Thanks for clarifying @Lee I can take a look at our existing statutes and see if anything crucial is missing under the new Belgian law. I will coordinate with @ClaudiaPr to get this done by 12/04 ahead of the plenary of 17/04!
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@Lee @ClaudiaPr I had a look at our statutes and left comments in the ones that are from last year, so not the working document that Claudia and Sarah are working on (I didn’t want to mess things up). I’ve flagged where things don’t seem to be updated according to the new law, and also some places where things could be more clearly formulated: (internal link). @ClaudiaPr lets have a chat about this at the plenary on Monday or the next finance/legal meeting.
Hi @VickyVanEyck,
Thanks a lot for that.
Could you please provide the source that inspires you to suggest these changes. Because many of the comments that you make are not mentioned in the websites that I read about the changes to the law (see e.g. De vzw-wetgeving: de basis | De Ambrassade). TIA!
Hi Vicky,
We chatted on another channel and I learned that your comments are inspired by the statutes of another asbl.
I’m open to any input, but I find it difficult to make a lot of changes to the statutes if I don’t understand why and I can’t retrieve any trace of the justification online. Everything together Alberto and I have probably spend around 40 hours on these statutes, which included a lot of studying. I am not saying that what we have is perfect (far from that), but at the same time I am reasonably confident that it mostly meets the minimum requirements, and that surgical changes is all that we need.
Two examples:
- All the statutes that I checked (quite some) AND the template that we used for Article 3 “but” (goal). Just because this is done differently in one asbl doesn’t mean we also have to do it. Don’t fix it unless it’s broken.
- You suggest that the difference between “membres adhérents” and “membres effectifs” ceased to exist under the new law, and yet I can’t find a single website that would confirm this (on the contrary).
Small note:
I see you inserted your comments in the version of the statutes that is published online. That doesn’t seem to be in line with your preferences, and I personally I also like to keep the online version clean if possible.
To fix it I would suggest the following: download a copy of your document to your own drive, and use the version control to revert it to the version before your changes. If you need help, please don’t hesitate to contact Team IT.
Hi Lie,
Some of things that I put as comments were just suggestions for improvements for readability, they are not legally necessary (like splitting article 2 into two sections and giving it a new title). Since we are updating the statutes anyways, I just made some suggestions. I wouldn’t explicitly go in and change the statutes just for those reasons alone. Other changes I made to be more in line with the new law.
Actually, I did not say that the difference between “membres adhérents” and “membres effectifs” ceased to exist. I said that under the new law, “membres effectifs” has become just “membres”. Here is a link to the law, there is no mention of membres effectifs anymore: https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/eli/loi/2019/03/23/2019A40586/justel#Art.9:14
Having said that, we won’t get into any legal trouble for mentioning “effectifs”, but again, since I know we are anyways updating the statutes, I thought, why not improve them.
I made a copy of the statutes where I added comments, and deleted the comments from the version that is online. I thought it was ok to add comments there as there were also still some open comments from Alberto. Here is the new version (internal link). Feel free to do with it what you like!
Historical context: in 2019, we (me plus some people who are no longer involved) created an ASBL using the generic template for ASBLs, plus of course some customization in the article about objectives.
In 2022, as part of his consulting with us, Mark shared the statute of another ASBL that had been used by another cohousing. We used that as a template for the current statute of The Reef.
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Thanks Alberto! The statutes that Mark sent do still have a couple of hangovers from the old law. For instance, the convocation period for the AGM, which is now 15 days instead of 10. This is important because otherwise your AGMs are void. And actually, the lawyers advised us that the change of “membres effectifs” to “membres” is a necessary change.
In the new document I have set out suggestions for changes in English. I sense a reluctance to do more work on the statutes, so I would just advice to insert the things that are mandatory under the new law. I’m happy to walk you, @Lee through the changes that I understand to be mandatory.
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My main source of reluctance comes from the long, tiresome and expensive process that changing the statutes entail. It would go away if someone volunteered to do it. This time I’d like to sit it out, I don’t know that I can stomach it for the second time in less than 12 months! Even more so now that we learned from the notary that in fact the ASBL will have no part in buying the option for the site of the future Reef, and in this sense we should be careful about overinvesting into it.
OTOH, once we do decide to change the statutes by going through the process, might as well make all the changes we need.
So, the process I would recommend is the following. I am speaking for myself and not for my fellow full members.
- We finalize the decision about whether or not you (Vicky) are going to join as a full member in your own right.
- If you don’t, then your document becomes friendly advice, for which I, for one, am grateful. Indeed, the new code might have displaced a couple of articles!
