Making a Verein/Association - Knowledge Thread

Off Topic
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In our current discussion in the thread with ideas on moving the community forward one topic seemed to be gaining most of the attention: establishing an Association (Verein) to help us developing further.

Making association is no easy task, especially within already existing community. Therefore I wanted to make a separate thread which:

  1. Can serve as a bucket for useful resources (which I will collect by updating this message) regarding associations
  2. Platform to discuss pluses and minuses of ‘vereinisation’ for RPG-Vienna
  3. whatever you want really in the context of association/Verein

Post your ideas and links to useful resources below.

Resourses

Official guidelines

Existing TTRPG (and like) associations

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Reposting on behalf of @H (hope that’s OK :thinking:)

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EDIT: @SilentButDeadly beat me to @H 's copypasta xD

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS MY OPINIONS

Points that have been brought up by members:

  • Storing things on location
  • Donations to purchase things for the group
  • A location where we can play without being dependent on the good will of owners of the location

Of course these things can be managed and organized without a Verein, but then the people doing it begin taking personal liabilty. Without a proper structure, I can understand why folk may be more hesitant to donate/contribute financially as the whole process is aetheral and has no checks or culpability.

If what we have is enough and we dont want to do more, then no, we dont need a Verein.
If we want to do more, and with pre-Summer interest and attendance it certainly felt like it, then we do need a Verein.

The T-Shirts designed by @Arthilas were awesome. Do we want to make an amount of merch to sell so we can fund future events? @Arthilas would need to get paid for that as well as reimbursed for the work and personal expenditures he had for Night of the Rolling Dice. For a single event, sure, just do back of the envelope stuff, but I would love to be involved in such events in the future. If we’re gonna use the RPG Vienna name, then I would prefer a formalized relationship.

There’s lots of small details that need to be properly negotiated, written down and agreed to, to prevent any future misunderstandings, overstepping of bounds and feelbad incidents. While all possible without a Verein, I dont want any voices to be unheard or drowned out. A proper structure can reduce (but not eliminate) the chances of that happening.

There can always be an arguement made for we dont NEED a Verein, that all these ideas can be done without it, and I agree it can be possible.
There is an equal arguement that having a Verein would reduce (not eliminate) many risks of these ideas not getting started, failing or feature creeping.

I have no intention of dragging anyone into this, nor any intention of alienating anyone from RPG Vienna. I hope to see more smiling faces before, during and after sessions. I feel honoured to be part of the community and seeing the interest expand in a hobby I have been with for over 20 years, a hobby that helped me with my social anxiety, a hobby that brought me lifelong friendships, a hobby that kept me from losing myself in loneliness.

I hope to be able to help this community grow, bring in more people whose lives would be improved just by having a place to go to once a week and be accepted by those around them. I want to protect this community and strengthen it to withstand any storm and for it to be here many decades from now.

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Very important points.

Major minus in my opinon is:

  • Our time. Making and maintaining an association is a lot of work and a very big commitment for years to come. This means that whatever benefits an association will bring they should be big enough for founders to commit.

Pluses for members (assuming appropriate funds are there):

  • Cheaper sessions compared to playing in bars
  • access to equipment/books
  • clear structure to book & run games
  • clear community structure to suggest and implement changes
  • facilitation of offline community hang-outs beyond games
  • support of maintance and development of online tools
  • proper tool to channel donations

Major risks:

  • Not enough interest in community leaving founder’s work useless :frowning: → this can be mitigated by polls in advance (however does not guarantee success)
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Love the merch Idea. Kurzgesagt channel made it very clear that merch is the way :slight_smile:

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Quote away!

OK, Vereine.

Firstly, I think we should reframe the entire discussion. Turning a delightful egalitarian grassroots community into a Verein shouldn’t be the default plan, with dissenting opinions dismissed as “negativity” or “meaningless critique.” It should be the other way around. There ought to be strong reasons to change a status quo that works very well.

Vereine are great. You can do good things with a Verein. But they’re not a Selbstzweck.

