by Antonis Christofides

6. Membership

1. The association has contributing and active members.
2. Active members have the active and passive election right in the general assembly. They are expected to participate in votings and to shoulder a certain responsibility area within the association.
3. Contributing members do not have election right in the general assembly. But they may put forward proposals and they are informed as well as active members on all resolutions of the association.
4. Members of the association can be natural persons or organisations. But the rights of an active member can only be represented by a natural person. Organisations may become active members by endowing a natural person with active membership for a continuous period of at least two years.
5. The founders are members of the association. The board decides on new membership after written application. The decision is communicated to the applicant and all members. New members are contributing members at least until the general assembly.

6. A member is granted active status by the general assembly. An active member becomes a contributing member if the member so wishes.

7. Contributions, Loss of Membership

1. The association charges an annual membership fee. Its amount is determined by the general assembly.
2. In case a member is late with at least two contributions, the board may decide to exclude it.
3. All voluntary contributions are owned finally and unconditionally by the association from after receipt.
4. Every member can immediately leave the association by telling its intention to the board.

5. Every active member can immediately become a contributing member by telling its intention to the board.

6. An active member that does not participate in general assemblies becomes a contributing member. Specifically, an active member automatically becomes a contributing member at the end of the first general assembly that fulfills both the following conditions: (a) The assembly is at least the third in which the active member did not participate; (b) The assembly takes place more than 730 days after the last assembly in which the person participated. "Participation" means either physical participation or remote voting according to item 12.4.

7. The general assembly shall review and decide on the status of all members in one block at the beginning of each general assembly. The newly decided rights take effect after the whole block has been completed. Before that, the previously decided rights remain in force. Decisions to exclude or degrade members against their will can only be taken on the basis of a written proposal, which must explain in which way these members are failing to fulfill their obligations, and which must conform to this statute's general provisions about submission of proposals to the general assembly.

Justification: This amendment actually consists of two parts. The first is a mere moving of a provision from 6.6 to 7.5, in order to improve the structure. The meat of the amendment is the second part, 7.6.

When people stop being active, they rarely announce it; they usually just go away. Even if they do announce it, they usually don't do it in a formal way which would trigger 7.5. As a result, the list of active members increases and is never cleaned up, which, besides member management problems, also creates practical problems when active members want to exercise their right to call or deny a general assembly, provided by 9.4 and 9.5. Both these provisions require one third of the active members to sign a motion, and this can be unreasonably difficult if most of the members who are active in theory are inactive in practice.

The rule being introduced therefore ensures that active membership is kept clean and is properly renewed. In addition, it does virtually no harm. For those exceedingly rare circumstances where an active member fails to attend three assemblies in a row although they would have wanted to attend them, they can be made active again at the next general assembly, and therefore regain the right to elect and be elected, and the only thing that is affected in the meantime is their ability to participate in a 9.4 or 9.5 motion (a motion which, nevertheless, is next to impossible without introducing this amendment).

Comment (by ggiedke): I agree that there should be a simple way to turn inactive "active members" into "contributing members". However, as long as 12.4. is not operative (i.e., refers to a yet to be defined syntax and rules to be approved by the GA I think an automatism is too harsh. So I see the amendment as contingent on the approval of a practical 12.4.

In addition, to conform with 7.7, I think the active members to be demoted need to be informed beforehand with the possibility to object to the demotion. In case of objection, the conditions of the last sentence of item 7.7 have to be observed (written motion + explanation).

I'd suggest the following modification of 7.6: add (c) The member has been informed in writing of his imminent loss of active member status in conjunction with the announcement of the General Assembly and has not objected to it. In the case of an objection, active member status can be revoked according to item 7.7.