Owner

Those with an annual membership are thus formally co-owners of the Cultural Press Bureau and have a say on course and policy. This is done through an annual General Meeting of Members, which may or may not be held in writing. At that annual meeting, the General Assembly approves or rejects the annual accounts, after which the board is formally discharged. The association is a Cooperative with 'Excluded Liability', which means that the members can never be held liable for any losses or other legal matters that unexpectedly fall to the association's credit. This is laid down in the statutes, which can be found on the site.

Board

Currently, the association's board consists of one person, whereas formally, at least three people should be on the board. This temporary situation was chosen - after 1 January 2017 - because it was unclear whether the cooperative would continue to exist during that year or be taken over by Teun Gautier and Jan-Jaap Heij's De Coöperatie - House Of Journalism. Due to various circumstances, of which lack of time and financial distress were the most important, this formal takeover did not happen. However, authors are no longer members of Culture Press, but can be members of House of Journalism.

Revenue

Income from authors' contributions has been dropped. This saved over 5,000 euros on an annual basis, but also meant the organisational salvation of Culture Press. I then 'muddled on' throughout 2017, putting over 2,000 hours into maintaining the Cultureelpersbureau.nl site. The income of the Cultural Press Cooperative consists of contributions and subscriptions on the one hand, and advertisements and so-called collaborations, where a company or organisation contributes financially in exchange for journalistic coverage, on the other. Because I had little time for direct acquisition due to participation in the 'Leadership in Culture' educational programme, the effects of this are only noticeable in 2018, a year in which turnover is considerably higher, although this is partly due to assignments awarded directly to me and invoiced via Culture Press. So on top of that, there are the many hours I put into the cooperative, but for which I also did not submit an invoice.

Royalties

Authors earned their income through Blendle's payment options. That income was seriously disappointing. In the first quarter of 2017, Blendle's total net royalty was 300 euros, to be divided among 30 authors, with myself found to have 'sold' the highest contribution, worth 100 euros. I thought that amount was so low that I spent the following time (until October 2018) optimising authors' earning potential. All the while, I maintained the credo that authors themselves were responsible for quality and sales of their stories, and introduced that part of the contribution would be divided on the number of visits by logged-in readers to their stories. This required an investment in technology and manpower that far exceeded the potential return to the authors in the end, as it turned out. Very few authors proved willing to put their pieces behind the association paywall, and very few members logged in to read a specific story. At the same time, revenues from Blendle continued to decline. By mid-2017, I decided to prioritise reach over income, and the pay button was used less and less. In the autumn, it even disappeared entirely to the bottom of the story, to serve as a kind of donation button there. I hoped that the cooperative cultural press would gain members from the charity idea: people would pay anyway, even if they could read everything for free. In this way, income - for both the association and individual authors - remained well below par. A situation that continued well into 2018. It is clear, in retrospect, and with the knowledge of today (December 2018), that in 2017 we would have been better off opting for a strict pay wall combined with a tight quality policy. In 2017 - also for personal reasons - I was unable to do so.

Expenditure

Running a website costs money. In 2017, that was a hefty sum. An obscure hacking attack in 2016 had pushed the security as well as the capacity of the server and the website to an extremely high level. Otherwise, the site proved impossible to keep on air. As a result, the server cost more than 100 euros per month, an amount for which other sites can be kept on air for a whole year (and culture press now in 2018 as well). To improve the membership plug-in, and enable more experimentation with possible revenue models, 2017 also saw investment in software improvements to the site. Not always with good effect, but some investments have certainly had an impact. To keep reach high, for example, investments were made in a plugin that enables repeated distribution across many social media. Several hundred euros were also invested in facebook ads, which allowed sponsored stories to be distributed to a wider audience. Of the 1800 or so hours I put into the website, I declared a few dozen. The rest is investment, hours put into the site in kind. Another two unexpected expenses had major implications for Culture Press. Two - later found to be unjustified - claims of copyright for long-removed photos accompanying articles threatened an early end to the Cultural Press Office in March 2017. One claim was for 1,500 euros for a photo supplied by an interviewee himself, the other for 500 euros for a photo that later turned out to be from a Belgian photo agency. The first claim was reduced to 150 euros after much hassle, and interference from the photographer himself, the other one unfortunately had to be paid in full. In order to overcome these costs, I was also forced to fill in myself the number of paid assignments from sponsorship that were also normally granted to authors, and thus have the hours and proceeds benefit the cooperative. This certainly had an impact on quality.

Loss

As a result, the 2017 financial year ended with a relatively large loss. A loss that I was happy to bear, as an investment in the future, which, as far as 2018 is concerned, shows a considerable improvement, although the cooperative - especially when undeclared hours are included - is still far from being out of the red.

Intention

With the improvement in revenue that 2018 is now showing, I do not yet see any reason to pull the plug on Culture Press. At the same time, I am also reluctant to take on a full board again because of the unattractive financial starting position. If a majority of members is in favour of maintaining this temporary situation, it can be maintained. Should there still be a majority among the members who want a multi-person board, I will arrange a call for candidates and call an election. At the same time - if there is sufficient enthusiasm - I will convene a physical annual meeting. Use this link for an e-mail with your response.

Annual figures 2017