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Meeting of the Council of GEN-Europe
Sieben Linden May 3, 2000
The meeting is opened at 10.00 a.m.
Present are the Council members:
Thomas Seiersen, Treasurer, LOS Net Denmkar
Lucilla Borio, Secretary, Torri Superiore, Italy
Silke Hagmaier, Member, Come together network, Germany
Demet Irkli, Member, Ekilat network, Turkey
Agnieszka Komoch, President
After an initial moment of sharing about personal feelings and the individual situation of each council member and their community, the meeting starts with point 1 of the Agenda:
A) Institutional aspects of the GEN-Europe association:
General secretariat report
Lucilla talks about her position and office tasks, with the workload constantly increasing to the point of having to work extra hours almost every day. She regrets having sent out the agenda to members late, due to her absence from the office while she was in Africa. The office structure is probably not big enough for the many projects on the ground at the moment, and visitors can sometimes give her difficulties because they request a lot of time. Silke suggests to set and publicize clear visiting times for the public. Thomas says that in spite of these minor incoveniences, he is pleased of the way the office is managed, and the other members agree.
Revision of membership
ÄżbLucilla presents a list of members who regularly paid their membership fee.
To this date the following full members have regulatly paid their fee: Ecovillage At Burdautien, Ireland; Valdepielagos/Sol y Tierra, Spain; Earth Sanctuary project, Spain; Ekilat (Turkish Network) ,Turkey; Findhorn Foundation, Scotland; Solheimar, Iceland; Damanhur, Italy; Upacchi, Italy; Torri Superiore, Italy; Sieben Linden, Germany; Come Together Netzwerk, Germany; Zegg, Germany; Vallersund Gaard, Norway; LØS, Denmark; Hertha Levefaellesskab, Denmark; Lebensgarten, Germany; Tamera, Portugal.
Associate members: Stamm Füssen Eins, Germany; Okodorfer im Osnabrüker e V Ökodorf Osnabrük, Germany; The Snaefellsas Community, Iceland; Centrum Trvalo udrzatelnych alternativ, Slovakia; The Totnes Ecovillage Project, England; Grooby Eco Hamlet, England; Villaggio Ecologico Solidale, Italy; Azienda Agricola S. Giuseppe, Italy; Libera Universita´ di Alcatraz, Italy; Centro Regionale d´intervento per la Cooperazione CRIC, Italy; La Comune di Bagnaia, Italy; Casa Cares, Italy; Reseau Francais des Ecovillages, France; Asociacion La Carrucha Cultural (Artosilla), Spain; Patika, Turkey; Eco Foca Ecological Village, Turkey; Village Convivial de la Paix Dieu, Belgium; Kilden Ökosamfunn, Norway; Stichting MW2/De Eenhoorn, Netherlands; Landsby 2000, Denmark; Aldeia Ecologica Amarna, Portugal.
The office experienced some problems with national network contacts which rarely reply to requests for information or contact. We heard very little from the EVNUK (Ecovillage Network of the UK) in spite of the attempts to contact them by e-mail and phone. Silke suggests to contact CAT or Brithdir Mawr, the so-called hidden village in Wales, and see whether they are interested in working with us. The organisation PFAF (Plants for a Future) could also be contacted. The next strawbale gathering will take place at the Redfiled community next fall and Silke will probably attend, so she could try and meet the Evnuk group and organise a networking tour (GEN-Europe will cover Silke´s costs). In general, the Council would like to see some kind of information flow, even small, with the national networks, otherwise it´s hard to know what they are doing or even if they are alive. Evnuk will be contacted again and asked if they can send us an activity report and payment of their membership fee; they could also ask for a grant from GEN to cover their fee, but if they do not reply this time their address will be crossed off the contact list. Agnieszka suggests to invite a representative from the Redfield community, which is very active in strawbale building, to the GEN-Europe assembly; Silke will contact them.
then The same problem happened with the Green Kibbutz group, which almost never reply to any message. Lucilla should call Jan Bang on the phone and check out the situation.
