Samagama e.V. - Articles of Association

§ 1 Name and registered office of the Organisation, financial year

(1) The former Organisation "Pauenhof e.V." has changed its name to "Samagama e.V.".
The name change has been entered into the Register of Associations.
(2) The Organisation's business office is located in Sonsbeck / NRW / Germany.
(3) The fiscal year aligns with the calendar year

§ 2 Purpose, non-profit status of the association

(2.1) The purpose of the Organisation is to promote and create a forum for unifying communication based on Buddhist values.
The purpose of the organisation is achieved in particular through the development and offering of courses and seminars in cooperation with cultural and scientific institutions as well as educational institutions.
The Organisation supports contemporary Buddhist approaches on a personal, social, cultural, ecological and economic level that can be sustainably integrated into our lives in the Western cultural sphere.
The Association promotes personal development in the sense of peaceful coexistence and the cultivation of a wholesome life practice.
(2.2) The Association supports projects of other organisations with a similar purpose.
(3) The Association pursues exclusively and directly charitable purposes within the context of the section "tax-privileged purposes" of the German Tax Code.
(3.1) The Association is a non-profit organisation; it does not pursue its own economic purposes.
(3.2) The Organisation's funds may only be used for the purposes set out in the Articles of Association. Members shall not receive any benefits from the said funds.
(3.3) No persons may be favoured by expenses that are alien to the purpose of the Association or by disproportionately high remuneration.

§ 3 Acquisition of membership

(1) Any natural or legal person may become a member of the Association.
(2) Admission to the Association must be applied for in writing to the Executive Board. In the case of minors, the application for membership must be submitted by their legal representatives. The Executive Board shall decide on the application for admission at its own discretion. It does not have to justify its rejection of the application to the applicant.
(3) At the proposal of the Executive Board, the General Assembly may appoint members or other persons who have rendered outstanding services to the Association as honorary members for life.

§ 4 Termination of membership

(1) Membership shall end upon death (in the case of legal entities, upon their cancellation), resignation or exclusion.
(2) Resignation must be declared in text form to the Executive Board. Resignation can only be declared with three months' notice prior the end of the fiscal year.
(3) A member may be expelled from the Organisation by resolution of the General Assembly if he/she a) culpably damages the reputation or interests of the Association in a serious manner or b) is more than three months in arrears with the payment of his/her admission or membership fees and has not paid the arrears despite a written reminder threatening expulsion. The member must be given the opportunity to comment on the reasons for expulsion at the General Assembly. These must be communicated to the member at least two weeks in advance.

§ 5 Rights and obligations of members

(1) Every member has the right to use the Association's facilities and to participate in joint events. The Association has the following types of membership: Honorary members, supporting members and active members. Each active member has equal voting and election rights in the General Assembly.
(1.1.) Voting and election rights are restricted to active members without outstanding membership fees.
(2) Every member has the duty to promote the interests of the Association, in particular to pay their membership fees regularly and, as far as they are able, to support the life of the Association through their co-operation.
(3) Members undertake to maintain confidentiality about internal association matters that are not part of the fulfilment of their duties within the Association.

§ 6 Admission fee and membership fees

(1) Each member shall pay an annual membership fee due in advance.
(2) The amount of the admission fee and the membership fees shall be determined by the General Assembly.
(3) Honorary members are exempt from the admission fee and membership fees.

§ 7 Bodies of the Association

(1) The bodies of the Association are the Executive Board and the General Assembly.

§ 8 Executive Board

1) The Executive Board consists of one to three persons. It is comprised of:

the chairperson,
one deputy chairperson
possibly another member.

(2) The chairperson, his/her deputy and possibly another member shall each represent the association alone.
(3) The members of the Executive Board may be paid remuneration. The General Assembly shall decide on the amount of remuneration.
(4) The Executive Board appoints the treasurer. The treasurer does not have to be a member of the Association.

§ 9 Tasks of the Executive Board

(1) The Executive Board of the Association is responsible for representing the Association in accordance with § 26 BGB and for managing its business. It has the following tasks in particular:
a) convening and preparing the general meetings, including drawing up the agenda, b) implementing the resolutions of the general meeting, c) managing the Association's assets and preparing the annual report, and d) admitting new members.

§ Section 10 Appointment of the Executive Board

(1) The members of the Executive Board are elected individually by the General Assembly for a term of two years. Members of the Executive Board must be members of the Association; an Executive Board member's term ends when Association membership ends. Re-election or premature dismissal of a member by the General Assembly is permitted. A member remains in office after expiry of the regular term of office until his/her successor is elected.
(2) If a member leaves the Executive Board prematurely, the remaining members of the Executive Board are authorised to elect a member of the Association to the Executive Board until the election of a successor by the General Assembly.

