Setting up a Tourist Guide Association

Discuss these provisions at your informal meetings, finalise them at the general assembly and have the final wording seen by a lawyer:

• Name and emblem of the association; registered offices
• Objectives, powers and sources of income
• Categories of members and their definitions (active, ordinary, temporary, honorary…)
• Rules for admission, resignation and expulsion; rights and obligations of members
• The committee: number of members, elections, terms of office, duties, filling of vacancies
• Meetings, quorum, conduct of business and minutes
• Functions of the President, Secretary and Treasurer
• Annual and Extraordinary General Meetings: notices, agenda, quorum, resolutions, voting
• Financial administration: financial year, payments, budget, annual reporting to members
• Amendments to the rules, dissolution and disposal of assets

Part one — the open discussion: welcome by the temporary committee; the purpose, aims and potential of the association; links already made with the tourist board and other authorities; general discussion of the draft constitution; financial matters. Close with a show of hands confirming the wish to found the association.

Part two — the formal general meeting: approval of the constitution (read article by article, then signed by all present); election of the first committee and its officers; setting the budget and the annual subscription; an outline of the first year's activities — meetings, a newsletter, a list of guides, social events. Ask those present to pay their first subscription at the meeting, so the association can get going. Be modest with the aims until it is financially established.

Resolve this before anything else. Two models exist, depending on your country:

Model A — experience-based. Where guides are self- or agent-trained and no official qualification exists, length of experience is the only workable criterion. The association may begin as a professional exchange — treat this as the first step, and make achieving official standards a priority.

Model B — qualification-based. Where selection, training, examination and registration are established, successful qualification is required for membership, as in other professional bodies. To raise standards, continued membership may require periodic retraining or CPD. This model needs a government or tourism authority willing to set and examine the standards — check early that they support your aims.

For associations seeking protection of the profession through legislation, the law regulating tourist guiding may include: a legal definition of the term "Tourist Guide"; the licence and the conditions for its revocation; prerequisites for granting a licence — graduation from a school of guides or an equivalent institution, command of at least two foreign languages, a clean criminal record, and attendance of continuing professional development; and the duties of the tourist guide together with a system of supervision by the responsible tourism authority.