The Polish Dabrowska ecovillage have asked for exchange between full membership fee and publication of GEN-Europe information on their magazine, and the Council accepts the requests.
For the general meeting a suggestion is made to invite all ecovillages we are in contact with, on the condition that if they want to vote they have to become members. The Council ratifies the previously taken e-mail decision to propose the use of Eyfa ecorates for membership fees, in order to facilitate members coming from countries with a weaker economy.
Lucilla points out a contraddiction in the articles, according to which both ecovillages and national networks can be members, and if the national network is not very active the direct contact with ecovillages can be lost. Having many ecovillages as members would give us a more solid basis. Thomas says he will propose the Danish ecovillages to join GEN individually. Silke feels that both levels are useful for our association and we should keep both, and since any change in the articles should be voted by the general assembly, this will be topic for the Spanish meeting.
The Council suggests to increase the full members fee to Lit. 100.000, and possibly higher for national networks. Before the assembly Silke will send the list of addresses she collected for the Eurotopia directory to the service node in Torri, in order to update the database.
Thomas suggests that every member should get an official membership certificate saying "XXX..... is a member of Gen-Europe". This simple publication would give GEN-Europe visibility in our member ecovillages.
On another level, Lucilla and Agnieszka think that the role of GEN-Europe should be openly discussed at the General meeting to make sure the goals of the organisation are set and supported by the ecovillages themselves. All Council members agree on this suggestion.
Agnieszka suggests to shift the contact point in Ireland from Stephan Wik, who no longer has time to do it, to Emer O´Siochru who is starting an ecological community. Lucilla will contact her and ask if she is available.
Update on registration of Gen-Europe in Italy: after the FAIB rejected our application for membership and official address in January (due to lack of consistent activity in Belgium), we had little choice but proceeding with the registration in Italy under the simplest non-profit association law. The articles have been translated and the registration should be completed before the end of May, with a cost of approximately 500 DM. This topic will be presented at the General assembly in August, so that all members are informed about our official status.
Revision of the Hasandede Council meeting minutes: Agnieszka points out that we have not followed up on the decision of making more GEN t-shirts, and Silke suggests to contact Damanhur and see if they have the time and energy to produce them for us, using ecological cotton and the same logo. Lucilla will contact them and ask.
Appointment of GEN-Europe representatives to the GEN Board meeting in Torri Superiore: Agnieszka has difficulties attending because of her committment with the organisation of EXPO 2000 in Lebengarten, and with her day-to-day free-lance work load. Thomas definitely connot go to the meeting because of his work. Demet cannot do it either because of her University job and the strawbale house course. Silke is not sure because she cannot come before June 11th or 12th and this would put her in a difficult position, also because it would be the first Board meeting for her. She will carefully consider the possibility of changing her plans to come earlier, and tell us as soon as she can. Other possible candidates from Europe could be May East from Findhorn, Lepre from Damanhur, Mete from the Turkish Netwotk Ekilat.
B) Financial strategy
Sale of material: Agnieszka normally sells one directory a week with support of the Lebensgarten office, and proposes to give a discount price of 20DM for the EXPO exhibition since as the book is a bit out of date, especially for phone numbers and e-mail addresses, but still a valuable publication for ecovillage descriptions. Agnieszka sent a short review and the cover image to "Amazon.com" so sales might again increase a bit; Green Books will sell the Directory, and even though GEN-Europe will get a smaller profit it still seems like a good channel to distribute the bulk we have left (about 400 with Lucilla and 400 with Agnieszka). Other e-bookstores could be contacted (Barnes and Nobles, Oeko Buch ...) to see if they are interested. We could offer the directory also to individual ecovillages and national networks to be sold at national meetings (Lucilla) for 50% of the price (15 DM) plus postage, minimum 10 books; the offer could be extended to all re-sellers with a flexible price policy. The service node ran out of the Habitat video, Lucilla will contact Albert for more copies, either of the old or new version he has probably made.
