Financial Structure of the Society
The Anthroposophical Society as a world society works on three levels: on a world level, a national level and a local level. Each of these asks for your financial support by way of contributions and donations.  The national society carries a responsibility for their members to Dornach, and also the local branch to the national society for its members.

If the information contained in these notes and in the budget (published with the Annual General Meeting booklet each year) is insufficient or unclear, please contact your local treasurer, the person to whom the form is to be returned or any member of the Council.

Your Financial Response
Your financial response is entirely within your freedom to determine your circumstances and to find where that stands in relation to the responsibility required to carry the Society.  This responsibility rests with your Branch and with the New Zealand Society and they carry the responsibility for each of their members financially.  As a community of individuals coming together, the question is how can we respect each others freedom, and at the same time carry the collective responsibility for the Society as a group.  The group is responsible, but the way the individual members of that group come together determines the nature of that group. This becomes particularly acute when working in the sphere of money, and it takes much work to develop the openness, clarity and understanding to overcome the forces working against the creation of a community, so that we may work fruitfully together as a Society.

Membership
The financial contribution you make to the Society stands quite separately from your membership of the Society.  Continued membership of the Society  implies that you communicate with the Council each year.  The return of your financial contribution form is a communication with the Council and a confirmation that you are continuing as a member.  Failure to return the form for two consecutive years will result in the New Zealand Society removing you as a member in N.Z.  You will still remain a member of the General Anthroposophical Society until you resign in writing. Please return your pink form as a confirmation of membership, no matter what your financial response to support the Society is.

Publications
The publications of the Society are sent to members irrespective of their financial response.  However continued despatch of the publications is not guaranteed if this form is not returned by the due date.  This has been introduced to reduce unnecessary cost and waste in publications sent out but not required.  The publications are 'Sphere' - the quarterly newsletter of the NZ Society (the cost of Sphere is about $ 30 per annum), 'Anthroposophy Worldwide', and 'News from the Goetheanum' - the last two are publications in English from the Goetheanum.  We will not be able to provide back or missed issues of the publications to those who respond late.

Payment  - Members may pay by Visa or Mastercard (unfortunately no other card can  be accepted) or by automatic bank payment, direct credit, internet banking (account number 02 0644 0182268 00; or 38 9005 0416444 00, name of both accounts: Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand), cheque or cash.

Working through the Pink Form

A  GENERAL ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
This is the body embracing the world movement. Our contribution here supports the G.A.S. at the Goetheanum in Dornach in its activity as the heart of the Society and the seat for the School of Spiritual Science.   For New Zealand members the expected contribution is $100 and is based on amounts received over the last few years.  The New Zealand Society has a firm commitment to meet this amount in full for each New Zealand member.
Line 1: Your contribution in support of the General Society/Dornach.

Donations: The reverse side of the pledge form lists the areas to which you can direct your donations.

B  THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN NEW ZEALAND
This is the body that carries the Society on a national level. The contribution you give here supports the activities of the Society as presented in the budget for the year to 31.12.09 (see Sphere, 2008 vol 4).  We try to work with money in a way that is in accordance with its nature, hence the division into Purchase, Contract and Gift Money.  Explanations of these forms of money are available by request from Diederic Ruarus. The New Zealand Society needs an average of $ 160 per member to be allocated between purchase and contract money.

Contributions given to the New Zealand Society and its branches qualify as charitable donations and are available for a tax rebate.

PURCHASE MONEY
Line 2: This covers the costs of running the Society, which is represented in the  budget as the section under the heading ‘Maintaining the Present'   It  particularly includes the publications and the meetings. The suggested  amount per member is $75. 

CONTRACT MONEY
Line 3: This provides for some income to the General Secretary to help her meet  her living expenses and is represented in the budget under the heading ‘Working between People'. The suggested amount per member is $85.

Donations : The reverse side of the pledge form lists the areas to which you can  direct your donations.

C  LOCAL BRANCH/GROUP

Line 4: The larger groups in Auckland, Hawke's Bay, and Wellington have incorporated themselves as Societies and require financial help to support particularly their centres and associated activity.

If you are not a member of one of the above, leave line 4 blank.

Donations:  The reverse side of the pledge form lists the areas to which you can direct your donations.

We encourage members in Auckland, Hawke's Bay, Wellington and Christchurch to pay their contribution to the local branch account.

DAS GOETHEANUM
This is a weekly publication in GERMAN, from the Goetheanum in Switzerland. If you wish to subscribe, and pay through the New Zealand Society, please send your name, address and subscription fee (for 2009 $NZ 195 pa) separately to:  

                     Diederic Ruarus, 72 Main Rd, R D 1 Lyttelton 8971

Payment needs to be made in full by 1st  March 2009.  This is not the ‘News from the Goetheanum' in English which you receive as part of your contribution under Purchase Money (Line 2).

Purchase, Loan and Gift Money

We endeavour to work with money in the Society in a way that represents the different types of money and how they work.  Most of the time we are apt to consider money as a single static entity, and not see that it, like all things to do with the social life of mankind, has a rhythm, a life process. We can describe these, by looking at how we ourselves use money.

We need money to maintain our physical presence and existence.  Buying (purchasing) to meet our needs stimulates the production of goods. We do this rightly from an egocentric viewpoint and it could be described as akin to a metabolic process. After that aspect is to a degree satisfied, we then see that it is more economical to have one person specializing in a particular activity, than to have all of us doing a bit of everything.  To make it possible usually means loaning money or contracting in some form the work, and here we lift up ourselves to consider others from a realm of feeling. Loans/contracts help make human labour possible.  If we have money over and above this, it has become free of commitments. It is then free for creative activity, free to be 'gifted', and here we enter the realm of altruism.  If gifted rightly it goes towards helping bring into being something new, usually helping to set up that which leads towards the purchase of the needs of that new initiative, thereby transforming into purchase money again and creating a healthy cycle and flow of money.   Rudolf Steiner used the words, Purchase money, Loan or Contract money and Gift money to describe the three types of money.

By separating out the different types of money we begin to live into the rhythm.  The financial accounts of the Society are divided into three headings which corresponds to one of the three types of money: purchase, loan or gift money.

Under the heading 'Maintaining the Present', we show all the items of expenditure the Society needs to stay operational, that is to communicate with members via the publications and with meetings and to work with Dornach.  As represented in money it is like all those transactions we have to maintain us in life. The income under this heading comes in the nature of going to meet these costs.

A second heading is 'Working Between People', and here we recognise that as a group of individuals develop, they begin to differentiate the work and see that it can be most efficiently done by specialization or division of work. They, in effect, create work for others.  Work that comes about by people wanting others to carry something on their behalf is in the form of a contract.  That is, we ask the baker to bake bread for us, a contract written in the form of our buying bread from them. In the case of the Society we ask our General Secretary to carry the Society on our behalf.

The third type of money is gift money, which we represent in the accounts of the Society under the heading 'Building the Future'.  Here we see that some money is free of the need to maintain our existence, and it is free from supporting others in work on our behalf, and so it stands as an unencumbered source.  It can be used to create something extra, something new that will work into the future.