This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, March 2015.This month’s issue includes updates from ICAs in Australia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Germany, UK & USA.
The Institute of Cultural Affairs is a global community of non-profit organisations advancing human development worldwide. The ICAI network comprises member organisations and related groups in over 40 countries. The role of ICA International is to facilitate peer-to-peer interchange, learning and mutual support across the network, for greater and deeper impact. ICA International maintains consultative status with UN ECOSOC, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO & FAO.
At the February meeting of the ICAI Board, with all members in attendance, we agreed updates to the ICAI business planning framework for 2015-16 and a process for us to plan our work together in more detail. We also discussed options for a face-to-face Board meeting for in-depth induction and planning for the new Board, having had five new members join three continuing members since January, and we agreed interim Board roles (subject to confirmation and elaboration when we meet face to face).
We agreed dates in May to reserve for a face-to-face meeting, and we agreed to research the relative costs and explore the potential benefits of meeting in Chicago, Kiev or Tanzania. These were the three locations identified as most likely to offer the best value for money, as a result of flight routes and costs and opportunities for meeting and learning with member ICAs in those locations. A regional meeting of East African ICAs is planned for May in Tanzania.
We have since begun drafting our own individual workplans for discussion at our March meeting, on the basis of the roles agreed as follows:
- President – Martin Gilbraith, ICA:UK
- Secretary – Staci Kentish, ICA Canada
- Treasurer – Seva Gandhi, ICA USA
- Vice-President (Americas) – Lisseth Lorenzo, ICA Guatemala
- Vice-President (Europe & MENA) – Svitlana Salamatova, ICA Ukraine
- Vice-President (West & Central Africa) – Yawo Gator Adufu,ICA Togo
- Vice-President (East & Southern Africa) – Charles Luoga, ICA Tanzania
- Vice-President (Asia Pacific) – Shizuyo Sato, ICA Japan
- Vice-President (Communications) -– Seva Gandhi, ICA USA & Svitlana Salamatova, ICA Ukraine
The ICAI Global ToP policy working group met again in February to consider how to prepare for a General Assembly vote on the topic in 2015, and the ICAI Global Conferencing working group is due to reconvene shortly in March to continue its work toward preapring a programme and budget for global conferencing in 2016 for GA approval. The Asia region continued its monthly meetings by google hangout, and decided to convene a face-to-face regional meeting in India in December. Associate membership applications are underway and/or expected from ICA partner organisations in Nigeria, Russia, Korea and the Philippines.
Plans developed last year to rebuild and redesign the ICAI website in WordPress, for easy updating and posting by multiple users, are being revisited after a suitable volunteer has evenually come forward as a result of a vacancy posted on a recruitment site last year. We are now in discussion with the UK-based developer and looking forward to working with him and our global communications team to develop the new site in such a way as to best support their work and the needs and aspirations of members.
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Hello and greetings from London to the 2016 IAF Asia Pacific facilitators’ conference now starting in Taiwan, “From Mountain to Sea: Perceiving Systemic Change and the Transformative Role of Facilitation”