Minutes from the Representative Team meeting
Tbilisi, April 1 –2, 2005
Present:
Zana Vokopola – Albania, Rubina Ter-Martirosyan – Armenia, Helmut Hallemaa – Estonia,
Giorgi Meskhidze – Georgia, Mate Varga - Hungaria, Barbara Szczerbinska – Poland, Leonid
Kalitenia – Republic of Belarus, Nicolae Cuta – Romania, Gleb Tyurin – Russia, Chuck Hirt
– Slovakia, Olena Gumenyuk – Ukraine and Anna Karailieva – Coordinator of the CEE CN
Agenda:
 Report from the Coordinating Team (CT) meeting
Barbara reported from the CT meeting in Banska Bystrica, November 2004 – everybody
received minutes from this meeting. CT voted in a new organization – Citizens Action from
Slovakia. Concerning the member expansion, there was a recommendation to invite
representatives of the possible new members to the Conference in Belgrade and also to
participate on the Citizens Participation (CP) Week. Anna, CEE CN Coordinator gave the
thank you letters to five member organizations who contributed financially to some of CEE
CN activities in years 2003 and 2004. She also described process of registration of the CEE
CN Association.
 Legal issues of CEE CN separation and approval of internal documents
Chuck introduced this issue and said that the model for the internal rules of the CEE CN came
from CCI, BiH. There was a discussion and explanation concerning the position of director
and also national representatives. Gleb expressed his apprehension that in some cases it could
happen that there will not be an appropriate national representative chosen. The conclusion
from this discussion was that the procedure about selection of representative will be
described, signed and send to the CT. The best example of these procedures we will put on the
web site.
The internal document was approved.
 Election of new CT member
Three nominations for a new CT member were received from four member organizations. All
RT members received these nominations together with CV´s of candidates and their letters of
intention in advance. Before the election, participants of RT meeting agreed that the election
committee would consist of two people – Olena and Anna. Than all three candidates had three
minutes for a pre-election presentation. A space was created for individual questions to
candidates and it was decided that the election would be held on the next day before lunch.
 Pro-action plan
First, there was an introduction by Chuck followed by Chairpersons of each working group
(WG) of the Pro-active plan where more details were presented.
Best practices examples database:
Barbara read the report from Catalin of the work of the best practices WG. This report is
attached to the minutes. After discussion, the participants agreed that after collection of all
best practices, there will be a classification according to the topics.
Nicu suggested that the topic for the next training could be “How to prepare the best practices
example or case study“.
Citizens Participation Week:
Rubina presented the idea of activities of CP Week in Armenia and she said that they will
incorporate this week in their current activities including trainings, conferences, seminars,
exhibitions, etc. or there is also a possibility to find funding for special activities for this
week. Discussion was concluded with next suggestions:
 develop a common message
 create a logo and a joint poster for CP Week
 send letters to authorities informing them about CP Week
 prepare press releases
 place banner announcing the CP Week on various web sites
including CEE CN and each of the member organizations
 ask PR specialists for help
 bring together large international institutions working in CEE
region (e.g. UNDP, Mott Foundation, World Bank, GMF, OSF,
etc.) for some event in either Bratislava and/or Budapest
 on-line chat with donors on the topic why they support CP in
our region
 look for other partners like NGOs from Sweden that already
have experience in organizing CP Day
 ask media in each of our countries to join us and promote CP
Week
Generally, each country can organize CP Week in they own way. The outcome of this process
we could send to the EU organizations.
A date for CP Week was set. The week will be the last week of September, starting 25.09. –
2.10. 2005. We will announce and promote CP Week during the Conference in Belgrade.
Rubina, as the coordinator for CP Week, will develop a draft of a press release and each
country representative will send her their national plan for CP Week activities by the end of
August.
