December 2001 - What will happen tomorrow for our Douzelage ? Can it grow as well as E.U.  which will expand from 15 to 27 members in a few years ? - Do we need to have less GMs ? Do we need strict rules to carry on exchanging projects ?

Nico Hilbert has some good ideas about that. Before leaving he left us this letter to read and  to think about before moving into action.

Thank you for that Nico !

Good bye Douzelage,

 Dear friends of the Douzelage,

 I am leaving the Douzelage with a tear in my eyes, as I am leaving some good friends. In one way or another I have some regrets no longer being able to take part in the process of bringing the Douzelage forward and making it evolve to a successful future.

 I did not get the opportunity anymore at the end of the general meeting in Karkkila, as requested, to address some last words of good bye to the delegations. Therefore, I hereby send to all of you my good bye message with the warmest wishes for the continuation of the Douzelage as it is today and how it should be to last in the future.

  Dear friends, first of all I want to thank you for the very rich experience I was able to have with the Douzelage as an organisation, but above all the warm exchange I was living with the people of the different partner towns. Even as an official of the European Commission used to live in a multicultural environment every day and coming around quite a lot, I learned so much in each partner town I was visiting and each GM I was assisting to.

 I will remember the Douzelage. I will remember its personalities. I will remember its delegates. I will certainly keep in touch with some good friends.

 There is so much value in the exchange of each meeting that it is the duty of the Douzelage as an organisation to go beyond what it is today. The respective citizens, the associations, the clubs, etc. have to be involved much more, so that they can live the same experience and bring in that way Europe closer to them, because the Douzelage cannot only be a peg or even an alibi for the same people to meet twice a year in a GM discussion without producing or producing to few concrete results. If the opening of the Douzelage will not happen, I have the feeling that the Douzelage will fail. In this context every one should be aware that if one day, one partner municipality/city will leave the Douzelage, there is a risk of discontinuity of the Douzelage as such.

 To reach the objective - Bring the Douzelage closer to the citizens - I want to leave some suggestions with you to think of and evaluate whether they are worthwhile to take account of in the evolution or may be in the (re)organisation of the Douzelage.

  Douzelage beyond 15 municipalities/cities

vs

Reorganisation of the Douzelage

  The formal decision to extend the Douzelage beyond the 15 cities/municipalities has not yet been taken by the general meeting. A decision like that will need in my opinion the following items to be considered.

-        A principle decision to make evolve the extension of the Douzelage with the extension of the EU has to be taken.

          Every delegation should be given the possibility to consult their respective Douzelage committees and express their officially retained position.

-        The decision on a formal procedure how to select new candidates.

          Every delegation should be given the possibility to consult their respective Douzelage committees and express their officially retained position.

-        A formal decision for each new candidate has to be taken in the GM.

          Every delegation should be given the possibility to consult their respective Douzelage committees and express their officially retained position.

-        The general impact of an extension linked to the extension of the EU on the organisation of the Douzelage has to be evaluated and a well prepared discussion in the GM is needed.

-        The general impact on each today’s partner municipality/city.

-        The general impact on each new potential candidate partner municipality/city.

-                 The financial situation of the Douzelage and of each partner’s organisation resp. municipaliy/city has to be (re)evaluated. This evaluation is also applicable in the consideration of the new potential partner candidates.

-                 The financial support of the municipalities/cities towards the Douzelage committees in case of an extension has to be (re)confirmed.

-        The financial support of the European Commission in case of a further extension linked to the EU extension has to be reconsidered.

-                 The legal situation of the Douzelage as a European organisation has to be clarified and set up (Based on Bernard’s information I will have first contacts inside the European Commission and check what can be done in this respect).

-                 After all an official statute has to be adopted anyhow and laid down at the European Commission, European Parliament and may be also at the European Council.

  The Douzelage organsation vs the European Commission

 The European Commission was running an in-depth audit of the institution in preparation of the arrival of new member countries in the EU. It was doing this assessment to be better able to manage the new situation and evolve into the future. So the Douzelage should also rethink his organisation before launching any extension knowing that even the present organisation has to be optimised (The introduction of the project and workshop forms, as well as the A-B-C procedure were only first steps). Even if both organisations are not comparable in size we should profit of such an exercise to learn from and adapt to our organisation.

 The evolution of the Douzelage organisation will need in my opinion the following items to be considered.

-        The new organisation must have a simple but robust management structure.

