ABBUC's new published magazine

[Gury]

I received two magazines yesterday (normal issue number #142 and special edition #52). Beautiful cover, contents and software on disks.

 

Thank you very much and keep up the good work.

Boštjan

 

[+videofx]

Was it in English?  How do you get them?

[mimo]

4 minutes ago, videofx said:

Was it in English?  How do you get them?

Not yet, the printed magazine is in German, although sometimes there are English bits in it. There is an English pdf for download a few weeks after the physical release.
The floppy disc is worth the entrance fee.
Join the club at http://www.abbuc.de/
once you are a member you will get access to a tonne of downloads and previous magazines etc etc etc 

[Gunstar]

Cool! I'll start looking for my copy in the post. Though I'm pretty sure it's about time for me to renew my dues if not past time. Do members get notified whens it's time to renew? Or is it up to us to make sure? Normally anyway, I know they are under new management and still sorting things out as I inquired during a PM conversation with @skr last summer, and at the time he said they were re-organizing all of that at the time. I'm sure I'll find out now that I've tagged him here...

I guess I better go check on that membership now anyway...

 

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Gunstar

[ivop]

1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

Do members get notified whens it's time to renew?

This is something I didn't know for a long, long time, but your renewal date is printed on the envelope! I have been a year behind and then payed for two years. Just checked the last envelope and I have to pay again after 31.09.2020

 

I'm not very well versed in German, but there's a whole piece on changing the statutes of the foundation. If I'm understanding it correctly, the proposal is if one fails to pay within 3 months, the subscription is automatically terminated.

 

I would really like two things:

 

1. What's the amount to pay per year? I always make an educated guess and have never had any problems with Wolfgang, but it's hard to find the exact amount per year. It's not even mentioned in the magazine itself.

 

2. Get an e-mail (or snailmail) that your subscription is about to expire and that you have to pay again. Only because @F#READY told me the date was on the envelope, I realized I was a year behind Props to Wolfgang for still sending me the magazines.

 

[+slx]

32 minutes ago, ivop said:

1. What's the amount to pay per year? I always make an educated guess and have never had any problems with Wolfgang, but it's hard to find the exact amount per year. It's not even mentioned in the magazine itself.

 

2. Get an e-mail (or snailmail) that your subscription is about to expire and that you have to pay again. Only because @F#READY told me the date was on the envelope, I realized I was a year behind Props to Wolfgang for still sending me the magazines.

 

http://www.abbuc.de/mitgliedschaft/mitglied-werden says its 2,67 EUR per month outside Germany although I understood the discussion around the new statutes to include a possible change to annual subscription rates as the current rules are 35 years old and don't fit actual operations anymore. 

 

As a member you get to access the competition games in advance and are allowed to vote on them!

[Mr Robot]

They don't even have an email address for every member and not every member uses the forums. The only way to reach everyone is by mail.

 

Maybe if they replaced the date on the envelope with a large bold statement that your membership is due for renewal.

 

They also have people who pay years in advance and other people who pay monthly.

 

The monthly people would always have the bold statement on their envelope which is understandably not acceptable. 

 

28 minutes ago, ivop said:

I'm not very well versed in German, but there's a whole piece on changing the statutes of the foundation. If I'm understanding it correctly, the proposal is if one fails to pay within 3 months, the subscription is automatically terminated.

It's not a subscription, it's a membership that comes with a free disk magazine (which is also on paper now) and other benefits.

 

The proposal is to stop access to the benefits (including the magazine) after three months of missed fees until the member catches back up. If they no longer wish to be a member of the club they still have to pay any arrears before they can leave. They are also proposing that members get to opt out of receiving a physical disk (going digital only) because disks are getting hard/expensive to find. There's also some stuff about the address of the club and a bunch of stuff about the PD library and the software in it. All these things are IMHO bad for the club but there is so little engagement in the club processes (or even the forums there) that they may get passed with little scrutiny.  

 

 

[pps]

 

40 minutes ago, ivop said:

1. What's the amount to pay per year? 

Actual monthly price is here: http://www.abbuc.de/mitgliedschaft

 

There is no reminder atm. You have to act yourselves.

[Mr Robot]

Can you believe they still have members who still have a standing order for 5DM a month! Not even the right currency since 2002

[ivop]

16 minutes ago, pps said:

Actual monthly price is here: http://www.abbuc.de/mitgliedschaft

Yes, that's about as close as I got to finding an anual fee about two years ago. Before that, I just repeated my last payment. Two years ago, I did the monthly fee times 24, and payed that

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by ivop

[pps]

7 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

Can you believe they still have members who still have a standing order for 5DM a month! Not even the right currency since 2002

That's crazy, but if you never changed the advice for annual payment at your bank, the correct amount of 5 DM converted to Euro will be payed still

[ivop]

8 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

It's not a subscription, it's a membership that comes with a free disk magazine (which is also on paper now) and other benefits.

