Tag Archives: Global Buzz

ICA International Board update, September 2014

ICAI Global Buzz, Sseptember 2014
This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, September 2014.

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.

The ICAI Board at its August meeting reviewed the progress and status of several ICAI working groups which are now underway or getting established.  The Technology of Participation (ToP) global policy working group is now consulting with ICAI members and ToP facilitation & training providers worldwide on the draft global ToP policy paper that it had presented to the June General Assembly.  A diverse and experienced team of ten ICA representatives have now accepted nominations to join the new ICAI Global Conference working group that was agreed at the June General Assembly, in order to work with prospective host ICAs to present one or more strong proposals for hosting a 2016 global conference (or conferences) for vote at the December General Assembly.  Nominations are now invited to join the continuing members of the ICAI Board nominations and elections committee, and/or to stand for election to the Board itself next year, in preparation for an election at the December General Assembly to four Board positions coming vacant from January – Vice President Africa, Vice President Asia Pacific, Vice President Americas and Treasurer.  Staci Kentish, Seva Gandhi and I will continue as VP Communications, Secretary and President respectively.

Since the General Assembly clarified criteria for ICAI Associate membership in June, the Board noted expressions of interest in August from prospective new members in Ghana, Korea, Russia and the Phillipines.  We plan to agree a simple new form and process in September for these and/or other nominations to be made formal in time for vote at the December General Assembly.

No further formal requests had yet been received for ICAI financial support toward member initiatives for peer-to-peer support and collaboration, however there is interest from some ICAs wishing to attend the ICA European Interchange to be hosted by ICA Spain near Madrid in November.   Around 20 representatives of ICAs in Latin America have been able to benefit already from ICAI financial support for online training in Spanish on online ToP facilitation using the Adobe Connect platform.

Aziz Rahman at #UNNGO2014We are grateful to Aziz Rahman of ICA Bangladesh for travelling to New York this month to attend the 65th United Nations NGO Conference on behalf of ICAI, on the theme “2015 and beyond: our action agenda”.  Aziz was one of 4,000 registered to attend from over 900 NGOs in 100 countries.

We are grateful also for the editorial team and contributors to the August edition of ICAI’s Winds & Waves magazine “Back to the Future“, which features a series of articles related to the work of ICA’s Global Archives Project (GAP).

The Board agreed to present certificates of appreciation from ICAI to the more than 20 international ToP facilitators and others who had contributed to the successful and high profile Ukraine PEACE Summit of ICA Ukraine in Kiev in July.

ICA International Board update, May 2014

Global Buzz
This post was first published in ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz.

At the ICAI Board’s April meeting the focus was on detailed planning and assignments for implementation of the 2014 Business Plan finalised in March and circulated then.  The Board offered it’s support to the regional Vice Presidents as they work to facilitate networking among members within their regions over the coming months.  Krishna is liaising with members in Asia Pacific to convene a regional working group to facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration in that region, Isabel is working with members in the Americas to organise online facilitation training in Spanish and Gerald is connecting with African ICAs by phone and skype. Martin is also working with ICA Spain to confirm the dates and location for this year’s face-to-face ICA European Interchange, to be held late October or early November in Andalucia.  We agreed that ICAI would make a token contribution toward the rent of the new ICA offices in Toronto, from where our Canadian colleages continue to maintain ICAI’s legal status and financial accounts, and we have renewed ICAI’s membership of the World Alliance for Citizen Participation CIVICUS.

Building on conversations with members at last year’s online regional gatherings, Martin has now drafted criteria for non-voting Associate membership of ICAI and for ICAI financial support of member’s peer-to-peer initiatives.  These will be reviewed by the Board in May before being circulated to the membership for further feedback and revisions, in order that they may be voted on at the online General Assembly in June.  Also building on last year’s regional gatherings in preparation for the June GA, Staci is drafting an online survey by which to consult members on possible approaches to convening a face-to-face ICAI global conference in 2016.  The annual accounts are ready for Board approval in May, and we continue to monitor progress on ICAI’s ‘Continuance’ as a non-profit in Canada and on release of the legacy that has been left to ICAI.  Invoices have been circulated and members are renewing their dues for 2014.

