European Forum of Heritage Associations
Forum Européen des Associations pour le Patrimoine
Forum Europeo delle Associazioni per i Beni Culturali
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2005
Maçao (Portugal) 30th April - 3rd May
Minutes of the 15th General Assembly of Forum held in Maçao and Tomar, Portugal, in May 2005.
Before beginning the official works, Forum President Adriana Martini officially thanked the organizers for all the efforts in arranging a pleasant and interesting stay in Portugal for all the delegates. The President also welcomed all the participants, people from many different European countries who faced a long journey to meet altogether once again in the name of European Forum of Heritage Associations.
The 15th Assembly is a very important milestone in the life of an Association; Forum will celebrate this anniversary the next year, since this time all the efforts will be concentrated in UISPP 2006 Congress, where Forum has an active role in the organisation of the event. Next year Forum will celebrate 15 years of activity publishing a report about 15 years of co-operation, activities and friendship between people from different countries but with common ideas.
Evaluation of Quorum and opening procedures
Quorum evaluation
The Assembly begun with the opening procedures, counting the presences and the delegations and evaluating the quorum.
In Maçao, Portugal, there were representatives from:
• Archeoclub d’Italia (I)
• Arqueojovem (P),
• Aurelia (I),
• Centro de Arqueologia de Almada (P),
• Centro Polesano di Studi Storici Archeologici Etnografici (I),
• C.I.R.A. Centro Studi Ludovico Magrini (I),
• Council for British Archaeology (UK),
• Gruppi Archeologici del Veneto (I),
• Gruppi Archeologici d’Italia (I),
• Jeugd, Cultuur en Weteschap (B),
• Rempart (F),
• former Vatsparov Foudation, now Bulgarian Association for National Heritage (BG).
Some Associations, which could not send people in Portugal, sent delegations:
• ANGO (FIN), delegation from Lena Hakulin to Adriana Martini,
• Archeolo-J (B), delegation from Catherine Breyer to Antoine Monpert,
• NJBG (NL), delegation from Mira Spijker to Antoine Monpert,
With 15 Associations represented in the Assembly out of 17 Associations members of Forum, the quorum was reached and the Assembly was declared valid.
There were no answers from the German Association Arbeitskreis Denkmalpflege e. V., which was declared absent. The membership of the Czech Association Archaia was suspended, since the Association for the moment do not co-operates with Forum.
New Memberships
Iliya Godev, from Smolyan Municipality, Bulgaria, presented to Forum Assembly the programme of the First International Forum Camp in Bulgaria. After an overall view of the region of Smolyan, Iliya presented the activities to take place and gave the organisation details.
Forum Assembly agreed on presenting Smolyan camp as Common Forum Activity for summer 2005, presenting information on the camp in Forum website.
Smolyan Municipality was accepted among Forum Associated Members, since it is a public body.
Adriana Martini presented CERP, Centro Europeo Ricerche Preistoriche, an Association from southern Italy based in the zone of the prehistoric excavation of Isernia La Pineta. The Association has a great experience in working camps and has also a very organised logistical structure; among their members there are university professors and university students: the Association is in close contact with the academic world. CERP submitted the participation request and the General Assembly approved the new member; the President assured to have read the statute and not to have found any incompatibility for being a Forum member.
The Museum of Maçao asked to become an Associated member; the documents will be submitted to the president and discussed in the next Board.
Budget and financial matters
Budget approval
The discussion of budget was suspended because of the justified absence of the Treasurer Catherine Breyer.
The General Assembly agreed on postponing the budget discussion: every Association will receive via e-mail a communication with the updated documents and will answer, always via e-mail, with the approval or the refusal of the document. General Secretary was committed to write a letter to all the members asking details on the payments in the last two years, in order to reconstruct the credit and debit history of every Association towards Forum.
Financing the Forum
General Assembly agreed on presenting another project for supporting European Networking, in order to renew the possibility of Forum members to get partial refunds for their participation to General Assemblies. Since Forum does not have paid personnel, and since all the present network support project are offered to networks and associations with paid personnel, Forum agreed on deciding towards others forms of financing.