The Ecovillage Millennium magazine produced by the GEN International office was sent out for free to all members, and in the future it can be used for PR or sold to others for Lit. 3.000.
The GEN butterfly could be sold again at the general assembly, Lucilla will count how many we have left and let Agnieszka know so that Monika from Lebensgarten can make more.
Another topic of discussion is about asking for money in excahnge of ecovillage information. It is agreed we should ask for small donations if people want specific information on technical issues, and the research significantly takes up office time; anyway we should always try to sell the directory first.
An extra subject not included in the agenda and brought up by Anieszka is Tree planting: browsing the web, she found the "Future Forest Organisation" in the UK which plants trees to make up for the CO2 production deriving from different activities (traveling, households, heating). They have rates to calculate the ammount of CO2 produced by each activity and convert it into trees which they plant in the UK. People pay the related ammount by Visa card or bank transfer. Agnieszka suggests to do it for our Council meetings and General assembly, it is a positive action to increase general awareness on the problem even though it does not solve it at 100%. In the future we could also send the money to GEN ecovillages active on reforestation, starting with this meeting in Sieben Linden or the next assembly at Lakabe. Agnieszka will investigate and let us know how much the cost for the present meeting would be.
Report on Budget and proposals for 2000 /2001 budget.
According to the Council decision taken at the meeting in Hasandede, the Torri office consistently kept running costs to a sustainable minimum to face the future budget restrictions due to the reduction of Gaia Villages´ grants from July 2001. Agnieszka and Silke suggest more flexibility with the wages for office personnel, with the possibility of increasing the expenses to cover more staff and relief Lucilla of the extra work load. The special funds for Africa and needy projects have not been completely allocated yet, but a sum of Lit. 5.000.000/7.000.000 will go to the strawbale house course in Turkey and the rest could be invested in helping the African Colufifa network set up a proper office computer structure. The final editing of the budget is postponed to the last day.
Agnieszka reports about fundraising: she started in January and it took some time to assemble all the documents (legal status and address, registration, accounts, auditing of accounts) necessary to submit a funding proposal to the European Union. The official address was a problem as seen above, and so were the accounts from Lebensgarten for the January-May 1999 period. The deadline set by the EU was March 31 and this made it impossible to submit anything, but in the meantime she found two good programs: "Working for the idea of Europe" which looked consistent with our organisation but unfortunately has not been financed for year 2000; and projects with the "Environmental General Directorate", which has so far been impossible to contact. At the moment the EU programs are being re-written and the new guidelines should come out in the third quarter of the year; there is a youth program (standing until 2004) called "Youth for Europe", which could be relevant for us. Even though not immediately fruitful, this first research period was useful for her because she now knows the information channels and the procedure, and most of the documents are ready to be sent out.
Silke asks if there are programs to cover running costs for the office, but Agnieszka could find only a program that ended on March 31 (with the EDG). Agnieszka will be busy until the general assembly and will start working on fundarising again from that point to match the September and October deadlines. She will contact again some fundraising experts and get advice from them. Thomas suggests to make a project about "ecovillage workers" or a kind of travelling/learning centre that covers the costs of exchanging information and education among different ecovillages across Europe.
It is clear that we need funding for two different levels: running costs for the office on one side , and for various projects with networks and ecovillages on the other (program funds). We should in the future be able to offer a consulting service to our members for specific projects they want to realize. Agnieszka recently met Jes Christensen from Denmark who has an interesting project about youth exchange in ecovillages and is willing to fundraise for it on behalf of GEN-Europe.
Support could be given to national networks for fundraising on local basis, and Thomas suggests to organise a networking tour of northern Europe to set up an educational program together. Eastern Europe probably needs some support but we don´t have a strong connection with these countries, apart from Nicole Grosspierre in Poland who is at the moment very busy with her family and network. Another possibility is to invest a part of the fundraising money in a professional organisation that will do it for us, inquiring into private donors and national funds as well. Silke suggests that Lucilla should get assistance to look into the national laws to support the Italian office. Agnieszka will check the three addresses she has and report to the Council list what service they offer and at what cost.
