Minutes from the Coordinating Team Meeting
Budapest
November 25 -26, 2006
Present:
Helmut Hallemaa, Chuck Hirt, Igor Stojanovic, Mate Varga and Anna Karailieva. Giorgi
Meskhidze could not manage to receive visa.
Agenda:
 Evaluation of the 2006 activities
Study visit to LA/e-technologies
Chuck and Mate evaluated the study visit to Los Angeles. Chuck said that we made some
investment and we found a lot of values and specific ideas for our e-technologies initiative.
Mate presented some new ideas for the e-technologies initiative for the Network
development.
E-technologies team: Krzysztof Leonczuk – chair person, Mate Varga, Nicu Cuta, Chuck
Hirt.
E-newsletter
7 member organizations contributed to the 8th issue of the Newsletter with their actual news
that were written in the suggested format. Igor agreed that Majda will continue to work as the
e-newsletter editor. She will send again the guidelines on how to contribute to the Newsletter
with the focus to explore more hyperlinks with the translated articles on their organizational
web sites. The next issue will be prepared at the beginning of March 2007 and than we will
prepare a special issue at the beginning of July 2007 as feedback about the Conference from
CEE CN members.
CPW
Mate and Anka evaluated the Citizens Participation Week. 13 organizations from 28 members
sent reports with pictures about their activities during CPW and three other organizations
indicated that they promoted CPW in their country but did not send the report yet. The most
active organization in organizing the second Citizens Participation Week was again the
Hungarian Association for Community Development, International Association “Civitas
Georgica” and Centre for Community Organizing – Slovakia. Conclusion from the discussion
about CPW:
 There was a noticeable increase in participation across the region. This was very
encouraging and also partly in thanks to Mate's leadership.
 Better explanation of goal of the Citizens Participation Week is needed. We should
use each CEE CN event to promote goal of CPW. Mate will have a visual presentation
about the CPW in the closing session of the 2007 Conference in Tallinn.
 We need to find some financial support for CPW at least for visual presentation (the
design of the event, like posters, leaflets and/or marketing items – balloons, magnets,
stamps, pens etc. – translated and distributed in all countries) and translation. Of
course programme financing would also be very helpful, at least for some countries. It
should come from joint projects.
Best Practices database
Best Practices database currently consists of 23 best practices from 20 member organizations
and it is posted on the CEE CN web site. If we will find financial resources we will publish it.
We will continue to collect best practices from CEE CN members and evaluate it every two
years in the Conference. On the Conference we will highlight 2-3 best practices and
encourage visits to the described project from the country where the Conference will be. At
the 2007 Conference, each workshop will include a presentation of at least one best practice.
For awarding the best practices, we will create an outside advisory committee consisting from
people from different regional organizations and foundations. Walter Viers from the Mott
Foundation has already agreed to serve on this committee. We will suggest criteria and a
process of evaluation to the committee. If the award should have some kind of value for
organizations we need to develop some sponsorship.
Training
Anka evaluated the training that was attended by participants from 12 member countries. This
year it was a training of trainers and all participants agreed to deliver in 6 months after the
training at least one training session in their country. Nicu will follow up with the training
participants. CT agreed that the training team should continue to work and chairperson will be
Giorgi.
 Membership
CT voted in two new members – Institute for Social and humanistic Initiatives from Russia
and Csaba Madarasz as an individual member from Hungary. In order to appeal to countries
where we don’t have members Helmut already invited organizations from Latvia and
Lithuania to the Conference.
CT talked about different types of membership and agreed that CEE CN will have two
categories for member:
1. Members of the Network
2. Friends of the Network
In each category could be organizations and individuals. Individual members could not serve
as representatives. We will develop different application forms for all these four cases. Also
we will add to the internal documents of the Network the members’ benefits.
We will have open discussion about the membership fee at the next RT meeting.
 Future activities
Citizens Forum in Prague
Several members of CEE CN indicated their interest to attend the Forum on December 7.
CT and RT meetings
We will check with members who is willing to organize the next CT and RT meeting that
should be 2 months before the Conference in Tallinn. It was suggested that we consider
allocating some time for the teams work during our next RT meeting (it possibly means
inviting other people besides representatives who serve in the teams).
Conference
This item was covered under point #5 – Preparations of the 2007 Conference
Training
CT agreed that during preparation phase the work of the training team is very important. We
believe that the training team will come with the recommendation for the 2007 training by the
next RT meeting. During implementation phase, help of the host organization is necessary. In
order to find a relevant topic for the training we will update needs of member organizations.
The training this coming year could also be influenced by discussions about further
collaboration with the Combined European Bureau for Social Development.
 Further development of the Network
E-participation
Mate already prepared draft of a proposal for different donors. Some activities could start
even without money. We should involve our new member Csaba Madarasz and ask him to
help to lead this process together with Krzysztof. Helmut will check with Mart if he will be
willing to join the e-technologies team as well. We will check if we could reallocate some
money from the Mott Grant.
