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![ima team ima team](https://cdn.ipernity.com/200/39/58/51163958.994efcd3.100.jpg?r2)
Dear members and friends of ipernity,
On March 27, 2022, two mandates within the ima team will become vacant. We invite loyal and active club members to join the ima team to continue shaping the future of ipernity:
Bernhard Westrup (Bergfex), who has devoted himself to the turnaround of our community and our website during the last five years, and has been our Vice-President and Treasurer, will be embarking on his well-deserved retirement. Therefore, the next General Assembly must elect new representatives to these two mandates.
The Vice-President organises the internal and external communication and public relations. This person coordinates all activities to promote our website in appropriate media, helping to ensure that our community has a sufficient influx of new club members.
The Treasurer monitors the incoming payments and the expenditures, and manages the savings. This person can form a team with assistants for this purpose.
If you manage your own livelihood, pay for your own purchases, transfer your rent and bills on time, you will generally be able to do the same for ipernity. Just as easily, you will be able to type incoming membership fees into a cash book and renew the corresponding club memberships with existing tools. Of course, we will train you in these tools and assist you in any other way.
We invite loyal and active club members who have been part of our community for a long time and who care about the future of ipernity to come forward until February 25, 2022. This is the deadline for collecting the agenda items for this years' Ipernity General Assembly. Take this opportunity to shape ipernity's future together with us.
Please contact us now.
Your ima team
The members of ima will duly answer your questions, be sure.
as acting Treasurer and Vice-President, I would like to say that the ima team is pleased about your attendance. (I have not agreed this with our President William Sutherland and my two board colleagues Laura Fletcher and Stefan Roßkopf, but I am sure I can say this on their behalf.) As one can see in your account, you are a long-time club member, which is favourable in terms of knowledge of ipernity's chequered history.
For your first orientation I would like to give you the following answers to your questions:
1) Ipernity is an association under French law of 1 July 1901 on the creation of an association, valid version as of February 15, 2021.
2) According to this law, the board of directors must include at least the President and the Treasurer (four-eyes principle). Eric, who founded the association in 2017 together with a French lawyer, can certainly answer specific questions.
3) With regard to nationality, there isn't any legal rule. However, it makes sense that the Treasurer is resident in one of the countries of the SEPA - (Single Euro Payments Area) so that he/she can make online money transfers without any problems.
4) The legal status of the Treasurer is not that of an employee, but that of an elected member of the Board of our Association. According to Our Statutes, a board member is elected for two years. This is expedient both in terms of familiarisation and formalities (registration at the relevant French Prefecture and at our French bank. In addition, the online accounts at Paypal, AWS and Crédit Agricole must be personalised and set up for 2-factor authentication.
5) With regard to the organisation of our accounting system (cash book, list of club members, quarterly statements, annual statement, budget with automated forecast), I have very thoroughly set up everything required in the past years. There are tried and tested Excel spreadsheets for all work processes. Of course, I will provide the necessary help with the handover and familiarisation. I will also be available for questions afterwards.
6a) Retirement is possible at any time. It is regulated in Article 8 of our Our Statutes statutes: "The retirement of a member of the Executive Board shall be done by sending an e-mail to the other members of the Executive Board. A member of the Executive Board may be dismissed from office by unanimous decision of the rest of the Executive Board."
6b) In the case of the Treasurer, however, this would lead to severe problems, because the monetary operations of the association would then come to a standstill, or an emergency arrangement would have to be set up in some way by the other board members. Therefore, a candidacy should really be meant seriously and also be aimed at the period of two years.
7) We board members can only be sued if we cause damage to the association through gross negligence or intentionally. However, since we pass all legally relevant decisions unanimously in regular online meetings and document them in a forgery-proof manner, the probability of such a thing happening is extremely low. We are also not personally financially liable as long as we do not enter into any uncovered obligations. This would be the case, for example, if we entered into a major contract with an IT service provider without having assured financing.
8) All Board members may appoint assistants to support them. This is useful for periods of temporary absence or sudden incapacity. So far, I have also been able to rely on such support, so that ipernity's existence would not be endangered if, for example, I were to be seriously ill or have a serious accident. We as a board see ourselves as a real team, and I assure you, it has always given me great pleasure to work together with the others on a voluntary, non-commercial basis.
I will be happy to answer any further questions.
Bernhard (Bergfex)