-        The projects must be kept simple.

-        The number of projects must be reduced.

-        The follow-up of the projects must be improved.

-        The project and workshop forms as well as the A-B-C procedure have to be consolidated and followed more systematically.

-        The decision process must be more transparent. The discussion inside the GM must be better structured. Every partner delegation must be given the possibility to express correctly the position of its committee resp. municipality/city. The conclusion of discussions must be improved. The formal conclusions must be generally agreed upon.

-   Reports/conclusions of workshops and projects must be improved in such a way that the contents are of real value to each delegation and can be forwarded inside each municipality/city to share the information and experiences with the citizens, the associations, the clubs, etc..

-        I suggest the following in this respect:

è      Keep 2 meetings / year.

è            Reduced the GMs to 1 / year (5 delegates).

è            Prepare each project through a workshop! An in-depth prepared project in a workshop with experts has much more success potential than a superficial discussion with an overhasty decision in the GM.

è      Use the spare one for workshops and only workshops (not more than 4 – 1 expert / workshop). Only experts should participate to these workshops except for the chairman who should be a delegate from the GM (Each workshop should have a delegated chairman from the GM). The chairman should write the report and the conclusions of the workshop. He has to present to the GM the consolidated report and conclusions agreed in the workshop and via e-mail (for the final version). The experts of each municipality/city should be accompanied by one delegate of the “standard GM” delegation as a co-ordinator and link to the GM itself (total is 4+1=5 delegates). The chairmen have to be selected out of these delegates.

          This will create a new potential to increase the quality and the contents of the workshops and projects, which have absolutely to be improved, as well as the feedback, report and formal presentation in the GM. In this way a better basis for more valuable discussions in this forum will be created.

Support of new technologies – The Douzelage Internet WEB-Site and the Internet E-mail

 First of all I hereby express my professional respect for the Douzelage Web-Team, which has been doing from the start of the Douzelage Web-Site an incredible job. They have to be fully supported by all delegations in the future so that their time consuming job which they execute free of charge gets its real value and reward.

 I offered John Pettersson to come to the European Commission in Luxembourg where I will guide him through the Informatics Directorate and bring him in contact with all responsible people of the Europa Server (europa.eu.int) the official Web-Site of the European Institutions, one of the largest in Europe. The Douzelage budget could afford and cover the costs (travel + 2 days = 1 hotel night) especially for this kind of future oriented working meeting.

 As from now the Douzelage Web-Site has to be considered as a central repository and database of all information regarding the Douzelage from where data can be handled, aggregated, compiled, formatted, etc. = treated as needed.

 Equally the E-mail message exchange has to go further and become the only vehicle of exchanging information complimentary to the Web-Site which also can be used to share information even without sending it around.

 The Web-Team will certainly issue best practices and guidelines for the usage of the Web-Site vs the E-Mail message exchange.

The next president

 As in Oxelösund the discussions of a new president will start and even may be the election itself taking place, just a few words on this subject. With the experience of 4 GMs (including the organisation of the one in Niederanven) I came to the following conclusion as concerns the profile of a future president. Conclusions I want to share with you :

-        He has to have excellent skills in communication.

-        He has to have excellent skills in chairmanship.

-        He has to be multilingual = understand and speak at least 3 main languages. This is an analogy of what is requested to pass a competition and to be accepted as an official at a European institution.

-        He has to understand the new technologies involved in the modern management of an organisation and capable of making best use of those to give maximum support to the Web-Team, to all delegations and to the Douzelage organisation as such.

 Context

 Most of the previous contents is a compilation of ideas and discussions inside the Niederanven Douzelage committee and delegation, even if the discussions never drilled down in that detail, and is fully supported by its president, as we both had already many talks on the future of the Douzelage. Altogether this content completely covers the conviction of the Niederanven Douzelage Committee of the future evolution of the Douzelage.

  I hope that this message is finding at least some consideration in your following GM discussions and do not remain as just lost written words.

 Do remember that you are in the Douzelage to represent your municipalities/cities and do your best for the citizens of those municipalities/cities as well as for Europe.

  Thank you again for the valuable moments we had together and good luck to you all in your Douzelage work.

 Many thanks to Jeremy Barker the today’s president and to Karel Majoor the first president for their work.

 Special thanks to Henry Haffray, the man who initiated and founded the Douzelage.

 Kind regards, Nico.