Can the chair be paid? Compensation for the role, done properly

The role is unpaid by default — but the meeting can resolve to compensate it. The point is to do it in the open.

What is allowed

• Exempting or reducing the chair's dues during their term: the most common and cleanest formula.
• A fixed payment, approved at a meeting and budgeted for.
• Reimbursement of documented expenses (travel, copies, errands): that is not even compensation, it is the bare minimum.

How to approve it

At a meeting, by simple majority, with a specific amount or formula in the minutes, and reflected in the budget. Opaque arrangements ("he takes it out of the account and that's that") are the seed of every suspicion.

The implications to know

Regular monetary compensation can have tax implications for the recipient (income to declare). Exempting the dues is simpler in practice, and that is why it is the preferred route.

And is it worth compensating?

In communities where the role frightens people, modest compensation unlocks volunteers and rotation: it is cheaper than a professional manager and fairer than burning out the same willing neighbour every time. That said: the best compensation is still to reduce the work of the role — a chair with the right tools spends hours on it, not whole afternoons.