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European WFFM Meeting
29 september 2006 in Brussels, Belgium
Countries represented:
Belgium: Thierry Verougstraete, Roland Demol, Jean Plasschaert
Spain: Ana Luisa Delclaux
Norway: Marianne Andresen
Greece: Lila de Chaves
France: Jean-Michel Raingeard, Olivier de Rohan, Ellen Julia
Luxemburg: Marie-France Glaesener
Germany: Andreas Hoffmann
Israël: Hermann Tob
Portugal: Antonio Vasconcelos
United Kingdom: Geoffrey Williams
Observers:
WFFM-FMAM president: Carla Bossi-Comelli
WFFM-FMAM Vice-President North America: John Barnum
President ICOM Foundation: Christine Boel
President of Dutch Federation: Annelies Slaghek
The meeting was chaired by Jean-Michel Raingeard, WFFM
vice-president for the European Region and Carla Bossi-Comelli,
president of WFFM honored the meeting with her presence.
After welcoming words to everyone and specially to the new member,
Germany and to Holland, observer, this being their first contact
with WFFM, Carla Bossi and Jean-Michel Raingeard thanked the Belgian
Federation for hosting the meeting. Every country briefly presented
their Federation with date of creation, number of association
members and main activities and objectives of each.
I 1. Organizing the European Region.
To improve contact and understanding amongst countries and
Federations, to facilitate planning and allow council members from
various European countries to attend national General Assemblies of
the other member countries, it was decided that all the Federations
send the dates of their Annual General Assembly to Ellen Julia, who
will collect and dispatch this information.
It was announced that the French General Assembly will take place in
Grenoble 23 and 24 March 2007
2. Jean-Michel Raingeard would like all European countries to send a
file giving fiscal rules and advantages in their country of tax
deductions when private persons pay their membership fees or when
donating money to their Association. A very simple statement with
the main facts.
What are we to gain from closer cooperation? We can use
international information as an argument in our own country when
discussing with officials and authorities. We learn how other
countries finance their activities. Many Associations are struggling
to survive. When raising money, there are big differences of
generosity from one country to another.
3 Recruiting new active members. How and who recruits new members
for the WFFM? Since Bulgaria and Romania will enter the European
Community in January 2007, we must recruit these two countries to
become active members (Romania is already an associate member). It
is said that since the fall of the communist regime, eastern
countries are very reluctant to ‘be organized’. It may take some
time to gain their confidence. We must therefore facilitate their
participation in our General Assemblies, to show them that we are
very free and uncommitting.
Lila de Chaves is continuing her crusade in the eastern countries.
Geoffrey Williams will approach South Ireland, Carla Bossi and Lila
de Chaves will try to persuade the Swiss Associations to create a
national Federation. Marianne Andresen has been in contact with all
the Scandinavian countries and the countries around the Baltic Sea.
Thierry Verougstraete is encouraging Holland to join the WFFM as an
active member.
Lila de Chaves stressed that everyone must be informed of any
progress made in order to avoid double contacts. She will then
coordinate.
Geoffrey Williams announced that Hungary (Budapest) is coming to
England to attend their next congress.
II 1. Educational Programs
In general it can be considered that Museums are educational
institutions. In many countries, history of art is no more taught in
school. All associations of Friends play an educational role by
organizing conferences, tours, trips, and exchanges of all kinds for
the public of all age groups.
2. The aim of WFFM is to regain the UNESCO status as an NGO. To
do this, we must prove that we have an educational purpose and aim.
Each country must constitute a file with:
- facts and figures of their menbers' educational programs
- the number of hours donated by volunteers to accomplish this
- the number of people involved, who have attended history of art
courses, conferences etc.
- give good examples
Ellen Julia, WFFM Paris Office, will be responsible for
collecting this information.
To be recognized as NGO by UNESCO will give WFFM more credit. The
UNESCO Ambassadors will support WFFM on a national basis.
Web sites and e-mails of UNESCO. NGO-ONG – http://erc.unesco.org/ong/en/contacts/htm
, rio-ngo@unesco.org
http://ngo-liaison-committee.unesco.org , comité.liaison@unesco.org
3. ICOM - WFFM joint committee. Julia Oh stepped down as
responsible for the WFFM working group at the end of July 2006. The
Executive Committee has appointed a new responsible, Ana Luisa
Delclaux, of the joint ICOM-WFFM committee, working on the subject
of sustainable tourism to be presented at the ICOM conference in
Vienna, August 2007. It is important to find an even balance between
entertainment in museums which attracts many visitors, makes museums
lively and helps to finance it and the damaging consequences of mass
tourism.