§ 11 Consultation and passing of resolutions by the Executive Board

(1) The Executive Board shall meet as required. Meetings are convened by the Chairperson or, if he/she is unable to do so, by his/her deputy.
A notice period of one week should be observed. Resolutions are passed by a majority of the valid votes cast.
In the event of a tie, the Chairperson has the casting vote or, if he/she is unable to do so, his/her deputy.
(2) The resolutions of the Board of Directors must be recorded in minutes. The minutes shall be signed by the secretary and the Chairperson or, if he/she is unable to do so, by his/her deputy or another member of the Executive Board.

§ Section 12 Tasks of the General Assembly

(1) The General Assembly is responsible for decisions on the following matters:
a) Amendments to the statutes; b) the setting of the admission fee and membership fees; c) the appointment of honorary members and the exclusion of members from the Association; d) the election and removal of board members; e) the acceptance of the annual report and the discharge of the board; and f) the dissolution of the Association.

§ 13 Convening of the General Assembly

(1) At least once a year, if possible in the first quarter, the Executive Board shall convene an ordinary General Meeting. The meeting shall be convened in text form, giving two weeks' notice and stating the agenda.
(2) The agenda is set by the Executive Board. Any member of the Association may apply to the Executive Board in text form for an addition to the agenda no later than one week before the General Meeting. The Executive Board shall decide on the application. The General Meeting shall decide on motions on the agenda that have not been included by the Executive Board or that are submitted for the first time at the General Meeting by a majority of the votes of the members present; this does not apply to motions that relate to an amendment to the Articles of Association, changes to membership fees or the dissolution of the Association.
(3) The Executive Board shall convene an extraordinary General Meeting if the interests of the Association so require or if at least one tenth of the members so request in text form, stating the purpose and reasons.

§ 14 Resolutions of the General Meeting

(1) The General Assembly shall be chaired by the Chairperson of the Executive Board or, if he/she is unavailable, by his/her deputy or, if he/she is unavailable, by a chairperson to be elected by the General Assembly.
(2) The General Assembly has a quorum of at least one-third of all club members. If a quorum is not present, the board is obligated to convene a second meeting with the same agenda within four weeks. This second meeting has a quorum regardless of the number of members present. This must be stated in the invitation. General meetings can also be held as hybrid events (in-person and digital) or entirely virtually. The board decides whether the general meeting will take place in person, in hybrid form, or entirely virtually. If the meeting is held digitally in hybrid form or entirely virtually, the members’ rights, in particular the rights to speak, submit motions, request information, and vote, are fully guaranteed for online participants. This can be done via any type of telecommunication and data transmission, including combinations of different transmission methods. The specific procedure will be communicated with the invitation.
(3) The General Assembly shall decide by open ballot with the majority of the votes of the members present. If no candidate can obtain a majority of the votes of the members present in an election, the candidate receiving the majority of the valid votes cast shall be elected; a run-off vote shall be held between multiple candidates. Resolutions to amend the Articles of Association require a three-quarters majority; the resolution to amend the Articles of Association requires a three-quarters majority,
and resolutions to change the purpose or dissolve the association require the approval of nine-tenths of the members present.
(4) The right to vote of a member who is not present may be transferred to a member who is present by means of an authorisation in text form.
(5) Minutes shall be taken of the proceedings of the General Assembly and the resolutions passed, which shall be signed by the Secretary and the chairperson of the meeting.

§ Section 15 Dissolution of the Association, termination for other reasons, discontinuation of tax-privileged purposes

(1) In the event of the dissolution of the Association, the Chairperson of the Executive Board and his/her deputy shall be jointly authorised liquidators, unless the General Assembly appoints other persons.
(2) In the event of the dissolution or cancellation of the Association or the discontinuation of tax-privileged purposes, the assets of the Association shall be transferred to a legal entity under public law or another tax-privileged corporation for use for charitable purposes in accordance with the Articles of Association.
(3) The above provisions shall apply accordingly if the legal capacity of the Association has been withdrawn.

§ 16 Ethics Committee

(1) The Ethics Committee shall be convened in cases of dispute. It shall consist of two members of the Executive Board and three other members. The decisions of the Ethics Committee shall be final to the extent permitted by law.

§ 17 Data protection

(1) The provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) apply.

§ Section 18 Severability clause

(1) Should individual provisions of these Articles of Association be or become invalid or unenforceable, this shall not affect the validity of the remainder of the Articles of Association. The invalid or unenforceable provision shall be replaced by a valid and enforceable provision whose effects come closest to the objective underlying the content. The above provisions shall apply accordingly in the event that the Articles of Association prove to be incomplete.

Sonsbeck, 14.09.2024/ supplemented on 03.05.2025