October has been a very busy month for me with both World Board meetings and European Committee meetings one after the other over 10 days! It has been quite an interesting challenge but highly demanding in terms of energies. I am not sure I am ready to repeat the whole experience soon!!
I am sure you are all busy with a whole new year of activities in your own country, and in the Region there are several important events that will happen between October and December. The Round Tables on Membership and Diversity, organised jointly with WOSM, will open the strategic work we need to do to address the issues of retaining our current members and reaching out to new publics. These are great opportunities to share ideas and build partnership for the development of successful strategies… and therefore they should not be missed!
The October World Board meeting, where we welcomed the newly elected members, was focused mainly on starting a new ways of working together along with changes in the operational structure and the internal roles and responsibilities within the Board. We worked hard to ensure that each person was able to use her skills and abilities to the best potential in WAGGGS.
The other item that was both on the Agenda of the World Board meeting and of the Europe Committee meeting was the reassessment of the strategic and operational priorities following the quota decisions taken at the World Conference in Johannesburg and also linked to the uncertainty of the economic world at the moment. The indication we had was the need to reduce our budget in 2009 and most likely 2010.
At the committee meeting this was not an easy task. Therefore we took time and care to balance the strategic priorities, the needs of our member organisations and the decisions taken at the last European Guide Conference as well as looking at our securing our joint work with WOSM.
One of the biggest decision we had to take was related to Eurolife and we will be sending you a separate communication about this.
Our joint meeting with WOSM was focused on a general evaluation of the common work done so far and we were pleased to see many things already changing due to improved synergy and cooperation at all levels. We looked back at all the recommendations from the joint conference and realized that we have already addressed the majority of them and we have time enough to improve further and address them all in the most appropriate way before the next conference.
We are also looking forward to our next meeting of the regional working groups and once again there will be a joint meeting of both the WOSM and WAGGGS working groups to support the Joint work we do. This will be held at our Chalet in Adelboden.
Our staff continue to work very hard with all the different activities of the region and they will hopefully be joined by a new Development Executive by the end of the year who will give us extra capacity in supporting both MO’s and events.
Last but not least we will have to face the challenge of finding a new Regional Director. It will not be easy to find someone that will be able to be as effective and brilliant as Heather has been in her 11 years spent working for WAGGGS and for the Europe Region but we will try to use this opportunity to further enhance the ability of the Region to support the work you do at grass root level and help you get stronger and stronger.
I take this opportunity to thank Heather once more for all the important things she has done. I have personally learnt many great things working with her. We will surely miss her contribution but she has found a new wonderful opportunity for her life and we should all be happy for this great step in her professional development! I wish her all the best for this new adventure in her professional life and I am sure you would like to all join me in wishing her the same!
We hope to see you somewhere, some day, in the world of Guiding and Scouting Heather!
So, from the Europe committee to you all, our members, the best for this new challenging year
Fabiola Canavesi
