If you want to catch fish, you need rest.
But at the Moosburg fishing club, there was a huge crash: after a meeting, almost the entire board resigned.
Moosburg
– Many of those who were there would have liked to have saved themselves the evening afterwards.
And some who didn't come to the annual general meeting of the Moosburger Anglerverein (AVM) now have the feeling of having missed something serious.
Because the meeting on January 7th was memorable - and has drastic consequences for the association: In the meantime, the entire board has resigned except for two people and is only in office on an acting basis.
Behind the scenes, things are brewing in the AVM
Viewed from the outside, the AVM appears to be a success story: since it was founded in 1982, it has become one of the largest clubs in the district with over 500 members.
In more and more attractive bodies of water, pet enthusiasts are allowed to throw out their fishing rods.
The efforts to preserve the local nature and environment are also impressive.
At the same time, sales of around 150,000 euros were recorded last year.
But things have been brewing behind the scenes for a long time.
On the one hand there is a nostalgic faction that takes a critical look at innovations and raves about times when social club life was still the focus for many.
On the other hand, there are those who want to adapt the AVM to a modern zeitgeist.
In between are those who simply see the club as a means to an end: to be allowed to fish.
These are tendencies that exist in many clubs.
But it seems that the Moosburg Anglerverein is having a harder time reconciling the different ideas than others.
A group is missing at the club's anniversary
Anyone who followed the celebration of the 40th anniversary in July 2022 as an insider noticed that a larger group had stayed away from eating fish on a stick in the garden of the Kegelhalle.
And the quarterly meeting in October was also not characterized by unity: in the end, the incumbent chairman Michael Hartl and his predecessor Wolfgang Tschorn got into such a fight that Hartl broke off the meeting, which got out of hand.
Tschorn, founding and honorary chairman of the association, then prepared a counterattack with like-minded people: half a dozen proposals for the annual general meeting in January 2023, with which the board of directors should be put in their place.
Because Michael Hartl smelled the rat and – as he regrets today – “did prefer to clarify the matter internally”, no press was invited to the January meeting.
The Freisinger Tagblatt therefore reconstructed the meeting from numerous discussions with members.
The two main opponents, Tschorn and Hartl, also described their motives in detail to our newspaper.
From the point of view of AVM co-founder Wolfgang Tschorn, the board of directors has “made many decisions in recent years without taking the members with them”.
The 68-year-old was angry about the surveillance cameras on the club premises, "which the members were not asked about" and which, in his opinion, disturb privacy.
The fact that the angler's hut at the Aquapark was recently no longer accessible to regulars' tables contradicted the spirit of the club.
Dispute about the catalog of punishment, concern about being muzzled
In the shutdown of the member forum on the AVM homepage, Tschorn senses a targeted action intended to silence critics.
The fact that an order of punishment - Tschorn says "penalty catalogue" - should be anchored by the board in the association's statutes went far too far for his fellow campaigners and himself: "Some passages in the text seem suitable for gagging the members in case of doubt in order to protect them to intimidate them of their fundamental right to freedom of expression,” he said.
On top of that, this leads to the question from outsiders: "What do you have for Bazin in your club that such threats are necessary?"
The board's proposal to eliminate the previous monthly and quarterly meetings and to leave only the annual general meeting and king fishing goes in the same direction: "I have the feeling that we board members are becoming a nuisance," says Tschorn.
"In my view, such decisions would have been the end of club life."
Catch log via app versus freedom when fishing
Another point that was important to the group of critics related to the catch log, in which the fish caught must be documented: "The board of directors pushed the electronic catch log via app very strongly and meanwhile wanted it to become mandatory from 2024 .
But that would have meant that everyone knew: Aha, Tschorn has just registered, he's going fishing now.
And when I'm done, I have to log out again." But that contradicts the nature of this hobby: "Fishing has something to do with freedom."
Tschorn does not accept that the chairman Michael Hartl justifies his resignation and the other board members with the "disastrous annual general meeting and the behavior of a group of members".
"It went back and forth in the session.
On the part of the applicant and I, however, it was not turbulent. ”Hartl brought in the unrest when he resisted changing the agenda at the beginning of the meeting in order to bring the critical motions forward.
"The stunk was already running."
Michael Hartl is used to criticism of his leadership and that of his board colleagues, as he says.
"I know it from my predecessor Robert Kaseder and from my term of office: For 20 years, Mr. Tschorn has only scolded the board of directors, not a single positive thought has come up." overshoots".
