Third GEN-Europe Council meeting.

Hasandede, Turkey, October 26-29 1999.

Present are the Council members:
Agnieszka Komoch from Lebensgarten, Germany, Treasurer
Demet Irkli from the Hocamkoy Ecovillage, Turkey, member
Lucilla Borio from Torri Superiore, Italy, member
Thomas Steen Seiersen from the Danish Network LØS, member

Absent are:

Declan Kennedy from Lebensgarten, Germany, Acting President
and Silke Hagmeier from Sieben Linden, Germany, member

Silke Hagmeier sent her proxy to Agnieszka Komoch.

The proposed agenda of the meeting is read and approved:

A) Institutional aspects of the GEN-Europe association

- Vision and mission
- General secretariat report
- Council composition and internal elections
- Revision of membership and definition of GEN-Europe legal address
- General Assembly 2000

B) Financial strategy

- Report on budget and finances
- Fund-raising (report and activities)
- Income generation: sale of material (directory, postcards, others)
-Report on the eco-village currency development and Friendly Favours

C) Future activities and projects

- Internet situation, web pages and databases
- Newsletters: Positive News and Mediterranean edition
- Directory update, collaboration with FIC and Eurotopia
- New tools for information to the general public (video, slide show)
- New educational and tourism initiatives (questionnaire)
- Africa: report on the current status, our policy and practical actions (twin villages)
- Proposals for the GEN- meeting in Sri Lanka
- Distribution of tasks and definition of deadlines.

A) Institutional aspects of the GEN-Europe association

Vision and mission:
After a few moments of silent meditation, we share our feelings about GEN‘s vision and mission. It is commonly felt by all Council members that GEN‘s presence and work is very important for ecovillages and ecovillage networks. Its mission is to help the different experiences to come in contact and work together on all levels, including the practical one, and it should in the future focalise on creating self-supported projects which will give the association more visibility both for our members and for the general public.

General secretariat report:
After reading the three months GEN-Europe report from the secretariat, Lucilla talks about her work in the office, organised and administered with the help of her co-worker Hugo Arellano. The office is normally open from Monday to Friday (9/13 - 14/17), and after a short period of training is now functioning well and fulfilling all the necessary tasks for a good conduction of the association.

Council Composition:
Christina de Wilde resigned as the President of GEN-Europe in February 1999, and Declan Kennedy has functioned as Acting President until today. He is now formally retiring from the Council both as Acting President and as a member. Therefore the Council has decided to co-opt two new members to replace the resigned ones: Thomas Steen Seiersen was elected Council member with an e-mail election in August 99 and Lucilla Borio as a registered member with a formal election today (she was elected as the sixth Council member at the General Assembly in Torri in July 98, but according to our by-laws she was not officially registered).
All members agree and the decision is formally ratified.
The Council of GEN-Europe is therefore composed by the members (in alphabetical order): Lucilla Borio, Silke Hagmaier, Demet Irkli, Agnieszka Komoch, Thomas Steen Seiersen.

Internal elections:
The Council held the internal elections for President, Secretary and Treasurer with the following outcome: Agnieszka Komoch is elected President, Lucilla Borio is elected Secretary and Thomas
Steen Seiersen is elected Treasurer. All results are unanimous.

GEN-E legal address:
It is decided that the legal address of the Global Ecovillage Network of Europe (GEN-Europe) will be changed from Christina de Wilde, Grande Enneille 102, 6940 Gradhan, to the headquarters of the Fèdèration des Associations Internationales Etablies en Belgique (FAIB), 40 Rue Washington, 1050 Bruxelles.
It is also decided that GEN-Europe becomes a full member of FAIB and pays the fee of Bf. 10.000 for the year 2000.

Revision of membership:
At the present day, GEN-Europe has 18 full members which renewed their membership fee, and 29 associate members.
It is decided that GEN-Europe offers a support for GEN-Europe ecovillage members who want to participate in training courses held at the Findhorn Foundation an the Green Kibbutz. The amount of the grants will be decided on the internet Council list, but the total sum should not exceed DM. 1500. This initiative will be advertised on the web site and by letter to all GEN-Europe members.