C) Activities and projects
Support to national networks: Silke suggests to inquire and find out how we can give them better support. Thomas reports on the situation of the Danish network and how it evolved over the time, also thanks to the support received from Gaia Trust in the past. Agnieszka suggests to invest funds in translations into different languages done by ecovillage residents that can be used for our website and newsletter, thus fostering the dissemination of information; a marketing consultant for the directory sale would also probably be useful at this point. Some financial support could also be given to Africa to see if we can start a subregional node.
Expo 2000 in Lebensgarten: 18000 DM were given by the Bingo Lotto Foundation for the ecovillage exhibition. Lebensgarten has now good photo material from at least 10 projects. The exhibition will be posted on the walls at the big hall and shown over the next five months. Agnieszka will set up an internet access point for visitors interested in knowing more about individual ecovillages. A brochure will be printed about the exhibition (in German and English), in order to reduce the amount of posted text. Agnieszka will produce posters with pictures and captions together and make the exhibition easier. An internet database with pictures could be estabilished on the web for networks and ecovillagers to access (with a password) if they need material for their newsletters or other network uses. Agnieszka would like to make a calendar or a notebook with the best ecovillage pictures as a follow-up on the exhibition, or as a leaflet that can be handed out with the Eurotopia book, or a new chapter in the possible future English edition, or even a membership certificate with color pictures on the edge. She will get a quote for the certificate, the cost of which can be covered by the membership fee. The issue of PR and promotion comes up as a topic for tomorrow.
Calendar of National network meetings
The following meetings were announced by the networks:
RIVE-Italian network: June 30 - July 3,
Come Together Network-Germany: July 16-23;
Portugal: Tamera Summer camp August 7 - 18;
Dla Ziemi -Polish Network: August 25 - 28 in Wolimierz;
RFEV-French Network: from August 26 to August 29.
EVNUK-Ecovillage Network of the UK: Yurt making course at the end of August;
Eco-communities network - Finland: late summer,
Ekilat-Turkish network: October 2000.
Lucilla will get in touch with Olivetti in June to see whether we can start a joint program to supply some national networks and contacts with adequate computer equipment. We could allocate about Lit.10.000.000 and look for matching funds for Poland, Senegal, Guinea and other countries that might apply for it later.
Another Lit. 10.000.000 will be allocated as travel funds for ecovillage representatives to come to the assembly and tour the ecovillages in Europe.
Romania: we will support the TPN to come to the general assembly and to visit 3-4 ecovillages on the way from Romania. GEN-E will help them finding the right places and cover 80% of the costs for 2 persons for travel by the least expensive means (train or bus). At the assembly, they will cover their costs in eco-rates.
Funds for Russia: we are considering inviting 5 people from the Russian ecovillages (Nevo, Rysovo, Ekopolis, Kitezh and Grishino) who should travel by the cheapest means and have travel refund; Nicole Grosspierre from the Polish network Dla Ziemi will get support too.
Each country should send a representative to the assembly and if this proves difficult, they can apply for GEN-Europe travel funds, which will cover up to 50% of the total cost.
In order to get a group discount on train fares, we will try and organise meeting points for ecovillage travellers to meet on their way to Spain (Hamburg?).
Update on the internet situation
The e-shop on the "gaia.org" site was discussed, and the Council sees a difficulty in developing an e-commercial venture as an ecological and an inventive way of promoting ecovillage products, mainly because of transport costs (from the ecological point of view the ideal would be to live on regional products). Global consumerism is also questioned and discussed as something we should not support. It looks more rational to get in touch with an existing fair trade organisation and use their structure for a line of ecovillage products. The Council needs to know more about this project before we take any position, concerning the goal (who will benefit), the organisation, the practical management and handling of goods and money.
Parts of the national newsletters can be published on our website, but in order to do so we should invest more money in translating the website information into other languages. We allocate Lit. 150.000 per language to translate 10 pages. Each page would cost roughly Lit. 150.000. Number of languages: max 20. Total allocation Lit. 3.000.000.