Subscription/membership is as tomato/tomaato to me I'm not a native English or German speaker.

 

8 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

They are also proposing that members get to opt out of receiving a physical disk (going digital only) because disks are getting hard/expensive to find.

I think that's a good thing. I never use the disks, just (try to) read the magazine. Would that result in different membership fees for those that receive physical copies and those who do not?

 

8 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

There's also some stuff about the address of the club

I think I got that. The address won't be in Herten, but wherever the current chairman of the club resides.

 

8 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

and a bunch of stuff about the PD library and the software in it. All these things are IMHO bad for the club but there is so little engagement in the club processes (or even the forums there) that they may get passed with little scrutiny.  

There's a considerable language barrier for me, and I think for a lot of foreign members. Could you explain which proposals you think are bad for the club?

 

[Mr Robot]

German isn't my first language and I'm entirely dependent on Google translate so I may be getting confused (I probably am, I'm sure I will get corrected)

 

I only skimmed the existing statutes (which are here http://www.abbuc.de/abbuc/satzung) but I will be making sure I've read and understood them and the proposed changes before the vote at the AGM in November which will now be online so people in other countries are actually able to vote for the first time without travelling to Germany to do so.

 

It's all in the wording. Tomato/Tomaato as you say but words matter in legal documents. If the club members get a quarterly disk magazine with free insert and they opt out of the disk, what becomes of the free insert? How free is it when it's no longer attached to the disk? If the membership fees go down because everyone opts out of the disk, how do they continue to fund the production of the free insert? 

 

The stuff about 3 months in arrears is already in the statues; they are proposing to change from a monthly to an annual fee (and alter the wording of everything around that) which seems fine but a lot of people are ok with 2.60 a month won't be happy with 32.00 a year, a few members may even have forgotten about the monthly payment and pointing it out to them may earn the club a cancellation. Both of these things, again will reduce income to some extent.

 

The PD library stuff is worrisome; they call the library a PD library but are now talking about the copyrights of the software in it. If there are copyrights to the software in the PD Library, it's not PD any longer. It may be freeware or CC or Open Source but it's not PD. They would have to change the name of the library to Software Library and allow that the © owner has the right to remove software from the library, would this be retroactive? If the disks are no longer PD, the members no longer have the legal right to copy the disks and share with other people and would have the responsibility of gaining permission from all the authors for any duplication. Most people I'm sure won't care but some will, especially if they ever decide they have an axe to grind with Abbuc or its admin.

 

 

[ggn]

Hi there,

 

I was thinking of biting the bullet and getting myself a membership. I'd just like to ask if I do get access to the older issues and downloads to the software competition disks etc. I'm assuming "yes" but even so I'd appreciate a confirmation before proceeding

[Mr Robot]

yes you get access to the members area with all the previous issues, software/hardware library etc etc 

[+DjayBee]

Some background on the main driver behind the changes but without dicussing their contents:

 

In German law a Club is a legal entity, similar to a company. Therefore it is subject to specific laws and regulations which must be adhered to.
For example, you need to register it which has to be done by a legal court. If you change certain things like the address or the Satzung (see below), you have to do this with a court. I believe that in certain cases you even need a solicitor.

 

Every Club needs to have a Satzung which can be compared to a state's constitutional law. Similar to a constitution you need to follow a certain formal process if you want to change it.
For example, to change any part of it, you need a general assembly to vote with an approval by at least 2/3 of the votes.

 

The Satzung of ABBUC requests that every piece of change needs to be sent out in exact wording together with the invitation to the assembly. I do not know if this is by law or only a conscious decision made back when the Satzung was created.
Therefore you can only vote on this exact wording and not discuss any further modifications, no matter how small they would be.
You certainly can phrase several variations of the text and put all of them in the invitation, but still you may only vote on these exact wordings.

 

Many of ABBUC's services are described in the Satzung and are therefore pretty difficult to change in any way.
Which brings us to the primary goal of these changes:
A general assembly should be able to dicuss any proposed change, decide on a suitable wording and finally vote on this proposal.
To keep the metaphor of the state from above: Similar to a parliament discussing and deciding on "everyday laws".

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by DjayBee

[TheNameOfTheGame]

I forgot my subscription fees.  How do you pay them again?

[ivop]

4 hours ago, ivop said:

just checked the last envelope and I have to pay again after 31.09.2020

I need to have my glasses checked It actually says 31.10.2019. So I am actually a year behind again ? 