General Assembly 2000:
All members and eco-village non-members will be contacted and invited (estimated 60 to 75 people).
The Assembly will include practical experience of the hosting EV (work together on the site); and an open house for the local people. We will try to use the Ecorates from EYFA. There will be place for sharing information and goods (e.g. make a market) and exhibitions from the Evs. We can also ask for donations to cover travel for people from countries with weak currencies. We can also try to organise a bus tour which could collect people from different countries. All ecovillages are invited to bring their food products for the kitchen to cut down the costs and maintain a good quality. Possible dates are July 27 - August 1st.
If the meeting will take place in Lebensgarten, the first or the last day will be the EXPO day where the EVs can present their products, pictures, etc.
Candidates: the hosting village should provide a relatively cheap accommodation and food, with adequate facilities for 70 people. At present we have two candidates: Sieben Linden and Lebensgarten.
The secretariat will post an email to all members asking if any other ecovillage is interested in hosting the meeting. The final decision will be taken on the e-mail on the 12th of November at the latest, after the Council has had a chance to examine all the proposals. Agnieszka also needs to check several details with the Lebensgarten management and the Expo group.

B) Financial Strategy

Report on the budget from Lucilla:
The three months reports (April-May-June and July-August-September) are submitted to the Council. In general the actuals are always lower than the budget, and the Council expresses its appreciation. The only weak point is the Newsletter.
Bank charges: The costs of having an international bank account are higher than expected. Lucilla will try to lock a part of the money for some months and in order to cover at least some of the costs. All Council members agree on this proposal.
The German account will be closed in November and Agnieszka will submit a report concerning the final settlement of all bills. She will also make a three month report on the book sales and other income or expenses that might come through Lebensgarten.

General strategy:
We need to have different approaches to the upcoming financial restrictions that the association will face in 2001. First we should try to keep the costs down and get the most out of every lira we spend on activities. The issue was discussed whether we should plan on having an office run on voluntary basis in the future (like EYFA). Lucilla clearly states that although she really likes the job, she is not attached to the office and is ready to transfer it anywhere else should the Council decide so for any good reason.
Secondly, we will concentrate on fund-raising. Thomas will work on the connection between the Danish government and GEN-Europe; also connections to EU should be explored especially concerning health care. "Healthy Cities“ is already a World Health Organisation project and possibly the topic of health in ecovillages could become a funded program. Thomas is interested to investigate this possibility.
In the past months, Agnieszka has identified about 10 European grants (from private foundations) that apply to our needs, and also a couple of relevant EU programmes. She will be working on these possible funding sources starting from January 2000, after the Sri Lanka Board meeting.
Lucilla will contact the Italian Ethical Bank and maybe Olivetti. The Social Venture Network should be also investigated. We will also ask Erik van Monckhoven, who was invited to the meeting as a working partner but could not attend, to fund-raise for us on the EU side. Agnieszka remains the fund-raiser co-ordinator.
The Council decides to set a deadline for a check on this issue on January 30th.

Income generation:
Sale of books: Torri still has about 500 copies of the Directory, Lebensgarten has about 600. We will count the books precisely and report on the Council list. Agnieszka will keep the accounts on the book sale from Lebensgarten.
GEN-E t-shirts: we will ask Mete if we can produce some T-shirts in Turkey, due to the lower costs and the possibility of buying good unbleached cotton locally. We could open a design competition to make new T-Shirts and announce it on the web. Thomas will get a quote from Denmark for printing the T-shirts with non-toxic inks. The idea is to have them ready before the general assembly and for the Expo stand if the meeting is at Lebensgarten. Mete and Demet will check out the production of printed cotton bags as well.
The production of a GEN calendar seems a good idea too, they could be produced for year 2001 and have a theme (e.g. children in communities). Also Marti‘s book, "The Spirit of Communities“, could possibly bring in some income, as some of Agnieszka‘s photos from European Evs will be used in it.