Dialog with local authorities:
Nicolae reported that we weren’t successful in moving from the 2004 Training as had been
proposed. We should restart the process of dialog by gathering our organizational
experiences, share together these experiences in the field of Dialog and than develop some
methodology how to initiate this process and prepare a good model. Barbara raised several
questions such what is the status of the Dialog in each country, if there is a legal framework
for Dialog. Mate offered that HACD is involved in research of existing local policies for
Public Participation in Hungary in comparison with three other Western European countries.
He mentioned that this work could possibly be extended to include other CEE countries as
well. At the end of discussion participants agreed on the next steps:
 Inventory of national legislation and policies
 Make a comparative analysis of this inventory
 Extend Hungarian experiences in the Network
 Pilot a model
Final conclusion of the Pro-active plan discussion:
1. we set up the WG of Pro-active plan that consists form 3 chairpersons of the
sub WG´s + Chuck
2. make up of sub WG´s is:
a. Catalin, Natalia, Barbara, Slava
b. Rubina, Chuck, Zana, Giorgi, Edlir
c. Nicu, Helmut, Gleb, Mate, Leonid, Olena
3. for implementation of the Pro-active plan we can apply for some small grants
in different countries
4. review pro-active plan for the Conference participants
 2005 Conference up date and final preparations
Chuck presented the draft of the Conference Agenda that Miljenko had sent. This presentation
was following by a long discussion and suggestion that participants of the RT meeting will
brainstorm ideas for title of the Conference, design and topics of Friday agenda and TransAtlantic day. The suggested title for the conference was: “Making Citizen Participation Work:
New Perspectives, Responsibilities and Partnerships”. After this, 2 people together with
Miljenko and Chuck will finalize Conference Agenda.
 Election of the CT member
Each of three candidates answered the question “What kind of a 'new spirit' would you like to
bring to CT?” and than participants voted for one of them. Giorgi Meskhidze from “CIVITAS
Georgica” was selected for a new member of CT.
 Training 2005
Giorgi facilitated the discussion about the training. He took into consideration, the proposal of
the CT that in the year of the Conference, we will hold two sub-regional trainings.
During the discussion, participants focused on the topic, format, date and place of the training.
Conclusion from the discussion:
1. Topic:
Case study development. (Later, during informal discussion we agreed that the topic should
be broader and the suggestion was Community research methods that will include also case
study writing.)
2. Format:
Two sub-regional trainings that will be attend by two people from each member organization
(1 civic activist and 1 staff member).
3. Date:
1st training for English speaking participants: at the end of CP Week – it means the 2nd week
of October
2nd training for Russian speaking participants: last week of October or 1st week of November
4. Place:
st
1 training: Hungary, Albania or Slovakia
2nd training: Armenia
5. Trainers:
st
1 training: Nicu, co-trainer Ilona from Hungary (we need to check with her)
2nd training: Gleb, co-trainer Olena
One outcome of the decision about the training plans for the coming year was to postpone the
deadline for the case studies. The original deadline was June 15th but it was agreed that this
will be moved to the end of November in order to allow participants of the training to
implement their new learning.
 Creating and approving the 2005 work plan
Registration of the CEE CN
CT and RT meeting
Conference
CP Week
Training
CT meeting
Best Practices database
January
April
May
September
October
November
collect by the end of November
publish by the end of the year
E-newsletter
 Preparation of the next proposal for Mott Foundation
We have a basic format, our core activities + Pro-action plan including some specific
activities connecting with this plan (CP Week, best practices database). Other suggestions for
next activities included:
 Public Activist Forum – every second year organize in the
country that received award for the best practice
 Knowledge bank
 Support program for members who are in crises, countries that
will need our support (consultancy, advocacy, training,
recommendations with the proposals, finding partners for
different kind of activities, support letters, etc.)
 Visits of the project of the best practices
 Comparative analyze of the legislation in our countries in terms
of CP
 Joint projects between members organizations (2-3
organizations can apply together with support from the CEE
CN)
 Follow up with the Trans-Atlantic issue
Draft of the proposal for Mott Foundation will be send to RT for approval.