 

Just payed for two years again. Should see 31.10.2021 on my next envelope

 

Edit: BTW I was moved by the Nachrufs (In Memoriam) for both Curt Vendel and Petr Postava. Thanks for that.

Edited October 13, 2020 by ivop

[Mr Robot]

2 hours ago, DjayBee said:

The Satzung of ABBUC requests that every piece of change needs to be sent out in exact wording together with the invitation to the assembly. I do not know if this is by law or only a conscious decision made back when the Satzung was created.
Therefore you can only vote on this exact wording and not discuss any further modifications, no matter how small they would be.
You certainly can phrase several variations of the text and put all of them in the invitation, but still you may only vote on these exact wordings.

This is one of the problems, the wording is now set in the invitation, the virtual AGM is going to be for voting only there won't be the scope to debate or discuss like there is usually. I think I'd be in favour of scrapping the entire statute and writing a new one for the future, I'd do it as soon after the AGM as possible and have an entire year to discuss, argue, tune and correct before voting on the final one at the following AGM, it may end up including a lot of the existing rules but it would all have been revised and tuned. There is too much scope for unintended consequences by chipping away at 35 year old rules.

 

2 hours ago, DjayBee said:

Many of ABBUC's services are described in the Satzung and are therefore pretty difficult to change in any way.
Which brings us to the primary goal of these changes:
A general assembly should be able to dicuss any proposed change, decide on a suitable wording and finally vote on this proposal.
To keep the metaphor of the state from above: Similar to a parliament discussing and deciding on "everyday laws".

 

The other point I was trying to make on the Abbuc forums was that the more general these rules are the better I like it, it feel like we're tying the new team down just as they are starting to get up to speed. How dumb is it that they can't offer a new service or discontinue an unused one without having to wait for the AGM and proposing it? It should basically say you give us fees (see separate fee schedule) we will use that money to make things for you and pay for the administration of those things. (see separate list for the current benefits your membership fee provides). There doesn't need to be much more, maybe term limits for the roles and a re-election process and a link to member rules and netiquette that covers delinquent payments and behaviour standards etc. and a link to the last years finances showing a proper p&l report.

 

The content of the other separate documents can be announced debated and agreed in the forums. 

 

 

[Mr Robot]

1 hour ago, TheNameOfTheGame said:

I forgot my subscription fees.  How do you pay them again?

international it's probably easier to use paypal, send a message to @skr and ask because it doesn't seem to be on the abbuc website anywhere

 

[+DjayBee]

Btw.:

3 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

I'm entirely dependent on Google translate

In my experience https://www.deepl.com/translator gives a lot better translations.

I used it for the ABBUC magazine texts I did (a.k.a. let DeepL) translate to English.

[Fred_M]

There are some well meant points I want to make ?

 

I agree with @ivop and @Gunstar that the communication can be much better. As many people are members for a very long time they would probably know that the date that is sometimes printed on the envelope means the end date of your members fee. But short time members or members which don't read German will probably not know this. There is nothing on the envelope or in the magazine that refers to it. Same for your member number. It is printed above your name and address on sticker. I did not realize for years that that number was my member number. Maybe that information can be found at the website, but it can be hard to find there.

 

Those examples of "well-known" information is missing in the paper magazine. Actually the paper magazine does not give any information about the membership. Why not use some space in the magazine to tell more about Abbuc. As @ivop suggested to me, people might lend this magazine or show it to other atari owners and those (possible new) members don't see any info about becoming a member. I used to run Pokey's Magazine and in every issue on paper you could find half a page about the payments, becoming a member, the costs, contact details and so on.

 

I tried to read the proposed changes to the statues too. I can read basic German but for this document I had to use Google Translate (luckily the proposed changes were also published on the German Abbuc forum) and it produced a readable document but probably not 100% correct. I have some difficulties with this. Abbuc has a fair share of members outside Germany. I applaud the English translation of the voting form, part of the website and that Abbuc even want to do a virtual JHV/Meeting in English. But why are these proposed changes of the statues not translated into English? Members outside Germany are also allowed to vote, but they can't read it. I realize that at physical JHV meetings only the members attending the meeting are allowed to vote, and those are mainly German (and Dutch?). But now a virtual meeting is organised (which I think is great!) and it can attract many people who don't read or speak German. but are still allowed to vote.

 

And finally ? During my Stichting Pokey/Pokey foundation days we made sure that the statues did not describe every activity in detail. We did this because every small change must be legalized and that costs a lot of money. Wolfgang warned for this on the German Abbuc forum and I think he has a strong point. I think it is very sad that money would be spend on legal actions in stead of Atari. So my advice is, if you want to change it, make it less detailed. So you don't have to change it again.

