Changes to Bevry

Today, June 23rd 2015, marks a hallmark for Bevry. I will use this post to talk about what has changed, why it has changed, and what has not changed.

Today, as Bevry’s director, I filed the paperwork to shut down Bevry Pty Ltd (the company). Before you panic, this is merely a legal entity change. Bevry (the community) will continue as is — the only difference is instead of being run by the entity Bevry Pty Ltd (the company), it will now be run by the sole-trader entity Benjamin Lupton.

In 2015, Bevry obtained $6000USD of sponsorship from the wonderful Hybris, as well as ~$1500USD from our lovely Gratipay donors from their years of Gratipay activity. $7500USD over 6 months unfortunately just covered Bevry Pty Ltd (the company)’s operational costs for the past 12 months, and is unable to justify the operational costs of maintaining the Pty Ltd entity.

All operations will continue as normal. Behind the scenes, the following changes will occur:

• Bevry Pty Ltd’s bank accounts will be closed, and replaced by sole-trader bank accounts. This has been completed.
• Our invoice and sponsorship templates, along with our donation and bank account listings will be updated with the new bank account information. Will update on next issue.
• Copyrights and ownerships will see entity changes, where and when appropriate. Will be done as appropriate.
• Subscriptions and accounts registered as Bevry, will too undergo entity changes. Will be done as appropriate.
• Bevry (the trademark) remains owned by myself, with no entity change needed. No todo needed.

Again, Bevry (the community), including our projects, our initiatives, our ideas on business, et al. will all continue to operate as normal. This is merely a legal entity change as there is no financial or strategic sense to maintain the Pty Ltd entity over a sole-trader entity at our current revenue levels. We can always reincorporate Bevry Pty Ltd at a more appropriate time (say if we once again bring in more than $72,000AUD in a financial year). Sole-trader entities are at increased legal risk over Pty Ltd entities in the case of legal issues, but oh well.

All in all, I’m happy and excited by this step, which is biting the bullet to do what’s right for the current situation’s demands. While the company Bevry Pty Ltd joins the statistics of yet another failed startup, I’m glad our community and our initiatives will not join that statistic and will continue to live on — a lively success, one that our community deserves credit for.

Bevry Pty Ltd (the company) ran from the 18th of July 2011 to June 2015 aging 4 lovely financial years.

Bevry (the community) marches from 2010 and onwards!

Further questions about this change can be directed here or directly to me at b@bevry.me