Last weekend your FYEG Executive Committee met in Porvoo near Helsinki in Finland. We were well treated at a lovely farm house cum ex-saw mill complex where we dined on fine organic foods and relaxed in a sauna. Oh and we held an EC board meeting. This was the opportunity to discuss how things are going, set goals for the next year and complete the hand over from the old EC. Their friendly Zeitgeist will no doubt be with us for a while yet.
So what was decided? Full minutes (there are more than 13 pages of these so not all is in Ecosprinter) will be available on the new FYEG CMS-enabled website, but a few key decisions are here.
The new statutes (there were a few minor changes since the GA which will have to be approv ed by the next GA) are approved in accordance with Belgian law. The EC has a few changes to help it run smoother with an IRP for the EC, IRP for the finances and being split into three small teams, Finance Group (Treasurer, Fundraiser, Office Coordinator), Campaign Group (Project Coordinator, Campaign Coordinator, MO Coordinator and Communications Officer) and a Political Group (EU Coordinator, Female Spokesperson and Male Spokesperson). This means business can be dealt with by one group without long discussions that most people don’t need to be part of. Now we are able to better focus on fulfilling the Strategy as agreed at the GA. Logical frameworks, a sort of job plan for each EC member, makes areas of responsibility clearer. There is an IRP for the FYEG Office management and the office coordinator now has supervision and appraisal.
We now have many events planned for this year and these will be going on a calendar on the website. We would like to have your events on here too, especially if other FYEG members can participate. The EC would like to visit your GAs and write articles to explain the work of the Federation for newsletters, websites and magazines your organization may have. Please come to our board meetings if you want. The Federation is there to help you, so pleeeeeeeease use us as a consultancy service. We plan to visit all Candidate MOs in the next year and have identified cohorts (groups of MOs with similar stages of development) that we want to target training courses and support to. One training course will be on Media in the Autumn, this came out of a workshop at the GA.
There was a discussion on the MO-fee. The (excluding personnel) is taken out. EC can discuss exceptions. It is planned to do an Ecoplasma to finish the Migration Campaign. There are being set up a FYEG webteam, Ecosprinter editorial team and 2 campaigns (both coming out of workshops at the GA); Power to the People! and Reclaim Public Spaces will need teams working on them to make them a success. We would like your suggestions for give-aways, cheap sells like T-shirts, pencils Schussel-bands, badges and pins.
We want to be on TV, the radio and in the papers. We want to be more political and better working with other groups, NGOs other political groups and so if you work with other people please let us know. Lets get out of the Green Ghetto!