(I’m talking about actual for-real Vereine here. If somebody wants to start a pro forma Verein in order to rent a space - something I’ve done - and leave it at that, I don’t think anybody’s going to care.)

And I haven’t seen any convincing purposes yet. Vereine aren’t for booking and running games or hanging out when you’re not role-playing. We do all that already. Vereine are for doing things that you otherwise can’t, like accessing certain funding. If somebody has significant subsidies lined up or other opportunities for which we need a Verein as a legal entity, sign me up. But I’m not seeing it yet.

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Glad you like the idea!

Of course I can design more merch if needed, when I find time to do that :slight_smile:

By the way, I pinned this topic for one month, so that it does not get lost among other topics.

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Just to make clear: this refers to our opinon clash with @Darthbinks in the original idea thread (which really results from original misunderstanding about what meeting on 22.07 is all about). I hope we can clear our intentions in IRL meeting. No comminity takeover is planned as far as I am aware :slight_smile:

However:

  1. The conversation @H refers to had derailed from the original purpose of the thread (which was to collect ideas about what new things we could do to improve our experience) and thus was found redundant.
  2. This thread specifically designed to bash idea of Verein and get all opinions out. Bring your criticism on (Do not neg away, thx @H for correcting)! This is absolutely the place for it. This thread can certainly work as thermometer to the idea of Verein.

Does this address your concern @H?

Edited: ‘neg’ apparently have strong connotation. Was meant: negative opinon on the subject / criticism

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You can’t be serious.

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Negative opinion does not equal bad opinion.

Have actually quite a lot of doubts if Verein really is the way to go. Would be a shame if we would not discuss it properly.

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‘Neg’ is not simply a neutral term for negative opinion.

You know this and I know this.

I’ve tried to remain polite in this discussion, but you are way out of line.

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Was not aware of that. Will edit my post. Meant with all respect.

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adding to @H’s post:

  • it will be a lot of work

  • if someone has a ‘HAK matura’ you can do the administration more easily, else the Vorstand/Treasurer will be in for a rough two-three years learning curve
    (speaking from experience here)

  • members, who gain monetary benefits from the Verein, also face accounting challenges

  • with Verein comes politics - expect drama - not nec. now, but later:
    “kampfabstimmungen”, leaving people voting for bs, people bring in a horde to vote them into power …
    … seen all of that

  • just agreeing in what direction you wanna “evolve” RPGV after Vereini-zation (in lack of a better term) is a conversation to be had … and that is kinda impossible to pull of in a way to make everyone happy in an open community as this
    … so expect bad blood an/or drop outs in the future

  • to rent a place with current numbers we are looking at a 800€ membership fee :person_shrugging:

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I totally agree with you its no easy task.

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yeah that was way out of line

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We are not native speakers and some ‘benefit of a doubt’ may apply in this case. Did not know - was corrected - lets move on

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That’s part of my point: why are paying Verein dues, to a Verein that is not RPG Vienna focused?

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Before we do …

Firstly, “meant with all respect” is not some kind of magic spell. When you’re passive-voicing your opinions to make them appear as facts and using terms that denigrate the opinions of others, that’s not meant with any respect.

More importantly, this thread is now on thin ice. If anybody says anything that even veers close to crossing lines-that-should-not-be-crossed, this thread will be locked I will lock this thread.

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Please, both of you @H and @SilentButDeadly, calm down now.

The language barrier can get in the way for us non-native English speakers, it happened and it may happen again in the future. It happened to me and likely to many others too. A “passive-agressive” undertone you might read from his posts can easily be attributed to the language barrier too.
SilentButDeadly has edited his post and removed the term “neg”; and with that the case shall be closed and the hatchet shall be buried.

I would like to see to continue with a civil and healthy discussion about the thread’s subject, without insults or threats of locking the thread :slight_smile: After all, it is important to find the correct direction for RPGVienna’s future, particularly when we want to do more events like the Night of the Rolling Dice.