- If you do, then it would be great if someone (maybe you?) volunteered to create a proposal to change the statute, taking on board the “maintenance” issued from the new civil code as well as any other kinks that we might want to iron out. We could also decide to lump these changes with others, like appointing a new board, in order to economize time and money with the process.
- We approve the proposal and encode it into a GA. We sign the minutes digitally.
- At this point, someone (someone else, if you have led on the proposal) executes the process documented here.
Hi @alberto,
We decided that we would update the statutes, because we need to pay and go through the entire song and dance because of the new Board.
Updating the statutes makes sense, because:
- There are a couple of undeniable (little) mistakes that need to be corrected
- There are couple of things (e.g. Article 24) that are theoretically correct, but which would benefit from some small changes
@Sarah and @ClaudiaPr are taking care of this, together with the question of taking insurance yes or no.
My personal reluctance to put more energy in this than is strictly needed comes from the fact that we are overstretched, and I’d like to put (my) energy where it is mostly needed. Given that I am currently the president of the asbl, I feel obliged to thoroughly check any change that would be made, and so the less there are, the better.
That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to making changes, on the contrary. I am open to any change that is suggested, but what I would like to see is that proposals for changes are presented in a concise manner, with a verifiable and easily accessible justification (e.g. reference to an official document or website).
@Sarah and I are currently looking into the different asbl insurance options and it should be considered which one or which ones we actually need.
There are a number of different insurance options for asbl’s that may not be as relevant for the Reef at the moment, e.g. fire insurance (obligatory in other circumstances though), legal protection or insurance for motor vehicles.
Two options, however, seem to be of particular relevance: 1) civil liability insurance for the asbl and 2) civil liability insurance for members of the board. The first seems to be of relevance in case accidents arise in the context of the organisation of events (e.g. social, cultural, sports) and the second would cover damages arising from a fault in the management of the organisation.
If we follow the advice of the notary, then the purchase of the land will not be carried out via the asbl but via a “société simple” and this raises the question whether the asbl insurances will still be of relevance if the most “risky” activity will shift to another legal vehicle. Perhaps our notary can advise.
Hi @ClaudiaPr,
Thanks a lot for that.
I take it that the heavy lifting will be done by the société simple, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t need the asbl.
When we rent venues for meetings, the contract that I need to sign has a clause that says that we do have the mandatory civil liability insurance. We are taking a decision about the budget tomorrow at the plenary, so it would have been great if we could have included an estimate for the insurance.
I was not aware of this. Ok, so in that case we will need the civil liability insurance.
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Sorry @Lee , but I wasn’t aware of that. When we last discussed it at the coordination meeting, we said that it was ok to have this ready by 28/04. I didn’t think to connect the two infos, sorry…
I will do my best to have a rough quote by tonight, but it might not be possible…
There is a possibility to have an insurance for members of the ASBL in case of a physical accident (accidents corporels). Do we want this? It seems to me that this wouldn"t be super likely for now that there would be an accident to a member that would require more than a trip to the hospital, but it might be different when we start working on the building grounds. So maybe we don"t need this for now but should get it later??
Hi @Sarah,
It’s suboptimal, but not a big deal. We’ll find a way to deal with it.
As for which insurance we need and which we don’t I’d like to get an overview. It may seem unlikely that somebody would get hurt, but then it only takes one person to have an unfortunate fall off the stairs to break their neck … and our bank account.
So I’d recommend to ask for quotes from a couple of providers, and then maybe one or the other organisation that helps asbl’s (Habitat & Participation or a more generic one) to see what they recommend?
I think we can get an insurance that covers both civil liability and accidents, for instance the one from DVV that I shared with you covers civil liability, legal protection and physical accidents.
Yes. And if you could have a look at the liability of Board members in one go, that would be a triple win. Thanks a lot!
On the case as well 
Yes but in the actual form you have to say which ones you want…
I have put the forms I’ve received from DVV and Ethias into a folder in team legal (it seems like it’s where it belongs, @ClaudiaPr you can move it if I put it in the wrong file): internal link.
I am having a go at filling them in, but honestly it"s not very easy…
If somebody feels inspired, please feel free to take this away from me… In the meantime, I will be putting my attempts in the same folder, but again really really happy if somebody wants to have a go or change something… @Lee you might have a better idea for estimating the numver of people and the frequency for our different activities…
For the moment, I’m always going for the lowest coverage because I don’t think our needs are above that, but happy to stand corrected…
Actually the more I do this, the least confident I am I can do it on my own (or even just with @ClaudiaPr if you become available for this)
We need to evaluate how many times our members are involved overall in a year. I find it very hard to come up with a number and I feel that @Lee you would have a better oversight. Maybe we would need to have a little chat about this…