EV Tourism:
After a long discussion, the question emerges clearly that in order to bring in consistent income from the tourism venture we should probably need to function as a tourist agency, and we highly doubt it would be either appropriate or technically and professionally possible for our office to change its functions at the moment. We see EV tourism as a good change for many starting ecovillages to support themselves, and GEN-Europe is willing to be instrumental in starting a circuit (12 Evs returned the tourism questionnaires so far). Once we set up a proper database we can print it on paper and put it on the web. Potential customers could be charged a small fee to have access to the address list.
The Green Guide edited by ECEAT in Holland is interested in including the EVs in their travel guides. We could possibly ask the interested EVs to pay a fee to GEN-Europe for an entry in the guide, and function as a link.
Lucilla will feed back before the 15th of November.

Friendly Favours:
GEN-Europe can encourage the EV s to become members of Friendly Favours, but will not become a member itself.

c) Future Activities

Internet:
Gaia Villages has changed the server from ANU in Ireland to Oberion in Copenhagen. The new system will work on a NT Platform (Windows). This system will allow people to enter new documents just by having a password. According to the possibilities of the new server system, Hugo might provide the content from the Torri service node and Agnieszka can do the design from Lebensgarten. The change of e-mail addresses has proven to be rather difficult, and Lucilla cannot give a full guarantee that no e-mail message were lost in the transition, especially those sent between October 19 and 25th. All email addresses received little or no mail between these dates, and it has been impossible to track down the lost messages.
The necessity to have a multi-lingual approach to our information system is strongly emphasised by all Council members, and the decision is taken that we will open our web site to other European languages. At the moment the GEN-Europe‘s site already has some documents in Spanish; translations of the current documents into Italian, Danish and Turkish will follow as soon we find mother-language volunteers offering to translate the texts.
The Council expresses the need to clarify the democracy aspect around the change of the internet server, mainly concerning the decision making process, the flow of information and the competencies of the four secretariats on this level.

Newsletter:
The Positive News edition is deemed overly expensive for our budget, and has not brought back much in terms of book sale or active contacts. We are considering the possibility of changing to something less expensive also due to our budget restraints. The minimum option is to make an internet version which can be downloaded in several formats and printed when needed, plus a few photocopied ones for PR and for the members which do not have access to the internet. Another option is to make several shorter editions in different languages and print them within the national magazines which relate to the ecovillage movement, at a much lower cost (two pages per country). Overcoming the language barrier is seen by the Council as a priority and the English version did not meet the needs of most European countries. The aim is to produce one edition in spring announcing the upcoming general assembly in: Turkish (care of Demet and Mete), Italian and French (Lucilla), Danish (Thomas), Polish and Spanish (Agnieszka), and possibly German (Silke). In the 99/00 budget we had set aside DM 15.000 for the newsletter and we have already spent DM. 10.000 on the two PN issues. So the cost of the next edition should not exceed DM. 5.000 (it can be stretched to DM 7.000 at the most, given the importance of the matter). Each national edition should maintain the GEN-Europe identity (have the Butterfly logo and the “Caslon Openface BT“ font heading).
We will try to keep some space in PN and negotiate a new deal with them as the English edition, within the given budget limits.

Funds for needy projects:
There is a good opportunity of organising a straw-bale house course in Hasendede to give training to people involved in earthquake relief programs around the Istanbul area. The purpose of this initiative is to spread the knowledge about this building technique which is still unknown in Turkey and has many advantages in terms of sustainability, readiness and low costs. Mete Hacaloglu will prepare a draft project concerning costs, benefits and potential partners of the project which would be held in August in Hasandede, where the Hocamkoy group is based.

Directory update and collaboration with FIC (Fellowship of Intentional communities) and Eurotopia:
some aspects of this topic could not be discussed thoroughly due to the absence of Silke who is central in this matter. She is working on the new edition of the Eurotopia guide and received the address list from the GEN-Europe secretariat. As an exchange, GEN-Europe will have five pages in the book, the text of which has to be provided to the editors soon. The next edition of our Directory can be made in partnership with Ecotopia to cut down all costs. Thomas reminds that we need to fundraise for the next edition and Lucilla suggest to save the money from the sale of the directory in a separate account as a special fund for the new edition.