The ICAI working group on global ToP (Technology of Participation) policy has had several online meetings involving a dozen or more colleagues from many ICAs in all continents, and is considering what it may circulate more widely for consultation in advance of the global online gatherings and GA in June. The Winds and Waves team published another fantastic issue of ICAI’s flagship magazine, Networking, and are about to meet to make advance plans for the next issue.

ICA International Board update, February 2014

Global BuzzThis post was first published in ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz.

In January the ICAI Board began to develop its Business Plan for 2014, based on the strategic framework and budget included in the 2013 plan that were re-affirmed by the General Assembly in December. We aim to finalise this and circulate it to members for information in February.

We are grateful to 40 respondents so far who have offered their feedback by our online survey on the December online regional gatherings and GA, and particularly the 21 who had not participated in those meetings. This was designed to help the ICAI Board to make this year’s gatherings and GA more inclusive and more effective. Our conclusion at the January Board meeting is to keep doing the Adobe Connect meetings this year, because those who attend appreciate them and are increasingly familiar with the technology. We will try to make them more inclusive by looking into free-phone audio options and by supporting people to improve their internet access or to attend the meeting from somewhere where access is better. However we will do this format of adobe meetings only twice in June and twice in December, instead of three times in each of March, July & December, to allow extra time to support the regions to experiment with other approaches such as google hangout, Skype or simple tele-conferencing.  For the GA we will use adobe for the meeting but do the voting by surveymonkey over 10 days to allow everyone to vote.

The Board has announced a special General Assembly meeting to be held 1-2pm UK time on Wednesday 26 February.  This special meeting will be to discuss and vote on a resolution to revise the ICAI Bylaws, as discussed at the GA in December.  Some minor revisions are needed in order to comply with new requirements under Canadian law  for all Canadian-registered non-profits such as ICAI to obtain a ‘Continuance” in order to continue. The one hour meeting will be held online using Adobe Connect, to allow for questions and discussion as needed, and representatives of statutory ICAs in particular are encouraged to attend.  For the voting we will use surveymonkey, and allow 10 days for responses from the time of the meeting, so that all statutory ICAs are able to vote even if they cannot attend the meeting. Please ask for details if you are interested and have not received them.

I was in New York last week attending a conference, and was able to take the opportunity to collect a UN grounds pass and attend a briefing session on behalf of ICAI for NGOs with consultative status. Also I was glad to meet with Larry Philbrook and Seva Gandhi on Monday, as they were there also to deliver a course.

We have been shocked and saddened by the sudden and unexpected death last week of Wayne Nelson of ICA Associates in Canada. Our thoughts are with Jo and his family, and also his close ICA colleagues in Canada.  Wayne has been greatly involved and supportive of ICAI over his long years with ICA globally and in Canada, and will be sorely missed.

ICA International Board update, December 2013

Global BuzzThis post was first published in ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz.

November has been a busy month for ICAI, and December will be busier.  We have been preparing for the three online regional gatherings and General Assembly scheduled for December – see below for further details, and please join us if you can!  Draft agendas were first circulated to members for consultation when the dates were announced in September, and revised drafts were circulated with further details this month.  Please ask for details if you are interested to join.

Also we have been busy following up the last few responses to the ICAI global membership survey that remain outstanding in advance of these meetings. We are grateful to the 34 ICA locations that have already responded, and are urging the last remaining locations to share their responses now.  Responses from the first 30 locations were circulated to members this month.  These suggest (among other things) that we have at least 152 full-time and 112 part-time employees worldwide, over 170 Board members and 251 ToP trainers; and that over 2,544 people were trained in 193 public ToP courses last year.  ToP training and group facilitation are the most common programme areas of ICAs (23 & 25 locations respectively) followed by education, leadership development and comunity development (20 locations each).

We have updated the global network email list according to the survey responses, and launched new ICAI groups on LinkedIn and Facebook as additional forums for discussion.  Working with the global communications team we have drafted a site map for a new, simpler & cleaner ICAI website to be developed next year.  Meanwhile the team has been working on the new December issue of ICAI’s Winds & Waves magazine.

