MINUTES FROM THE ANNUAL GENERAL METING OF CIRCLE MEMBERS

Held in the Pro Cultura office on the 25^th September 2005 in Warsaw

Present:
Jordi Balta, Els Baten, Carla Bodo, Simona Bodo, Danielle Cliche, Victoria Christyakova, Jean-Cedric Delvainquiere, Christopher Gordon, Dorota Ilczuk, Raj Y. Isar, Kazimierz Krzysztofek, Magdalena Kulikowska, Kirill Razlogov.

Item 1: Reports of the Executive Committee
The meeting was opened by the CIRCLE President, Dorota Ilczuk. At the beginning she gave a summary on CIRCLE’s activities during the past year. These were mainly concentrated on the project “Metropolis of Europe Urban Cultural life and inter-city cultural interactions for cultural diversity” which was co-financed by the EC. Within its framework the Round Table was organised in Warsaw. Dorota Ilczuk thanked those who took part in the project and whose input was very valuable – the Associazionne per l’Economia della Cultura and the Pro Cultura Foundation, the two co-partners of the project; The Warsaw City Hall and the City of Rome authorities and the Province of Rome; and all the experts and consultants. The publication being the result of the project was also discussed – it is to be published by February 2006 and it is to be co-edited by Dorota Ilczuk and Raj Isar.

Afterwards issues related to the functioning of CIRCLE’s secretariat were presented and discussed.  As CIRCLE during 2005 did not have regular funding which would enable the functioning of a regular, paid secretariat, the situation was quite difficult to handle. Only Diane Dodd was paid within the framework of Metropolis project for the actualisation of the Circle web-site. Everybody else have been doing their secretariat work on voluntary basis.  Magda Kopczyńska from the Polish Confederation of Private Employers kindly agreed to run voluntarily the secretariat from Brussels. Unfortunately she could not fully fulfil the functions of CIRCLE co-ordinator as the transfer was never fully completed and above all she was never actually close to CIRCLE matters ever before. Therefore the Pro Cultura Foundation helped in running CIRCLE’s affairs and co-ordination.

Even though the situation was rather difficult a lot of things were taken care of: the application for the Metropolis project was a success, the project itself went on smoothly, the Round Table was organised, the research was done, the publication is undergoing, for the first year ever at least 1,725 Euro were collected from membership fees (and still they are flowing in). Nevertheless,  there were some complains about the functioning of the secretariat -  mainly regarding delays in the actualisation of the CIRCLE web site. As such a situation is rather difficult to manage - having different people responsible for different matters, mainly voluntarily as in the case of  Magda Kopczyńska and the Pro Cultura Foundation  - it was obviously stated that it is necessity for CIRCLE to have a regular, paid secretariat and co-ordinator next year. The possibility of CIRCLE applying to the EC for core funding for next year would, among others, give such a possibility. Dorota Ilczuk presented the whole subject of the application broadly, including the idea of organising next year’s Round Table on WTO’s issues (“European art and culture between free trade and public support. A delicate dialogue?”) in Helsinki (additionally, among other possibilities, setting the CIRCLE secretariat in EFAH Brussels offices was considered). It was agreed that the application should be prepared in co-operation with the Board Members (who promised to help), and compiled  in close co-operation with the Pro Cultura Foundation – for this, information from Ritva Mitchell and Cas Smithuijsen will be necessary. It was also stated that CIRCLE’s own financial input will be covered partly by RT local organisers and from membership fees which therefore are to be paid by all CIRCLE members in a short period of time.

Dorota also passed on the message that from the year 2006, the Bookeman/Boekmanstichting will no longer finance CIRCLE’s web site (which was it’s way of covering the institutional membership fee).

Treasurer’s report

The Board gave it’s approval for CIRCLE’s activities

Item 2: Ratification of new members
After a brief presentation, CIRCLE members voted for the acceptance of the following new members:

Institutional members

1. Company name: CETAC.COM represented by Helena Maria Santos

2. Company name: HELLENIC CULTURE ORGANIZATION S.A. represented by Georgia Iliopoulou

3. Company name: Pro Cultura Foundation represented by Dorota Ilczuk

Individual members

1. Nina Obuljen

2. Mónica Parera

3. Jorge Cerveira Pinto

All were accepted unanimously.

Item 3: Changes in the Board
The position of a Vice-President was discussed. All present agreed that a decision should be postponed until a meeting where all Board members are present. The CIRCLE Board Members were re-elected. Jordi Balta was welcomed (replacing Jordi Pascual as agreed during the Barcelona AGM) to the Board. Simona Bodo was proposed to be a Board member. The motion was voted in her favour unanimously.

Item 4: Publications
A post-conference publication was published after the CIRCLE Round Table conference in Barcelona “Whose culture is it?”. As mentioned earlier the "Metropolis of  Europe” publication is to be ready in February 2006, containing all the outcomes of the research done in the 6 metropolis, reports and papers presented at the Round Table in Warsaw and the outcomes of the discussions. 

Jean-Cedric Delvainquiere has also informed all that the "Circular” will be still published by the French Ministry of Culture.