A possible proposal presented in the Assembly foresaw the commitment of Forum Associated members, which are public bodies or institutions, since they can have access to other forms of financing. Forum, then, thanks to a memorandum of understanding, can be contracted by its Associated Member to manage a part of the project.
The same procedure can be carried on by Forum Associations with paid personnel.
General Secretariat will invite all Forum members to discuss among their associations which can be the most suitable form, in order to present proposals to the Board and to the Assembly in the following years.
The General Assembly agreed on maintaining the 55€ yearly membership fee for Forum Associations.
Board members
The Board was reconfirmed:
• Tony Waegeman, JCW, honorary vice-president
• Roberto Cavallini, Aurelia, Webmaster
• Antoine Monpert, Rempart, General Secretary
• Catherine Breyer, Archeolo-J, Treasurer
• Giorgio Mastella, Gruppi Archeologici del Veneto
The Board expressed its thankfulness to Maja Vatsparova, of the Bulgarian Association for National Heritage, for its two-year active participation in the Board. Since Tarquinia General Assembly in 2003, Bulgaria was a very active member, organising 2004 General Assembly, the 2005 international camp and also contributing for the entrance of Smolyan Municipality among Forum members.
The Assembly agreed on having the honorary Board member for 2005 and 2006 from Portugal, since Forum Board needs a contact person in loco for the organisation of 2006 UISPP Congress. The new member of Board was indicated in Conceição Catroga. Board members welcomed her and expressed their wishes for a profitable work together.
Forum summer camps
The International Summer Camp of Smolyan, Bulgaria, being a Forum common activity, welcomed also staff members from all Forum Associations. General Secretariat was encharged to write to all the Associations to take contacts with Iliya Godev of Smolyan Municipality and Nick Chapman of Gruppi Archeologici del Veneto in case they wanted to send staff and logistic personnel to the international camp.
Thanks to the efforts of Luis Oosterbeek, Forum had the chance of presenting the Association and the summer activities during an open session of the Assembly which took place in the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar. Foreign Associations described their activities and their proposal for the summer, whereas Portuguese Associations had a chance of presenting their activities and their commitments to other Forum members and to local students.
UISPP Congress and forum participation
A great part of the Assembly was dedicated to the forthcoming 2006 UISPP Congress, to take place in Lisbon in September.
Forum Assembly agreed, already in the past years, to renew the co-operation between Forum and Uispp which took place in 1996 during the Congress in Forlì. In 1996 Forum sent 120 volunteers to Forlì to help for the organisation of the congress and during the event. Volunteers had the chance oftaking part to the congress for free and to meet all the most important people in the academic world of pre-history and proto-history.
Luis Oosterbeek, general secretary of 2006 Congress, took part to the works of the Assembly dedicated to UISPP Congress and the guidelines for Forum-UISPP co-operations were defined. The discussion saw a first analysis of UISPP needs, then there was an evaluation of all the tasks that could be carried out by volunteers.
The Forum Assembly agreed on creating a special UISPP Committee composed by the Board, UISPP Secretariat and other Forum members in order to manage all the activities related to the organization of the event.
The result of the discussion was a time schedule and a list of activities:
• preparation of an invitation letter to be used by Forum Associations to publicize the event and to inform volunteers and students on the possibility offered by Forum,
• preparation of a form to be filled by all the candidates, specifying their abilities,
• definition of regional reference people in Forum to collect the forms and to keep the contacts between
• distribution of forms
• collection of forms, mainly via e-mail, by each regional referent
• evaluation of candidatures in a common meeting of UISPP Committee
• choice of candidates, information of selected candidates
• organisation of volunteers accommodation, coordination, instruction and management before and during the congress
The description of the event made in front of the Assembly by Luis Oosterbeek led to a first idea of 160 volunteers to be needed during the event. The organisation of the Congress agreed on accepting Forum support also for translation activities; Magali Boureux of Gruppi Archeologici del Veneto took charge of the organisation of this part of the activities.