Joint Partnership Projects
 International Annual Award for best achievements in civil initiative
Chuck presented some ideas that he and Anna had considered. The basic suggestion was to
move ahead with some form of awards and to model this with the awards for best practices.
An outside expert panel will be recruited who will select winners. We will work on criteria
and the whole process. Igor will send us info how CCI is awarding civil initiatives in BiH.
 Producing and making anthology of documentary or fiction films based on success
story in grassroots initiatives
It requires financial, technical and human resources. We will ask Miljenko to help us with
this.
 The community development educational course for schools based on basic
knowledge and skills in direct democracy citizen initiatives on community level
We will ask Liuba from CEGA to take leadership for this task.
Cooperation between organizations within the Network
Igor informed us about possible cooperation between CCI and AGORA. Chuck and Mate
informed about their common project in Azerbajdzan.
Addition of Community Development to the work of CEE Citizens Network
Chuck presented the idea of expanding the focus of the Citizens Network to disclose a greater
attention on community development in addition to citizen participation. CT agreed that it
will need some more thinking and concrete proposal should be prepared so that we don't make
a mistake of loosing our "advocacy" focus in this new, more partnership oriented model. We
agreed that we will establish a middle stage – we will start cooperation together with
Community Development Network and prepare a feasibility study identifying pluses and
minuses of joining these two Networks. One concrete thing we did agree to pursue is the idea
of a joint project proposal with a group called the Combined European Bureau for Social
Development (CEBSD). They are a network of 11 countries from mostly Western Europe
(with the notable exception of the Hungarian Association for Community Development). CT
agreed that a decision will be made at the next RT meeting.
 Preparations of the 2007 Conference
CT discussed in detail the following issues connected with the Conference preparation:
1)
Format of 4th CEE CN Conference
2)
Programme Model & Summary
3)
Content Programme
4)
Book and set of materials of 4th CEE CN Conference
5)
CEE CN participation in preparation process
6)
Involvement of all members and member states in the preparation process and
organizing the 4th CEE CN Conference
7)
Budget of 4th CEE CN Conference
8)
4th CEE CN Conference funding situation
9)
Projects (Subprojects) of 4th CEE CN Conference Programme
10)
New possibilities for 4th CEE CN Conference funding
11)
CEE CN participation in funding process of 4th CEE CN Conference
CT made following decisions for final period of preparation of the 4th CEE CN Conference:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
CT adopted in general “Programme Model of the 4th CEE CN Conference,
Description & Summary No. 6 (1st of October 2006)” prepared by Estonian
Organizing Committee and Estonian NGO Roundtable Foundation.
CT adopted in general “Programme concerning contents, Model No. 4 (1st of
October 2006)” prepared by Estonian Organizing Committee and Estonian NGO
Roundtable Foundation. CT also made some additions and changes to it.
Helmut will formulate these mentioned additions and changes as model No 5 of
Content Programme dated 1st of December 2007.
CT adopted in general the budget of whole conference programme, version No. 5
dated 1st of October 2006 (in total approximately 175 782 EUR / 222 839 USD)
prepared by Estonian Organizing Committee and Estonian NGO Roundtable
Foundation.
CT adopted in general the budget of direct Conference costs, version No. 5A
dated 1st of October 2006 (in total 141 142 EUR/178 926 USD) prepared by
Estonian Organizing Committee and Estonian NGO Roundtable Foundation.
The responsibilities and implementing of funding of conference programme have
been divided between Estonian partner (Estonian NGO Roundtable Foundation)
and CEE CN.
CEE CN will take care for applying for sources of income of budget and
preparing of CEE CN project applications to European and other funds in
December 2006 (Balkan Trust Fund; CEE Trust Fund; German Marshal Fund;
etc) for travel costs of delegates (in sum of approximately 29297 EUR/ 37140
USD by budget estimations).
By information of Community partners, US participants will cover their
participation costs at 4th CEE CN Conference as some conference fee
(accommodation; food; local transport in Estonia; etc.).
Administrative office of CEE CN will research possibilities for joint project with
European Combined Bureau for European co-funding from European
Commission and EACEA 12/06 project for CEE CN development and for 4th
CEE CN Conference in first half of December 2006.
Helmut as a chairperson of the conference team will follow up with the preparation of the
Conference with the support of other members of the conference team and administrative
office of CEE CN.
 Action plan of CEE CN for 2007 year: first draft
Part of our normal operations are:
Best Practices database
CT and RT meeting
Training
Citizens Participation Week
Separate CT meeting
E-newsletter
In 2007 year we will also organize the Conference and we will follow up with:
E-technologies initiatives
Citizens Forum
Creation of the Knowledge bank
Comparative analyze of the legislation in our countries in terms of CP
Trans-Atlantic relationship expansion
 Administrative issues
CT discussed the 2006 annual report, CT election and grant management.