I realize you are not personally calling the shots over there, but I would gently suggest a rewrite. Even when I was not writing my agreements in Dutch (ack, you try writing your agreements in a language you learned after the age of thirty, it is very good for paring down superfluous language) I was a great believer in keeping legal agreements short and clear, with magic lawyer language to a minimum. I have a whole speech about it (with powerpoint!) but I will spare you as I left my soapbox at home in the US.
My own individual agreement is one page long. It says 1) who is contracting; 2) How long we are contracting for and whether it is automatically extended or not; 3) what they are getting and 4) what they are paying for that. Not everybody has one. I also have a seperate, two page document which lays out general terms of use: what participation in Kamer52 means, rules of operation -- to wit, you can bring your stuff in or ask us to get stuff if you need it; no changes to the structure without written permission (this building is 400 years old and the city takes it amiss if we do structural things to it); what is insured by me and what is not; payment in advance; don't be a jerk; no sharing of member info by me without written permission or a warrant; what happens to your mail/ stuff if you either disappear into the night or fail to pay. That kind of stuff. Everybody has one of those. If I had resistance to many of the clauses in the contract, I would take that as a warning sign, nothing in a contract should be surprising. Jeannine On Jun 1, 2:39 am, Michael Nguyen <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, I'm from The Bourse in New Haven, CT. We've had some questions > from prospective members about a non-disparagement clause in our member > agreement, which reads as follows: > > * > * > > *114. Non-Disparagement.* > > You shall, during and after the participation in and use of the Services, > refrain from making any statements or comments of a defamatory or > disparaging nature to any third party regarding The Bourse, or any of The > Bourse officers, directors, employees, personnel, agents, policies, services > or products, other than to comply with law. > > We've noticed that this is a common clause in many coworking member > agreements, of which we modeled ours after. I was wondering if anyone in > this group had any thoughts on why you decided to include/exclude this > clause. Has anyone else faced similar inquiries or resistance to signing off > with such a clause in their agreements? > > You can view our full membership agreement > herehttp://www.boursenewhaven.com/coworking-membership-agreement > > *Mike Nguyen* > > The Bourse > 839 Chapel Street > (203) 980-8202 > (203) 776-5684 (Fax) > > http://www.boursenewhaven.com > > Sign up for our mailing list:http://eepurl.com/cbPYb > Follow us on Twitter: @BourseNewHaven<http://www.twitter.com/boursenewhaven> > Or on Facebook: La > Bourse<http://www.facebook.com/pages/La-Bourse-Co-Working-New-Haven-Style/16...> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.