Promo material:
We need to produce a new slide show and to renew the picture exhibition. All member eco-villages will be asked to send in good quality slides or negatives of the pictures (with subtitles) to Declan who fundraised the money for the exhibition with the Lotto Fund. Agnieszka will check with Declan and see if he is taking care of it personally or wants to delegate this task to someone else. We could make two copies of the picture exhibition and leave one with Lebensgarten permanently while GEN-Europe keeps the other copy for its own purposes.
The GEN-Europe slide show could be organised differently, for instance by topic instead of by ecovillage. We will ask to send in slides on the different aspects of ecovillage life, including the social and spiritual/cultural moments, to communicate more the human side and not only the technical part. The letter should be sent out before November 15 and the slides should come in before the end of January.
The GEN-International slide show will be discussed at the GEN-Board meeting in Sri Lanka.
The need for a new video is also strongly felt. The idea is to have a product that communicates more about ecovillage life, that should also be fun to watch and possibly feature some good music. This proposal will be brought to the GEN-International meeting in Sri Lanka.

Education and tourism:
For Year 1999/2000 GEN-Europe co-organises the Findhorn Foundation courses on ecovillage life, and the Turkish Course on Straw-bale house in the summer for the earthquake area.
We will inquire about the EU program that supports the exchange between young people from different countries and try to set up an exchange for ecovillage youth among the members.
The Hasandede Centre set up by Mete might consider applying as a Living and Learning centre.

Africa:
Agnieszka read Eric Van Manchoven‘s letter in which he suggests to support Colufifa and to join the UNCCD (United Nation Commission to Combat Desertification), the General secretary of which is one of Eric´s contacts. A meeting could be organised in Bonn where the commission has its headquarters. The latter proposal will be followed up by Lucilla when she returns to Italy.
Agnieszka reports on the contacts she had with Ulrike Neurbert of the Kwetu ecovillage initiative in Kenya, and explains how she is trying to start a fair trade project with local products at the Lebensgarten shop. Agnieszka will ask her to come up with a written proposal about a meeting for Kenyan NGO‘s interested sustainability, specifying the target of the meeting and all related costs. We would rather avoid sending Council members to Kenya and we are willing to invest a part of out networking funds in this project (maximum DM 2000).
Thomas suggests to make connections with the Folkecentre in Denmark because they had ongoing programs and exchanges with African students.
The permaculture course in Kenya has been definitely cancelled and there will most likely be a course in Senegal with Colufifa organised in collaboration with Demba Mansare. We would like to encourage other local NGOs to meet on that occasion and work together, since Senegal seems to be one of the most active countries in Africa on the environmental front.
Lucilla submitted a new project for Africa called Twin villages, to start making direct contacts between European ecovillages and African traditional villages or ecovillage projects for co-operation and exchanges. The Council approves the initiative and gives its support: it will be announced on the web and on the newsletter. Torri is willing to start as a pilot project.
Lucilla will make further contacts with Josè Lopes about the Africa Millennium initiative to organise an ecovillage conference in Durban, South Africa, in November 2000. She will ask him references about the founders and the other speakers invited.
Since both Philip and Karen of the International Secretariat have been actively involved in the planification of the GEN general policy for Africa, and also have direct contacts with many projects (Colufifa, Ecoyoff, Permaculture lake Victoria and others), it is advisable to establish a clear definition of tasks in order to organise the work of the two offices rationally and efficiently.

Next Council meeting:
given the huge number of new initiatives and the necessary budget adjustments, it is decided to have another meeting before the General assembly in the month of March. The location is still to be chosen and will defined on the Council list. The LØS meeting will be held on the second weekend in March, and this would provide a good opportunity to meet the Danish network. Another possibility is to hold it at Sieben Linden but this has to be checked with Silke.

Proposals for the GEN-Board meeting is Sri Lanka:
Clarification about the decision making process within the organisation, and the Internet situation
New video and slide show
Tourism for exchange among young people
Definition of tasks for Africa: who is doing what and where.

Distribution of tasks and definition of deadlines:
The Council confirms all the commitments mentioned above. Further details will be defined on the internet Council list.

A 1.30 PM on October 29th, 1999 the meeting is over.

Approved by all present council members:

Agnieszka Komoch
Demet Irkli from
Lucilla Borio
Thomas Steen Seiersen


Hasandede, Turkey, October 29 1999.