Newsletter: the European multi-lingual project and the International Millennium Magazine
The EV milennium is such a high quality product that it would make sense to use it as a newsletter for the regions, instead of having separate newsletter for the each of them. This is particularly important for the European region, as we could use time and money to support our national editions in a variety of languages. The Council decides that we would like to cooperate with GEN-International on having GEN-Europe´s newsletter published as part of the global magazine. We can garantee a good flow of information and pictures, and cover the cost of printing the extra copies.
Agreements about the GEN-Europe newsletter in other language are made with the following:
Italy, AM Terra Nuova: 2 times a year, two pages + one articles. They need translations. 500 DM/issue
Turky, Bugday: 2 pages, but need more money for translations, coming out in July.
Switzerland, Zeitpunkt: no costs, they choose the material and pictures and do the translation.
Spain, GEA: the economic issues are not cleared yet but it should be free.
Portugal, Forum Ambiente: costs DM 300.
Poland, dla Ziemi: will get support (DM 500) for the next issue.
Denmark, LØS: next issue in June. They have all the material and will publish about 3-4 pages.
No fixed agreement yet with: the French Vivre in Ecovillage (as they have changed their newsletter concept and weren´t printing in the last months). We can also try to cooperate with the other magazine "Silence".
Silke will try to get a deal with "Wohnen and Gesundheit" or "Natürlich Gärtnen" in Germany.
UK: we can ask the Permaculture Association or the Findhorn Foundation to help us find an adequate partner. Agnieszka will contact Maddy Harland from Permanent Publications or "Edge of Time" and see if she interested in a cooperation.
The average cost for national correspondents is Lit. 500.000 for 2 pages and more. The next issue of the newsletter will contain an advertisement for the directory.
Directory update and cooperation with the Eurotopia.
Eurotopia: the second edition of Eurotopia has just been published. For this edition, less communities applied than last time (333 in total), probably because they realised the book was only being produced in German for the moment. The proposed cooperation with "Diggers and Dreamers" has not given positive results so far. Silke suggests to translate Eurotopia into English, since it would make more sense to produce two versions of the same book rather than 2 different ones; she believes that a book on ecovillages alone without communities has too narrow a scope and possibly a restricted audience.
Lucilla agrees but says that a clear distinction between a community and an ecovillage is necessary to give correct information; Agnieszka and Thomas suggest other changes they would like to see in the Engish version, and the following are agreed upon:
a explanatory articles on ecovillages and GEN in the first chapter; crossing out German smaller communities (with less than 5 members); adding an appendix with ecovillage initiatives;
putting our logo on the ecovillage pages.
Other changes will be defined by the council after taking a closer look at the book. Silke will coordinate the project and gives some figures about the cocts of the German edition: the 7L team worked 1700 hours on the Eurotopia which makes Lit. 25.000.000 Printing costs: 2.000 copies of 420 pages cost about Lit. 5.000 a piece.
Thomas suggests we put between Lit. 1.000.000 and Lit. 5.000.000 for the English translation and adaptation of the new edition, extended to Lit. 6.000.000 on Silke´s request to have bit of play for unforeseen costs. She will ask Green Books whether they want to print and distribute it professionally, and she will receive the GEN-Europe money only after a clear deal has been signed with the publishers, which would either refund our money or give us the equivalent in books (possibly at printing costs, which would mean 1200 books).
Directory of Ecovillages: Alltogether we sell about 3 Directories a week, with this speed we would sell 60 books until the end of the year, but we will promote it as explained above and try to sell at least 500 before the English edition of Eurotopia comes out at the end of the year.
Strawbale course in Turkey
It will take place from June 24 to July 8 in Hasandede near Ankara, organised by Mete Hacaloglu.
