The General Meeting of SUISA will be held in the Aura in Zurich on Friday, 23 June 2023, at 3pm. In a streamlined format but with an amazing extra: We are celebrating our centenary! A hundred years ago, creators and publishers of music joined up with the objective to collectively manage their rights. Now, a century later, they succeed in this better than ever before. The anniversary is to be paid tribute to with a ceremony and exciting musical accompaniment. Information on the SUISA centenary can be accessed at www.suisa100.ch.
After the annual statutory business and a look back on a record year in 2022, this year’s General Meeting also includes elections for the Board of Directors, the Distribution and Works Committee and the Complaints Committee.
Elections and reciprocal agreement with the English sister society PRS
Members of the Board, the Distribution and Works Committee, and the Complaints Committee hold their offices for a term of four years. That is the period that has passed since the members of these bodies had been formally elected. And that is why there are now elections again.
Long-term and meritorious members Rainer Bischof, Irene Kunzelmann and Marie Louise Werth are stepping down from the Board. New candidates for election are Chantal Bolzern (solicitor), Tina Funk (publisher) and Anna Murphy (creator). In the Distribution and Works Committee, there are also five vacancies and therefore five new candidates will be elected there. The members of the Complaints Committee that had been created four years ago will be up for re-election.
Apart from elections, those entitled to vote are also presented with a motion with international relevance: Upon the request of the UK based collective management organisation PRS, the reciprocal representation agreement between itself and SUISA is subject to a revision. The Board of Directors therefore asks the General Meeting in this context to reduce the socio-cultural deductions when it comes to managing PRS’ important repertoire, and to also draw level with other European societies.
Voting members welcome
The General Meeting is only open to members of the cooperative, i.e. members who are entitled to vote. These members will receive a written invitation with the registration documents by the end of May by mail. The invitation contains the agenda, including the ceremony, and additional information on the agenda items and business to be transacted at the General Meeting. The registration form for the General Meeting and the ceremony are also included in these documents.
I hope that as many of you as possible will attend the General Meeting and, together with my colleague Irène Philipp Ziebold and my colleague Vincent Salvadé as well as other SUISA staff members, I look forward to seeing you there for a chat.
