, or one or two financial auditors and deputy financial
    auditors
  10. handling the other matters mentioned in the meeting invitation.

If a member of the Association wants to include some specific matter
in the agenda of the Association’s General Meeting, they must notify
the Board of this in writing sufficiently in advance so that the issue
can be included in the meeting invitation.

11. Changing the rules and dissolving the Association

The decision on changing the rules and dissolving the Association must
be made in a meeting of the Association by a majority of at least
three quarters (3/4) of the votes given. The meeting invitation must
mention that meeting will include a motion to change the rules or
dissolve the Association. If the Association is dissolved, its funds
will be used to advance the purpose of the Association in the manner
specified by the meeting that decided to dissolve the Association. If
the Association is abolished, its funds will be used for the same
purpose.

They translated, what I called the committee into board, which does make sense, but the PRH site also used committee. That might be a tiny bit confusing.

Next would be to ask @Buckly and @Nunz for the info I need to fill in the association forming documents. Then all that’s left is to get that document signed by the initial association members, pay the registration fee, and submit the documents.

If anyone has objections or additionally wants to join as an initial association member, let me know ASAP.

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15

I’m ready to give such info if you’re ready to receive it.

16

I’m going to ask later today in a private message, because I assume you don’t want to doxx yourself.

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