The German Promotional Products Association, GWW, came together at the RheinMain CongressCenter in Wiesbaden for its annual meeting on September 21, 2023. The meeting that was held on the eve of the GWW Trend was the first under the aegis of the new board, comprising of the Chairman, Frank Jansen as well as Elke Bobek, Ralf Hesse, Ralf Uwe Schneider and Dirk Winterhoff.
The meeting commenced with Jansen summarising the activities of the new board. The board had dedicated its attentions to the political work during the first months of its term: For example, continuing the discussions with the associations ZAW, BGA and BDI, and the further collaboration with the consulting agency, FinTax policy advice. The latter particularly focused on the negotiations about the Growth Opportunities Act, which among others intends to increase the tax exemption limit for promotional products from the current 35 Euros up to 50 Euros in future and in the course of which discussions for changing the 10 Euro limit for the individual recording of give-aways is also to be discussed.
Further news on the association’s work that was presented thereafter included among others the international activities of GWW: For instance, the association is planning to found the so-called European Associations Cooperative together with other European associations.
After the presentation of the economic report and the budget, the treasurer’s report and discharging the board and executives, the vote on a planned amendment to the articles of association was on the agenda. This affected among others the special rights of the individual sections and of the PSI and thus required not only a majority of three quarters of the votes of the voting members, but also the approval of the PSI and of each individual section. However, since the PSI voted against the planned amendment to the articles, it wasn’t necessary to carry on with the voting process.
The board of the GWW (f.t.l.): Ralf Uwe Schneider, Dirk Winterhoff, Elke Bobek, Ralf Hesse, Managing Director Ralf Samuel and the Chairman, Frank Jansen.
At the end of the meeting the spring edition of the trade show GWW-Trend was discussed, a topic that has been a debate within the industry for months. Based on a survey carried out among the GWW members in August, the spring show for distributors and suppliers is due to be held in Frankfurt on February 27, 2024, followed by the first event of the GWW Newsweek on February 28. The GWW informed its members of this in an email on September 13, 2023, details were provided only after repeated requests: Evidently 103 of the 157 participating suppliers and 152 of the 176 participating distributors had been in favour of holding a spring edition of the Trend. Of the dates and locations to choose from, an earlier venue date in Cologne (24.-25.01.24) received the most votes (62 distributors/32 suppliers), followed by the Frankfurt venue with two optional dates (27.-28.02.24 and 05.-06.03.24). Here 47 consultants and 43 suppliers voted for the March date and 41 consultants and 38 suppliers for the February date. According to the GWW, the decisive reason for the final decision in favour of the February date in Frankfurt was “the fact that they had promised WA Media and RX to take their trade shows into consideration.” Furthermore, staging the event in Frankfurt would ensure a spatial distance and an acceptable interval to the PSI and the HAPTICA® live, the GWW claimed.
WA Media, organisers of the HAPTICA® live, stated clearly in this connection: If the Newsweek is held in Frankfurt two weeks before the HAPTICA® live, it is actually too close both in terms of distance and time, because many of the visitors of the HAPTICA® live , which has been held in mid-March since 2013, come from the Rhine-Main region. They also stated that discussions about the intention of staging a Newsweek in Frankfurt at the end of February had not taken place.
// Till Barth
Photos: Till Barth, © WA Media