It was suggested to edit a Code of Good Behavior. Julia Oh’s last
report on the subject given in Sydney in September 2006 will be sent
to all European countries for information.
Christine Boel, president of ICOM Foundation, explained, the
“sustainable tourism” notion is to protect patrimony but also to
support the development of tourism. On this point Friends and
professionals need a mutual point of view.
Geoffrey Williams and Roland Demol reported fear that in their
countries, the United Kingdom and Belgium, the governments, would
take control of Friends Associations. The governments will give more
subsidies to museums if they improve their accessibility for new
publics and increase the number of visitors, opening more widely
their institutions to ethnic minorities, without taking into account
the Friends’ efforts to do so. The governments want huge amounts of
visitors and don’t consider the destructive aspect of flows of
people.
The joint initiative committee members are the following:
Chairman of the ICOM-WFFM joint committee: Hans-Martin Hinz
ICOM
Chairman: Hans-Martin Hinz hinz@dhm.de
Theresa Scheiner tacnet.cultural@uol.com.br
W. Richard West westr@si.edu
Jennifer Thevenot jennifer@icom.museum
Yanni Herreman new member
WFFM
Responsible : Ana Luisa Delclaux analuisa@delclaux.com
Carol Serventy carol1300@cci.net.au
Rosemary Marsh rosemary@wffm.u-net.com
Ellen Julia ellen.julia@free.fr
Lila de Chaves lildechav@yahoo.fr
Andreas Hoffmann hoffmann@freunde-der-kunsthalle.de new member
Andreas Hoffmann agreed to contact Hans-Martin Hinz, the chairman
of the joint ICOM-WFFM committee, to facilitate the elaboration of a
joint point of view.
III Nuit des Musées and 19 May, 2007 ICOM Museum Day, are
simultaneous events in France and in many European countries.
The subject was widely discussed. As a result we noticed a large
disparity of treatment per country. Some countries traditionally
participate in joint action with ICOM. Many know nothing about “Nuit
des Musées” or the museums which participate are minor museums and
their Friends are not members of their national federation.
France needs to understand how different countries react and
mobilize their museums on Nuit des Musées and why the European
National Federations are not considered as key players.
We must convince the Associations to participate and discuss with
their professionals to collaborate on some mutual action, theme or
program. Museums are free to participate or not. It depends on the
good relations with the curator if the Friends take part in the
celebration. Little by little the “Nuit des Musées” is becoming a
European affair.
France proposed that the Associations encourage this European
development by organizing contact and joint action with their twin
cities' museum associations in European countries.
To support our own European development it has been suggested that
an effort be made to solicit support from the European Commission.
Thierry Verougstraete proposed to study and further the development
of a WFFM European project that could be funded by the Commission.
IV 1. The next Annual WFFM Council Meeting and General Assembly
will take place in Singapore 26 – 29 April 2007
In 2008 France will organize the Annual WFFM Council meeting and
General Assembly
Geoffrey Williams proposes to hold the Annual WFFM Council Meeting
and General Assembly of 2009 in Glasgow
2. The next triennial WFFM Congress will take place in Jerusalem
in October 2008. The theme will be “relationship between volunteers
and professionals”.
3. It was decided that the European Region should meet twice a
year.
Ana Luisa Delclaux proposed to meet in Valencia in Spain 5 March
2007 after the National General Assembly of the Spanish Federation
(1–3 March 2007).
Carla Bossi asked if the Region needs ‘Guidelines for Organizing a
Regional Meeting”. WFFM should finance two ‘new’ disadvantaged
countries to attend regional meetings. (ex. Central European
countries)
Edoarda de Ponti in Milan will enter all the dates of National
General Assemblies on the new WFFM website.
4. Miscellaneous
a) Membership: May libraries, Houses of famous people, Churches
become Associate Members. If a specific organization for Libraries,
Churches etc does not exist, then they can become a member. ICOM
defines a museum, ex. botanical gardens are conservatories of
plants, therefore they can be considered as a museum.
b) Individual members of WFFM Federations are supporters of WFFM
without being involved in a national association. They have no
voting power. WFFM needs more Individual Members. Carmen Espinosa in
Mexico is in charge of Individual Members for WFFM.
c) Ana Luisa Delclaux will send a note about her action to obtain
public recognition from the government in declaring “Friends” a
special category like “children”, “students”, “teachers” etc to
allow free entrance into museums. This would be a big benefit in
Spain for Friends. |