Demet hopes to include architects from the earthquake areas. 20 will participate and Harald Wedig will be teaching. The individual fee is US$ 400, GEN-E pays DM 5.000 (Lit. 10.000.000) for H. Wedig and gives DM 2.000 (Lit. 2.000.000) for stypends. The course could also be opened to participants from Armenia or Yugoslavia. The Gazi University in Ankara gives DM 3.000,- (Lit. 3.000.000) as a support for the project, earmarked for technical support and travel refunds. One of Dement students made a simple design for the house to be built. After completion it will be used as a library or a community center in the village. Arrangements with the municipality are being made about the exact site and the future use of the house.
Living and Learning Centres and Africa
Lucilla briefs on the genarl concept of L/LC, explaining the basic idea of a place where practical hands-on training can take place permanently, and where ecovillage life is a part of the direct experience of participants.
Sha also gives a short report of her trip to Africa and the activities of Colufifa (Guinea and Senegal) and Cresp (Yoff, Dakar).
GEN-Europe would like to support Colufifa to develop as a networking partner in West Africa, since they already have an internal network that comprises 350 rural villages. We would support establishment a Living and Learning Center in Yoff, but not necessarily the Service Node for Africa. We would like more time for this decision, because Colufifa has been an excellent networker, but is not ready to take on the regional office of GEN Africa yet.
Lucilla suggests that if a Living and Learning Center is established in Yoff (which is definitely better organised in terms of office equipement and computer facilities) the students could take a one or two week practical course in Faoune, Casamance, with Colufifa as a direct experience in a rural village in West Africa.
Dembe Mansaré will be supported to participate in the permaculture course at Torri with a Lit. 1.000.000 grant from GEN-Europe. Dembe has to write a paper defining Colufifa´s needs and programs and clarify the African concept of the ecovillage, compared to a traditional rural village.
A group from the Torri Superiore community plans to visit Colufifa in December as part of the "Twin Villages" programme.
Ecotourism
Lucilla is interested in developing it from the Torri office, if she could get more funds to work on it. She has not had enough time to seriously work on this project yet, but can do it before the Board meeting. We will discuss this topic again as soon as there is a clearer proposal from GV/GEN International.
ICSA - International Communities Study Association
The next ICSA conference will be held in ZEGG in 2001 and until that date Silke is a member of the ICSA Board. If we want to participate we could combine it with a GEN-Europe Council meeting before or after the conference and save on travel costs (Silke will check if it´s possible); at the same time we could form a panel with 5-6 ecovillage representatives from all over Europe. We can also propose GEN International to participate at the ICSA conference and help EVs from other regions to come.
Better contacts with ICSA seem advisable for GEN-Europe at this stage: we could for instance ask the president Bill Metcalf to write an article about the historical development of communal living and ecovillages in Europe for the English edition of the Eurotopia directory.
Through B.Metcalf and his Australian university, we could also try and give support to the French network in dealing with the Minitery of Interiors "anti-sect" department which is listing most alternative groups as sects. If Metcalf has contacts with French university professors interested in knowing the situation better, we could put the RFEV in contacflowth them to voice their concern on the pressure resulting on ecovillages and communities.
Youth
Agnieszka reports on the visit of Jes Christensen who went to Lebensgarten and Torri to present a youth exchange project among ecovillages, and is available to start a fundraising campaign for this program. Jes would like to attend the general assembly and the Council accepts his request. Thomas asks if this project would be managed by GEN-Europe, and Agniezka says it should be organised in parallel with us but to some extent independent. Thomas will try and learn more about him and his projects in Denmark through the Danish Architect Association. Both Lucilla and Agnieszka suggested him to make contact with the organisations that have been active with volunteers workcamps like Jgd (Germany), Legambiente (Italy), MS (Denmark), SCI (international).
The present session is over at 18.30, the next will start tomorrow morning (8.30 to 12.30).
General Assembly
All Council members agree to arrive on the first or second day of the meeting early in the morning to have time with the Lakabe group and organise the logistics of the meeting.
We will ask participants to bring three slides from each ecovillage for presentation and for the GEN-Europe archives.
Each ecovillage can send two representatives, and national networks can send two in addition. The limit is given by the Lakabe kitchen capacity, which can serve 70 people at the most.
