Minutes General Assembly 21 avril 2016
Present : Olivier Brissaud, Michael Stenger, Alba Morganti, Thomas Fairhurst, Philippe Calais, Gregory Derksen, Mikolay Kudlinski, Pierrick Helias, Guy Janaway, Nicolas Stenger, Giorgio Clarotti, Angelo Clarotti. Christine Jaÿ (via skype)
Excused : Claire Jäger, Reinhold Ziegler, Markus Perkumas
Meeting starts at 19.30
1. Summary (See powerpoint presentation attached)
- From 1566 members end of 2014 to 2040 end of 2015.
- Thanks to :
- Reinhold for his incredible amount of energy
- Mik and his team, especially for the newsletter and the website
- Philippe for the production of the newsletter
- Gregory for caring for our database
- Adriana for the social networks policy
- Thomas for Facebook and the Event in London
- Alba for animating our LinkedIn page
- Tom Hoyem for his support
2. Stammtisches
- Fiscally successful meetings in London
- Starting in Frankfurt and Madrid
- Not very successful in Brussels so far. Need to re-examine the idea.
3. Ambassadors
- Since some months Alumni has developed a network of ambassadors from Finland to Spain, Uk, Italy, the Netherlands and Greece; we still need volunteers to cover all schools/countries. Christine Jay proposes to become an ambassador for France. She will visit the only European school in France in Manosque. Mikolay proposes to be the ambassador to Scotland.
4. Members List
- Number of registered members since the beginning : 2628
- Number of valid email addresses : 2136
- Number of registered to the Newsletter (but not registered to the Members List) : 341
- Gregory is creating a database of non-inscribed members.
5. Debts
- Debts on 31/12/15 : 5824,77 €
- Debts on 21/04/2016 : 4479,92 € (only to G1)
- Over 15000 euros turnover since the beginning. On website, flyers for the recently graduated, advertising for the association.
- Idealogy took over, at its expenses, all the mailings and communications in general. G1, our webmaster, will only work on the treatment of the database and indispensable web programming.
- We decided against a membership fee for the moment and work on donations.
6. Donations
- We received quite a number of donations from Alumnis during the first months of 2016 :
- Number of donations to the PayPal account : 7
- Amount of the donations : 184,62 €
- Number of donations to the bank account : 9
- Amount of the donations : 1618 € ; details
- Mensa of Varese : 1000 €
- European School of Mol Fundraising : 126 €
- Alaclam Association : 50 €
- Alumnis and Parents : 442 €
- Total amount of donations : 1802,62 €
- Special donation in 2015 from the CA members and D. Bangert : 2500 €
7. 2016 Strategy
- Help from Nicolas until July to create permanent contacts with the schools and pupils
- We asked the Conseil Supérieur for a donation to hire a part-time employee to :
- Continue Chiara’s work with the Universities
- Develop the social networks reach (Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Create and organize events or participate to European Schools events
- We are looking for new active members to help and develop the network
8. Former students on Wikipedia (See presentation attached)
Presentation by Angelo Clarotti on the importance of maintaining a healthy image of the European schools on WIkipedia. A lot of people don’t know what the European school system is. When a potential employer or university doesn’t know what the ES system is, they turn to internet and Wikipedia. Angelo explains that Frankfurt, Alicante and Laeken don’t have a page on Wikipedia. And that the pages of others remain quite basic. To prove the value of the European schools, we need to present its success. A list of famous alumni is a good way to show its success.
Angelo proposes to standardise the Wikipedia pages of the schools and to show the success of the European schools by keeping and maintaining a list of famous alumni. In some cases, this requires creating a page for the famous person itself. It also requires a lot of attention as pages are removed by eurosceptics and Wikipeditors. Giorgio proposes to move this project forward and asks for volunteers to join. Christine Jaÿ (who lives in Paris) proposes to join the task.
9. Definition of members
Pierrick asks whether or not the association accepts former students that did not pass the Bac. Giorgio reminds us that a study of former students back in 1992 showed that even 1 or 2 years passed at the school was enough to change the fundamental values of the person. The association is open to all those that have a connection to the European schools.
10. Newsletter feedback
The president asks for feedback on the newsletter.
- Angelo suggests to have 1 or 2 lines of text in the resume about each article. This can arouse the interest of the reader more than a title.
- Giorgio suggest that the length is limited to one page: no scrolling. Agrees with Angelo. 3 lines then click to read more.
- Thomas says he thinks the newsletter is sexy and likes that it is in multiple languages. He also says that the newsletter goes into “social or spam”.
- Alba likes the newsletter and thanks Philippe again for his engagement.
- Pierrick thinks all the languages should be translated into all the languages. Thinks more should be on the life of the association. Olivier explains that this is too expensive thus not possible at this point in time.
- Guy thinks the change from black to blue of the newsletter heading was a good choice. He enjoys the “Today we are…”
- Gregory would like the news articles to be more prominent on the website.
- Nicolas likes the evolution of the newsletter. Asks whether it could be possible to format the newsletter to read on a phone.
- Chistine thinks we should write and put articles on Famous alumni in the newsletter. She is willing to help Giorgio to do this.
11. Finances and Budget
The finances and budget are approved. Thank you to Michael our treasurer.
12. Election to the board.
The current board is re-elected. Pierrick Helias, who lives in Lille (F) is elected member of the board.
End of meeting at 21.00
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