What Keep Calm is
Keep Calm is Barcelona's welcoming home for English speakers to stay active, make friends, and belong, powered by volunteers who care more about community than competition. We run padel, tennis, ping pong, volleyball, badminton, hiking, running, and more, inclusive and open to all abilities. We're now registering as a formal non-profit association so we can hold a bank account, apply for grants, and give the community legal continuity beyond any one person.
What the role does
The President has two sides to it: a light legal role, and a much bigger real-world expectation that comes bundled with it.
As the association's legal chair:
- Chairs the Annual Assembly and the board's quarterly meetings
- Represents the association legally (contracts, official dealings, the registry)
- Signs documents and minutes jointly with a Secretary
- Approves large payments (above €50) jointly with a Treasurer and a Secretary
- Holds the casting vote if the board is ever tied
As the community's overall lead (not a strict legal duty, but the realistic expectation for whoever holds this role today):
- Sets the direction and priorities for Keep Calm as a whole
- The main point of continuity across all the sport and activity leads
- Drives growth, partnerships, and the community's day-to-day running
- The person others come to when something needs deciding across the whole community, not just one activity
Time commitment (estimate, not fixed)
The legal duties alone are light, roughly 1-2 hours a month. But in practice, running Keep Calm as a whole alongside this role is Keep Calm's biggest single time commitment, realistically several hours a week, in line with the community's own working assumption of a 5-6 hour weekly cap on this kind of involvement. Someone taking this on should expect the community-leadership side, not just the legal side.
What helps in this role
- Comfortable being the named, public legal contact for the association
- Genuinely willing to be Keep Calm's main driving force, not just attend meetings
- Reliable at showing up to quarterly meetings and the Annual Assembly
- No legal background needed, the statutes and free association-support services (Torre Jussana) cover the technical side
Term
One year, unpaid, can be re-elected. If someone needs to step back, it's a normal board resignation, the board fills the seat and reports it to the next Assembly. Nothing dramatic.