The December regional gatherings & General Assembly are now only a couple of weeks away. Everyone with an involvement or interest in ICA worldwide is welcome and encouraged to attend and participate in the regional gatherings, so please join us if you can.  Voting at the GA will be restricted to one vote per statutory member ICA.  Please complete the doodle poll to see your own local times and to register for the meetings you plan to attend (scroll down for meeting aims):
·     Europe Africa – Mon 9 Dec 12 noon UK time
·     Americas – Tue 10 Dec 3pm UK time
·     Asia Pacific – Wed 11 Dec 10am UK time
·     General Assembly (GA) – Mon 16 Dec 12 noon UK time

Each meeting will last for up to 90 minutes, and each will be preceded by a pre-meeting 30 minutes in advance for orientation to the online meeting technology and for technical support.  The meetings will be held on Adbobe Connect, and log-in details will be circulated the week before.

Regional Gathering Aims
1. to connect ICAs and ICA colleagues with each other, and help to build & strengthen relationships between them
2. to share information and facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues
3. to hold ICAI accountable to its members, and seek input & support to strengthen our global network and advance our global mission.

 General Assembly Aims
1. to take ICAI membership decisions, including approval of Associate & Statutory memberships
2. to take ICAI strategy & policy decisions, to direct the work of the Board and to guide & support the peer-to-peer collaboration among ICAs
3. to hold the ICAI Board accountable to the membership, including by receipt of an annual audited finance report.

ICA International Board update, June 2013

Global BuzzThis post was first published in ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz.

This past month the ICAI Board has mostly been busy with preparing to launch a major new survey of the ICA global network.  This is intended primarily to help ICAs and ICA people to know each other better, to facilitate peer to peer support and collaboration. It also includes questions to indicate how ICAs meet the ICAI membership criteria, to enable the ICAI Board and GA to monitor that and take membership decisions, and questions on UN activity to enable ICAI to report on that to maintain our UN status.  Thank you to the many people from around the world who provided rich feedback on the draft survey, we were delighted that we heard from so many of you.  We are now finalising and translating the revisions to the survey, in order to circulate the survey very soon to around 40 locations, in English, French and Spanish.

We have begun some initial conversations with ICAI’s volunteer communications team in order to look at developing and streamlining our website, publications and  communications more broadly.  We are now scheduling a larger online meeting to take this forward, so please get in touch if you have expertise in this area and might be willing to get involved.

We have approved a proof of the second edition of Changing Lives Changing Societies: ICA’s Experience in Nepal and the World, and we are expecting it to be available soon worldwide on a print-on-demand basis from Amazon and other retailers.

The ICAI 2012 audit report has been drafted and will be ready to circulate shortly – we are grateful to Bill Staples and ICA Canada for their support with this.

We are now scheduling the next online regional gatherings in late August.  These are an opportunity for all involved or interested in ICA globally to connect with each other and with ICAI, to facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration in our shared mission of advancing human development worldwide.  Please join us if you can! There will be three gatherings at different times of day to suit the three regions – the earlier time for Asia, the middle time for Europe/MENA/Africa and the later time for the Americas.  However you are welcome to attend whichever suits you best (or more than one), and the exact times can also be adjusted if needed. Please follow the link below to indicate which dates and times would suit you best, wherever you are – please respond to the poll by Monday 17 June at http://www.doodle.com/n9e96ncscy5v5854

The aims & agenda of the gatherings will be broadly as in March:

Meeting Aims
1.    to connect ICAs and ICA colleagues with each other, and help to build & strengthen relationships between them
2.    to share information and facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues
3.    to hold ICAI accountable to its members, and seek input & support to strengthen our global network and advance our global mission

Meeting agenda
1.    opening, welcome & introductions
2.    review & agree agenda
3.    ICA reports – highlights, questions & reflection
4.    ICAI report – membership, activity & finance; questions, feedback & reflection
5.    Items particular to each meeting:
a.    Global network survey findings
b.    Global communications
6.    Reflection & close

We look forward to hearing from you!