a) The General House Assembly

At the beginning of each semester, usually in the first week of lectures, the regular General House Assembly (GHA) takes place. This is to inform the house about the most important processes and decisions of the last semester and to elect new offices, committees and mentors. It is also the best opportunity to meet new people in the house, because there is no other event in the semester that so many people come to. In addition, all flats introduce themselves at the beginning and after the HVV there is a big meal together. You will be invited to the GHA two weeks before by mail, you will also get a printed invitation if you are a first-year student and if you ask the GHA board for it.

i) Proposal lists

As soon as the invitations have been sent out, the lists of candidates for the offices, committees and mentorships will be posted on the bulletin board in the side entrance until about 24 hours before the GHA. There you can sign up for all the positions you would like to run for at GHA, you can also sign up other people, but only if they know about it and agree, so that they are not suddenly surprised at the GHA with what they are supposedly running for. Especially important are the lists of candidates for the offices and committees, because you can't run for them spontaneously anymore (unless there are less people running than there are places to be filled), for mentorships you are still welcome to run at the GHA.

ii) Name tags

It is a nice tradition that a few days before the GHA, the student assistend in the office or the volunteer organizes a craft meeting where name tags are made for the whole house, usually an animal. This is a lot of work because there are over 80 name tags to be made, so feel free to come along for this and at least do a little tinkering, this way you also have the exclusive chance to customize your name tag and those of your WG's and add little extras.

iii) The GHA Board

At the end of the previous semester, often through Seniorat, the GHA board is formed, which organizes the GHA, invites you to it and then chairs the meeting. It also sends you the access information for voting in advance. If you have questions or still want to help with the GHA but don't know exactly how, you can always contact the GHA board (hvv@dbh-bonn.de).

iv) The GHA itself

In principle, you are obliged to participate in the GHA , but if you cannot participate in the GHA for a valid reason, you have to cancel your participation beforehand with the volunteer. In that case, if you are running for an office or committee, you must submit a written justification to the GHA Chair (hvv@dbh-bonn.de) as to why you are qualified for the position and/or why you want to take it on, or your candidacy will be forfeited. If you're running for Home Board, you'll definitely have to justify your candidacy when you're there; for the other offices and boards, you'll have the option to do so.[1] Generally, elections take place through the OpenSlides platform, which means digitally, making elections much faster when the election results are directly available, compared to the past with ballots or hand counts. You can also sign up for mentorships while the GHA is still going on, or delete yourself. There is also a cooking crew that sometimes prepares food for everyone before, but in any case also during the GHA, which is why they then also miss the GHA itself,[2] which theoretically also have to sign out, but if the GHA board is not sleeping, they also remember who is in the cooking team and enter them as excused absent in the minutes. If you still want to give the cooking crew a big treat, help clean up the kitchen for at least a few minutes after the meal, it takes a lot of work off their shoulders.