IFF UPDATE 2006 #20: IFF 2006 General Assembly Summary

Greetings Friends,  

The winds of change blew through our recent assembly, stirred us and took us away again.

Already it seems like a long time since we were together. It is easy to have our attention fully taken by the things we have waiting at home, but there were important concerns expressed and decisions made that we now need to take action on.

Unfortunately some participants had to leave before our long final day was complete, so we are including a brief summary of the key decisions. (Full minutes will be available as soon as possible.) We will also send you a complete list of 2006 participants and their contact details so you can stay in touch with each other as you requested.

The new Board has begun to meet via teleconference and has scheduled it’s mid term face to face meeting for the end of July. Our immediate task is to carefully attend to your requests to manage the organization of the IFF, and to prioitize the allocations of our resources, both human and financial, for the remainder of 2006 and on into 2007.

Please share with your fellow guild members.  We welcome your comments and suggestions, and encourage you to communicate with any of the Board members at any time. We are exploring various ways of making sure we stay inbetter touch with you, and of helping you stay connected to each other.

Warm regards

Jenni Evans

President

Summary of Assembly decisions

1. Elections:

2006 Elected Board and Terms: The size of the board remains at 6

President /Chair 2006 :Jenni Evans

Vice chair 2006-2009 :Janie Randerson

Treasurer  2006-2009 : Marilynn Anderson

Secretary 2006-2008 : Helena Gezelius

Director 1 2006-2008 : Torsten Last
Director 2 2006-2007   Silke Bonardi continuing

Substitute Board Member : 2006 : Lena Brannstrom

Finance Committee : Dirk Steinkamp 2006-2009,  Lena Brannstrom 2006

Mediation Committee 2005-2008 : Kai Schapper 2006-2009,  Lior Pesach 2006-2008

Substitutes : Rägi Zubler, Leila Malcolm

2. Membership fees

Remain unchanged  for 2007

3. Future Assemblies:

Proposal from Feldenkrais France to meet in Bordeaux France in 2007.

4. Budget:

Assembly accepted the budget on the proviso that the Board revise it to result in a deficit of no more than 20,000 euros.
The IFF Board is requested to distribute the  2007  budget in the time for members to consult their Boards before the Assembly and distributed to the finance committee by Nov 1.  The members are requested to return their responses by 1 month before assembly.

5. Competency Project Report

Presented  with activity to experience the process used to gather the Profile data.

The overall structure of the Profile was accepted and this Working Draft is to be used in the community for:

-continuing education using the profile

-for evaluation of and feedback on the profile

-for discussion about the future uses of the profile.  

The project is to continue for two more years with the aim of producing a competency profile.

A new competency development team is to be developed and oriented, with the assistance of the existing Project Team.

Support is to be provided for the translation of this profile into languages other than English and German, that is: Dutch, French, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish.

The Competency Team has provided guidelines for the distribution and introduction of the Profile by IFF Member Organizations. The Competency Team will provide a final Working Draft at Guidelines to the Member Organizations.

Training workshops will be organized to train facilitators for supporting the implementation of the profile in the community. Self-and peer-assessment tools for use with the profile will be developed in association with these workshops.

Member Organizations who need to use the Working Draft of the profile for urgent regulation issues may do but will inform the IFF Board and collaborate with the competency team.

The Competency Project Advisory Committee continues, and it will assist especially with the transition to a new Competency Team and the implementation of the project.

A Transition Committee for the IFF Competency Project was established with the task of forming a new Competency Team. Members : Andrea Wiener, Luz Stanton, Keith Johnson, Rineke Brinkhof, representative of the Board.

6. Finance Committee

Fee structure review working group formed to work out a proposal to better balance among the individual guilds.

7. Membership Fees Proposal

Fees are to be collected once annually in advance of the annual Assembly based on each members full membership count for its most recently ended membership year. This change is to come into effect for the 2007 financial year.

8. International Logo

It was agreed that the IFF take over management of the International Logo. Member Organizations would be free to decide which of their members may use the logo.

The logo may signify membership in the IFF and/or in a member organization of the IFF.

Should a major legal challenge arise that might threaten the financial integrity of a Member Organization or the IFF itself the respective Member Organization or the IFF board of directors reports back to the IFF Member Organizations or the assembly who will then decide how to proceed.

The logo administration would become part of the annual IFF budget. No additional fee would be raised nor the membership fees. This would limit IFF resource at 3.000 EUR per year. This amount would not be available for other projects.

9. Membership Criteria

The proposal to  change the internal regulations Clauses: 1.3.1  to include in the minority of members graduates of Eli Wadler and 1.4.1  to include in the majority of members graduates of Eli Wadler was accepted. (the Extraordinary General Assembly required to make the corresponding changes in the IFF statutes also agreed to this change)

An ongoing working group was formed to explore quality based membership criteria for the IFF.

10. International Working Group

The IFF welcomed the IWG report (parts A and B) and strongly supported the transparent and inclusive spirit behind the project. Therefore we encourage all national guilds and associations to support this process by engaging members in discussing its content in open and inclusive ways. We expect to continue the reflection at the next IFF General Assembly.

11. Improvement of flow of information, forming of opinion and decision making in the IFF (D-A-CH Proposal)

The proposal that the Board moves to a system of organizational management that separates the functions of managing the organization (the IFF) from the functions of carrying out the projects undertaken by the organization and that the first and primary concern of the Board be managing the organization, was accepted

The Assembly strongly advised the Board to use paid staff to assist in the management of the organization.

The Assembly strongly advised the Board to strengthen the coordinating function of the IFF.

The Assembly recommended establishing a support group to support the board in this shift. The support group should help by collecting already available expertise and experience in the community.   

12. International Feldenkrais Journal: 

This proposal was explored in a working group but not put to vote.

REGISTRATIONS IFF ASSEMBLIES 2006

See attached Word document.