News

EVS volunteer working in YEE office in Prague Francesco Ballone, has finished his volunteering project. We would like to thank Francesco for his help with many projects, website, local actions. We wish him good luck in his studies on environmental assessment in China.

If you would like to become EVS volunteer in YEE, check the section EVS. The deadline for applying for EVS project in YEE starting in March 2011 is 13th of September. Please send CV and motivation letter to Gosia Zubowicz This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Fifth day, Friday 13th

The day started with the Secretariat report: the office team gave an account of its work during the last year.

In the morning, a representative from another organization applying for membership, EcoCenter Zapovedniks from Russia introduced this NGO in front of all the participants; after this presentation, the Membership Acceptance and Membership Cancellation issues were discussed. Both applying new Organizations, Baobaby from Czech Republic and EcoCenter Zapovedniks from Russia were accepted as Associate Members. Welcome in our team!

The afternoon session (about the approval of the Statutes and the Rules of Procedure) was long and hard but very fruitful. After a couple of years of work, discussions and proposals, finally a lot of important amendments to the Statutes and Rules of Procedure were discussed and adopted. Hopefully, these changes will help the Federation to be more effective, more transparent and will bring it closer to the needs of its MOs.

The nominations for the new Executive Board Members were opened at the end of the day. They will be elected tomorrow by the delegates of the Full Member Organizations.

Fourth day, Thursday 12th

The sessions of this morning were reserved for discussing again about the draft projects that the participants are developing during this AM. We had a useful session about fundraising, and then the delegates split again in small groups for a simulation of grant application for their projects. At the end of the morning session, the groups got together again and presented their projects in front of a "funding commitee" so that their proposals could be discussed more in depth by everybody. It was a very fruitful session, and you can see how these project are really taking shape and they're getting ready to be included in the Working Plan for 2011.
After lunch, the "official" part of the AM was opened. The voting rights of the delegates from full MOs were verified and the Meeting started, with the election the Chairperson of the Meeting and of the Electoral Committee for the election of the new Executive Board. The participants listened to the Annual Report about the projects carried out this year by the federation, with the participation of many of the project leaders. Then Adriana, the Secretary General, presented the Financial Report. Finally, the Chairperson Anne and the other Board Members presented their personal reports for the last year, and the Board was officially cleared.
Democracy is good, but following all the correct procedures can be tiring... so, at the end of the day, participants deserved some relax in front of a fire here in Svycarna! ...and trying to make a bonfire out of wet branches and damp timber was a challenging team-building exercise! ;)

Today's sessions were about strategies.
In the morning, the participants worked on the YEE strategies in the first session: they split in small groups, they analysed different problems and discussed about the possible strategies to carry out to face these problems. So, in the next months YEE will have a lot of good ideas to implement in order to improve its publications, its finance, its environmentally friendly behaviour...
The same kind of work was done in the second morning session, but on a different level: this time it was about the strategies of the MOs and the personal strategies of the participants for next year.
The afternoon activities were led by Hnutí Brontosaurus, our hosting organization for this Annual Meeting. After the demanding working groups of the morning session, the participants were definitely ready for a healthy walk in the forest around Švýcárna, a visit to one of the many caves in this area and some relaxing environmental games...
Just after dinner we welcomed the representative of Baobaby, one of the NGOs which applied this year for membership in YEE. She ran a presentation of her organization and answered the questions of the Board and the delegates. The decision on the acceptance of the applying potential new MOs will be taken on Friday.

Second day, Tuesday 10th

After everyone got to know the other participants and MOs represented here, on Tuesday we started working seriously...
The morning session was focused on the role of the Member Organizations inside the YEE network. We pointed out together what are the opportunities, the rights and the duties of every YEE member organization, refreshing the knowledge we already got and learning even more about what being a member of YEE means.
The participants dealt with this issue working in small groups about promotion of the network, they went through the Member Organization Policy of YEE and reflected about the role of their organization inside the federation.
In the afternoon we got even more "real", as the session was about projects. We started working on proposals of projects for the Working Plan 2011, and each participant prepared a draft project and presented it at the Project Fair. Then some of the projects were chosen for further development, and everyone chose in which workshop  they wanted to participate, so that somebody could start taking responsibility in the organization of these activities. Some of these projects, in fact, will be included in the YEE 2011 Working Plan.
This fruitful day ended with the Intercultural Party, in which everyone had the opportunity to show something of his/her home country and everybody had the pleasure to  taste some local dishes and drinks... Well, intercultural learning includes good food too, why not? ;)