Modernization of the Moosburg fishing club as a new goal
58-year-old Hartl is the technical manager at an IT company.
After taking office at AVM ten years ago, he and his board colleagues quickly realized: "We can't always go on like this, with letters and the like." Their goal was therefore to modernize the association.
The fact that this course fell on fertile ground for many is shown by the growth in membership of a good 120 people during Hartl's tenure.
Hartl cannot understand most of the allegations from the group around Wolfgang Tschorn.
About the point with the cameras: “We found vandalism and theft during the pandemic while we were no longer able to be on site.
Because it's our private property, we set up cameras - and so documented other cases." Large signs would point to the cameras on site.
"We have been accused by said group of spying on them, which is not true."
According to Hartl, the closing of the club hut for regulars resulted from the “legal gray area” in which one found oneself.
Actually, it needs a restaurant license to operate in the previous form.
However, since the board members did not want to buy a license and "we have already been blackmailed with untenable allegations at the district office", they offered that either someone else obtain a liquor license, or that the regulars' tables should no longer run through the club and drinks should be brought along .
Hartl: "The association does not pay for a small group of people to serve each other."
Attacks in the club forum
As for the forum on the homepage, it has long been used primarily by Tschorn to launch attacks on the board of directors and "dig up old stuff about what we're doing wrong."
Because the last posts were months and years ago, and because, according to the AVM webmaster, a new platform was now needed, the forum was discontinued.
"You can see who is accessing it." According to Hartl, three of the 15 people who signed the application for a continuation could not even register for the AVM homepage.
"Eight or nine of them have never been on the forum."
Almost every club has a penalty policy, says Michael Hartl.
He rejects the term “penalty catalogue”.
"Previously, the statutes stated quite vaguely that if someone did not comply with the regulations, i.e. caught too many fish or fished during the closed season, the board of directors would decide what happens.
I thought to myself, that's actually unfair, because nobody knows how the decision will be made.
During Tschorn's term of office, on the other hand, the board of directors decided everything on their own.
The quarterly meetings, to which, according to Hartl, only around 30 people have come for decades, they wanted to abolish for reasons of time.
"Firstly, it's a lot of work for the board, and secondly, people have less and less time."
(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)
However, the AGM decided otherwise.
There the obligation to keep an e-catch book was also done.
"We had announced that it would be binding from 2024 at an earlier meeting, but then revised the whole thing internally," says Michael Hartl.
"I said at the general meeting that everything remains voluntary, even if it means a lot of work for those who have to evaluate everything." Although the motion was subsequently withdrawn, Tschorn wanted to vote on it again.
threats and bluster
According to Hartl, the fact that six board members and later two auditors resigned two days after the annual meeting has nothing to do with the motions, but with the way in which the debate was held.
"Wolfgang Tschorn himself presented the motions in a very urbane manner - and his boys in the back cheered, raged, yelled, stamped their feet and others booed." Personal threats were even made.
"If someone wants to go out with you and fight, it's a bit overwhelming," says Hartl.
"The problem with these votes was that everyone was so intimidated by the noise that 60 to 70 people always abstained." The 58-year-old finds it "particularly shameful"
In an interview with the Freisinger Tagblatt, other members also confirmed the tumult and threats in the room, but also accused the chairperson of the session, Michael Hartl, of reacting too emotionally.
Topics were "discussed to death".
Points such as digitization, which has recently been pursued with ever greater emphasis, and camera surveillance, also bother anglers who do not feel they belong to any camp and who do not belong to the older generation.
Still others were grateful for the fresh wind that the modern board had brought to the club - and for the enormous commitment of those who had resigned.
Extraordinary meeting to set the course for the AVM
What most of the AVM now have in common is regret about the escalation and the resignation of numerous incumbents, some of them well-deserving.
An extraordinary general meeting on Saturday, February 11 (7 p.m., Schäfflerhalle) is to elect a new board of directors.
"We hope that the members of the group will take responsibility and allow themselves to be nominated and elected for the vacant board positions," wrote the resigned in an AVM circular.
Wolfgang Tschorn says he has “personally no intentions of becoming the chairman again”.
Now younger people should take the helm.
Michael Hartl believes that Tschorn "would bring the club back to the Stone Age".
Will he stand in the election again?
"I'll have to think about that again."
You can find more current news from the district of Freising at Merkur.de/Freising.