Winter Solstice Celebration & Extraordinary General Assembly 2023

Thank you so much for all of you who were present for our Winter Solstice Celebration and Extraordinary General Assembly! 🙂

Next to voting on the new membership policies and the changes in the statutes, we also shared our moments of gratitude for GEN, tuned into the Solstice and shared our dreams and visions for the year ahead.

 ⭐ Here also the recording of the meeting, in case you missed it. ⭐

A quick recap of our voting results:

With 79% of our full members present, we doubled even the minimum attendance required for the quorum and the majority of 3/4 was certainly given with just a few voices abstaining, but no members voting again the proposed agenda items – feeling super grateful and proud of our network for joining in and showing up in this busy time of the year and supporting as well as trusting the work that has been done!
With this also again a special thanks to Charlie, Lucilla, Matteo, Abdul , Manja, Stephanie, Ave, Daniel, Simone and Camilla who have been part of the working group creating the proposal.
Please find below also again the exact voting results.

How our full members are affected by the changes:

Officially you should of course still meet the criteria since they didn’t change (apart from having the min. number of ecovillage members reduced). But you are invited to reflect and assess if you still meet the full membership criteria and if not, you are encouraged to again aspire to meet the full criteria and to reach out to GEN EU on how we can best support you.
The only direct effect is the slight increase in membership fees 30 – 75 €.

How our aspiring members are affected by the changes:

This is an opportunity for all current aspiring members to assess if you still aspire to become a full ecovillage member or see yourself actually more as an ecoproject. Due to the change every current aspiring member is certainly eligible and invited to remain part of our membership as an ecoproject (and we trust there is a general alignment with the criteria of this category). 

Those who would like to remain an aspiring ecovillage member, are asked to please inform me now until the 20th of January 2024 the latest to confirm if you are already meeting the new aspiring membership criteria or if not yet that you are planning to meet them by the end of 2024.

Please find here an overview of the new membership criteria & benefits of aspiring members and ecoprojects.

In both case, we will be very happy for you to remain an aspiring member and from that point we encourage you to apply for full membership within the next 5 years starting from the 1st of Jan 2024 and to find your buddy community. And we are happy to assist in the Twinning Process and please find here an infosheet about the role of your Buddy 🙂

If we don’t hear back from you by the 20th of January 2024 and you continue to pay your membership fee in 2024, you will automatically become an ecoproject member.

New membership fees for 2024:

Please find above and overview of the new membership fees which reflect an increase in membership fees of 20 – 75€.

In GEN Europe, we consider the membership fees as clear guidelines, but if members are not able to cover higher fees, we will still continue to welcome them as members since we aspire to be an inclusive network and finances shouldn’t be a barrier – but we still very much ask and encourage our members to give generously based on what we suggest and to reevaluate their contribution on an annual basis based on their financial situation.

We encourage you to please pay your membership at the beginning of the year – so they are due very soon and you can pay through our web page via PayPal or Stripe or via bank transfer to our bank account:
IBAN: DE 11100100100007681105, BIC: PBNKDEFF

IMPORTANT: Make sure to state the reason for the transaction: Membership fee 2024. If you need an invoice before you pay, please send us an email stating the sum you intend to pay, and we will send it to you.

Payment details: Postbank Berlin, bank code 10010010, Account no. 7681105, IBAN: DE 11100100100007681105, BIC: PBNKDEFF

Any other questions?

You can still check out the FAQ or write to me at membership@gen-europe.org if any questions are present.