The following announcement was sent out on September 1st, 2022, and is presented here in slightly edited form to reflect the current state of affairs.
Dear fellow Beggars,
Over the past year, we’ve been working towards setting up the Beggars as an official ‘Verein’, and we’re proud to finally announce the establishment of the association and invite you all to join. We know that many of you appreciate the openness of how the Beggars have operated so far – and so do we! We’ve set up the association in such a way as to keep that open spirit:
- You do not have to become a member if you don’t want to; you can still take part in any Beggars project, in any capacity.
- Membership will not cost anything.
- The board will not interfere with creative decisions.
You can read below for further information on the new Verein and we will also have an info evening on Monday, the 12th of September 2022 at 6pm at the English Seminar. The info evening will be held in person and will be broadcasted on Zoom. We will explain the association in detail and answer all of your questions. There will be drinks and nibbles afterwards, so come and say hi!
So, what’s the point of even setting up an association?
There are a couple of good reasons, namely:
- So far we’ve been using a credit card for a bank account that belongs to a previous Beggars association; one that was founded in 1996 and then never met again, with just the credit card passing from director to director. This system is rather impractical and untransparent and technically, we currently have no legal access to our money.
- Similarly, it was never clear who answers the emails, who updates the website, who has the keys and who keeps track of whether or not someone is already planning a future production. Informally, those responsibilities have just been taken on by the director(s) of the current production – meaning that whoever directs a production becomes the de-facto president, treasurer, and spokesperson of the Beggars until someone else comes along.
How do we intend to change that?
The board (‘Vorstand’) and active members will take on the responsibilities of answering emails, maintaining the website & social media (you might have noticed the changes to our newsletter and website over the past year), looking after our finances, and keeping track of current and planned events / productions. We wish to interfere as little as possible with the autonomy of directors (or organizers of any other Beggar-y event). At the same time, we think directing a play should not entail taking on all administrative responsibilities for the Beggars, so directors can focus on directing. To ensure this, we will assume some authority on the following points:
- As before, new projects or productions are initiated by the directors themselves, the only difference being that they contact the Beggars association to ‘reserve’ the production rather than contacting the current director, as before. We will require the organizers of any ‘formal’ Beggars event or production to first contact us via email, to avoid overlapping events and to coordinate the announcement of the event / production. Reservations of the cellar and Room 11 (or any other contact with the English Seminar concerning the Beggars) will only be done by the association. Formally, the association has the right not to permit a project (e.g. if there are grave safety or ethical concerns), this is a right we hope and expect never to exercise.
- The one area where the association will ‘interfere’ with directors is regarding finances. Anyone who wants to use the Beggars’ funds will have to negotiate a budget with us, which we will check from time to time. We do not intend to be stingy, nor do we want to get involved with the exact allocation of the budget – this is simply to ensure that there is always enough money to support future productions, and that the use of our funds is transparent and our annual financial statement is visible to all Beggars.
So how can you get involved?
If you want to become a member of the association, you can contact us via email or via the contact form on our website. While you do not need to become a member to take part in or even launch productions, we still encourage you to do so. Joining will allow you to propose changes to the association and to vote at the annual Generalversammlung. In any case: if you want to launch a new Beggars project, we ask that you contact us first. If you have any other questions, concerns, or inputs regarding the association, we are happy to hear from you.
Still have questions?