We are incorporated, what now?

[Chris Fryer]

I received the certificate we are now incorporated Melbourne Eastern Suburbs Hackers Inc. 

Our first meeting was on July 20 2014 and we have had a number of successful meetings since. MESH has gone from an idea, to reality, to an incorporated body faster than we would have imagined.

On Thursday me (The Secretary) and Peter McKenzie (The Treasurer), have an appointment with the bank to sort out an account. 

We also need to work out the insurance, apparently CCHS gets a pretty good deal, I believe lachlan has the details of this.

We need to pay for insurance, the committee decided that a yearly fee of $45.00 for individuals and $55.00 for families would be appropriate (exact figures to be decided) If we have about 15 to 20 members we would break even.

Another $10 fee to be paid to attend a session, family members also paying $10 but also paying a second much smaller fee for each additional family member attending (exact figures to be decided).

I like to thrash out exactly what fees we will be paying, and any additional rules or stuff we have to decide before our next meeting, so we can have a quick committee meeting at the start of our next meeting.

We will also need to hold our first annual general meeting to select another committee now that we are incorporated.

Thanks to everyone that has helped MESH get to where it is now. :)

[nick.meinhold]

Great job everyone!  I'm looking forward to the next hacking session.  

Nick 

[oscar...@gmail.com]

That was so fast, now we need to set up a MESH bank account (I assume we got an ABN with the incorporation) and settle on the fee structure and start collecting monies....

Is there time for a quick 'committee only' meeting before the RTTF session on the 12th, I would like to take something to the session to present to the attendee's.

[andyg]

hi All,

For banking, the CCHS uses WestPac's community solutions bank account ...

   http://www.westpac.com.au/business-banking/bank-accounts/not-for-profit-community-cheque

No fees.  A small amount of interest paid.  Good mechanisms, e.g can set-up pending / recuring transactions, all of which requires two authorized members to sign-off (no one person can act alone with MESH's money).

We have two bank accounts, 1) slightly higher interest account, where we keep the majority of our funds, transactions can only be made to our other account, and 2) a lower interest transaction account from which payments (to anywhere) can be made, where we put just enough money to make the next payments.

This two-person-to-sign, two-step process doesn't require much overhead ... and gives us some checks-and-balances.

cheers andyg (@geekscape)

[Chris Fryer]

The meeting with the bank was pretty unproductive although we did that get a lot of the paperwork done. The bank needs to see minutes of a meeting where our committee decides to have a bank account. Each of the signatories would need to go into their nearest ANZ branch, so they can be added you will need 100 points of ID etc. If you are already with ANZ all they need is your full name and Postcode, date of birth probably wouldn't hurt either.

To get the real good deal with ANZ we would have to register as a Not-for-profit organisation with the Australian charities and not-for-profit commission and the Australian Tax Office. And to do that we need an ABN. Sigh. Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through to save on a few fees. It is possible that we would be better off just getting a business account. Apparently you can get a pretty good deal and not be charged extra fees if you don't go over a certain number of deposits and withdrawals a month.

Either way we need to have a committee meeting for we can get the account. We can have a meeting early next week or just wait till the 12th.

FYI I will be going away from October Friday the 10th till Tuesday the 21st. But I will still be attending our meeting on the 12th.

[M...@pobox.com]

You'll find Bendigo has lower fees than Commonwealth (no fees) without jumping through any hoops.

Bankwest has a no fee business account... but hasn't got any branches you can deposit to.

https://www.bankwest.com.au/personal/bank-and-save/lp/easy?promocode=sem3822&cid=sem3822

:-)