 

In The Netherlands we have a similar construction like in Germany. Clubs must be a legal entity too. But there are 2 to choose from in The Netherlands. A "vereniging" (Verein/Association) and a "stichting" (Stiftung/Foundation). Abbuc is the first and Pokey was the second one. A foundation in The Netherlands don't give voting rights to its "members". So a meeting to vote about the club does not need to be organized every year. At Pokey we chose that the members could still vote, but it was not legally required. I can see that Abbuc as a foundation would not work, but for Pokey it worked like a charm ?

[+CharlieChaplin]

Welllllll,

 

the Abbuc magazine is the diskette (since the beginning of Abbuc) and you are right that some basic information, like membership expiration, member number, etc. is not to be found on the diskette. BUT: This information is not only printed on the envelope, it is also in the paper-magazine... afaik, since paper-magazine 139...

 

Read page 2 of the paper magazine:

(directly under the contents)

 

Club Zentrale

Sascha Kriegel

Adresse

Telefonnummer

E-Mail

 

Der Mitgliedsbeitrag beträgt mtl. 2,60€ (31,20€ im Jahr)

Bank

IBAN

Swift/BIC

Paypal-Adresse

 

Auf dem Briefumschlag stehen die Mitgliedsnummer und das Datum, bis zu dem Deine Mitgliedschaft bezahlt bzw. überfällig ist.

 

=> Which translates to (in my own words, deutsch+english=denglish):

 

head of the club

Sascha Kriegel

adress

phone number

E-Mail

 

The membership is 2,60€ each month (31,20€ each year).*

(* Note, that's the price for german members, international members have to pay 2,67€ each month or  2,67€ x12 = 32,04€ each year; yes it is 0,84 Euro more for internat. members)

bank

IBAN

Swift-BIC

Paypal adress

 

On the envelope your member number is printed and the date up to which you paid or until your payment is (over)due.

 

This information on page 2 is available since paper-magazine 139, afaik... and errrrm, at least the paper-magazine 141 was available in english, not sure if the paper-magazines 139, 140, 142 were/are already available in english. (I started to do some translations german-english, but then was very busy with issue 142 and special-issue 52. Maybe I will do some more translations in the next weeks, but I absolutely need someone to proof-read my translations, since I use denglish and weird grammar quite often...)

 

EDIT: Just read page 2 of the english issue 141 of the Abbuc magazine and there they have all the details printed (in english) I mentioned here. And they "rounded" the membership to 32,00 Euro (I guess in USD, pounds, etc. it will not be such an even sum anymore)...

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

This is one of the problems, the wording is now set in the invitation, the virtual AGM is going to be for voting only there won't be the scope to debate or discuss like there is usually. I think I'd be in favour of scrapping the entire statute and writing a new one for the future, I'd do it as soon after the AGM as possible and have an entire year to discuss, argue, tune and correct before voting on the final one at the following AGM, it may end up including a lot of the existing rules but it would all have been revised and tuned. There is too much scope for unintended consequences by chipping away at 35 year old rules.

 

The other point I was trying to make on the Abbuc forums was that the more general these rules are the better I like it, it feel like we're tying the new team down just as they are starting to get up to speed. How dumb is it that they can't offer a new service or discontinue an unused one without having to wait for the AGM and proposing it? It should basically say you give us fees (see separate fee schedule) we will use that money to make things for you and pay for the administration of those things. (see separate list for the current benefits your membership fee provides). There doesn't need to be much more, maybe term limits for the roles and a re-election process and a link to member rules and netiquette that covers delinquent payments and behaviour standards etc. and a link to the last years finances showing a proper p&l report.

 

The content of the other separate documents can be announced debated and agreed in the forums. 

 

 

I'm sorry - but I find all of this this ludicrous.  All I can picture, is the members of Monty Python discussing the merits of the Judean People's Front, vs The People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian.  How very silly for all of this, for a club that prints magazines, makes awesome disks, and does software competitions.

[Fred_M]

1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said:

the Abbuc magazine is the diskette (since the beginning of Abbuc) and you are right that some basic information, like membership expiration, member number, etc. is not to be found on the diskette. BUT: This information is not only printed on the envelope, it is also in the paper-magazine... afaik, since paper-magazine 139...

I know the disk is the magazine ? I checked and you are right. But like you said, only since 2 issues ago. I probably have not noticed it. It is tucked away besides the foreword of Sascha and can hardly be called a Club information page. My example of Pokey's Magazine had an advertisement like layout and offered far more information about the club, not just the address and financial info ?

 

Just printing a date on an envelope is in my opinion a very lousy solution to let someone know his or her membership is about to expire. These times I think an email (or old fanishioned mail) would be more effective and more user friendly.