What this is
How organisers get money out of association funds for anything they need to buy: tennis balls, a replacement volleyball, a new net, a one-off booking. One flat rule for every sport and every organiser, no per-sport differentiation. This starts to matter once the association is registered and holding funds.
The rule
- The organiser approaches a Treasurer with what they want to buy and the cost (e.g. "I want to buy tennis balls, €8").
- €10 or less: Treasurer-only approval. The Treasurer checks the activity has enough in its tracked fund (see below), and if so, releases the money. No further sign-off needed.
- More than €10: also needs the Secretary. Same fund check by the Treasurer, but the request also goes to the Secretary for sign-off before the money is released. This covers bigger one-off spends (a new net, a bigger equipment order) as well as routine requests that happen to add up past €10.
- More than €50: the President is involved too. The statutes' large band (Article 26a) requires the President's approval, alongside a Treasurer's and a Secretary's, so larger spends (a hotel booking, a big equipment order) need all three - given digitally through the bank's approval flow or any recorded means, no physical signature required.
- The organiser adds any purchased item to the Keep Calm inventory. This is not just good practice: the statutes require the association to keep an up-to-date inventory of its assets, and this step is what populates it.
The €10 threshold is a starting point, not fixed. The board reviews it once there is real experience of how often requests come up, and proposes any change to the General Assembly, which sets the values in the Internal Regulations (Article 11f).
How this relates to Article 26a of the statutes (rewritten 13 Aug 2026): the statutes now define three authorisation bands (small / medium / large) and who approves each; the euro values live in the Internal Regulations. The bands match the steps above (small = Treasurer alone, medium = Treasurer + Secretary, large = President too), so approval to spend and authority to move the money are one scheme rather than two different thresholds. This also removed the old rule that a Secretary had to co-sign every bank transaction regardless of size (Luca's objection, 12 Aug 2026).
Tracking the money
- Per-activity funds. The association has one legal bank account, but a Google Sheet ("Keep Calm Barcelona" spreadsheet, Finance tab) tracks the per-activity split: when someone donates or takes out a subscription, whichever activity/group they say they're affiliated with gets that amount added to its tracked fund. The Treasurer checks this sheet (not the bank account directly) to answer "does Tennis have enough for these balls?"
- Inventory. Same spreadsheet, Inventory tab. Every item bought through this process gets logged here.
- Subscriptions. Same spreadsheet, Subscription tab. The member-level registry: who's subscribed, to which activity, and whether it's current. Distinct from the Finance tab, which logs the money itself.
Open idea, not yet decided: a monthly spending cap
On top of the per-transaction rules above, there could also be a limit on how much each activity can spend within a rolling month, so that many small purchases can't quietly add up. This is an operational budget control rather than a governance rule, so it belongs in this document rather than the statutes, but it hasn't been designed yet: no figure has been discussed, and it's not settled whether it should be a flat amount per activity or tied to that activity's actual tracked fund and income. Input welcome.
Current roster
Treasurer: Luca and Mitali (joint, either can act, per the statutes). Secretary: Nadia and Prashant (joint).