Through ENA we will invite someone from America, possibly Spanish speakers not from US/Canada.
We will allow participants to become members during the assembly, and their membership status shall be ratified by the Council later.
The invitation sent out by the office should include a two-page activity report on the last two years and a one-page budget.
Lakabe is trying to make the stay very unexpensive and accessible for everybody.
Time frame of the assembly:
First day: Arrival of participants on August 2nd (Wednesday) (this gives us 4 working days)
Welcoming rituals on Wednesday evening, with a dance where everyone meets everyone rather than a theoretical session like a slide shows. Slides will be shown in the nest evenings.
Every morning we will have work-groups on issues chosen by the members in the morning and a plenary session in the afternoon on GEN topics.
Last day: Goodbye Party on Monday the 7th (all day)
General structure:
Working hours 9-12 and 15-19, introducion of EVs in the evenings (slides, videos etc.)
Official Party from Saturday afternoon to Monday afternoon.
Thursday:
9-10 Introductory Speech by the Council
10-11 Plenary session with introducion of each EV
11-12 Announcement of working groups
15-17 Parallel: *Work Groups Session
*Hands-on Work
17-19 Tour of Lakabe
Friday:
9-10 Circle dancing and coordination
10-12 Work groups (continuation)
15-17 Plenary session on GEN-Europe topics
17-19 Open time
Saturday:
9-10 Circle dancing and coordination
10-12 Work groups
15-17 Report from work groups
17-19 Official session on GEN-Europe topics
Sunday
10-13 Election of Council and future activities
open to public in afternoon
Monday:
Open to public, fiesta in Lakabe - departure
Draft agenda for the assembly:
The Agenda should be sent out roughly one month before the meeting to allow feedback and suggestions, so the deadline for changes will be on June 15th. Some of the topics could be discussed in work groups.
- Adopting Ecorates for the membership fee (plenary)
- Membership fee raised to Lit. 100.000, maybe introducing two different fees for networks and ecovillages (plenary)
- Election of the council (official part)
- Revision of Articles and Bylaws (official part)
- Budget (official part)
- Report of council activities
- Registration of GEN-Europe in Italy (official part)
- Youth exchange (plenary session on Thursday, then work group)
- Membership services, what do members expect from GEN-Europe
- Define needs and projects, what can be done with GEN support and what can be independently organised among ecovillages (work group or plenary)
- Exchange of knowledge and direct support for ecovillages in Europe (work group).
The translation of the GEN flyer has been completed in five languages (Italian, French, Spanish, German, Turkish); Thomas will try and have the Danish translation done as well. We are still using photocopies made by the Torri office, hoping to have the printed version ready in a short time. Lucilla shall ask Philip of the GEN International office when they will be available.
Agnieszka might be able to use some of her exhibition material for the production of a calendar or a note book, as already discussed above. She will get back to us with more details on the project.
The 2000/2001 budget was compiled according to the decisions taken during the discussion. The proposed budget
See attached spreadsheet for all other details.
Proposals for
- The Council would like to hear more about the Internet Situatio
- We suggest a GEN-Europe cooperation with Ecovillage Millenium
- Living and Learning Centres: the discussion should focus on the main purpose behind this program in order to understand what is the most appropriate strategy, not only in the South but in richer countries as well. The Council agrees that we support the establishment of a Living and Learning Center in Yoff, as long as it does not only offer theoretical learning in a city but it includes a practical part in a rural village, possibly in partnership with Colufifa.
- We propose that every GEN meeting we invest a small sum in planting trees to make up for the CO2 produced by our travels.
Apart from the specific committments related to the above topics, every council member shall write a report about the activities of the last two years and his/her experience as a GEN-Europe Council member to submit to the General Assembly.
Notes taken by Lucilla Borio, Agnieszka Komoch, Silke Hagmaier; revised and edited by Lucilla Borio and approved by the Council.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucilla Borio
Torri Superiore, May 16 2000.