2/6/2006 - Summary of Outcomes of Board of Trustees Meeting 27-29 January 2006
Dear AFS friends:
We would like to share with you some of the key outcomes of the Board of Trustees meeting that took place in New York on January 27-29, 2006. The draft minutes of the meeting will be posted within the next two weeks.
Partners, the Board of Trustees and the International Administration are engaged in developing recommendations of governance, financial arrangements and fundraising through different workgroups that have been created to lead the discussions in the network. Board members provided input to the workgroups and we are very pleased with the developments in these areas.
We had some guests at our meeting. Rolando Araya and Alex Plinio joined by phone to share the outcomes of the last Management Council meeting and to listen and collect views and opinions on key issues. We are very committed to continuing our open dialogue between the Board of Trustees and the Management Council.
Martin Petersen, Chair of EFIL, and Roberto Ruffino, Secretary-General of Intercultura Italy and one of the founders of EFIL, made a presentation to the Board on current developments in Europe. As AFS programs in Europe represent approximately forty percent of AFS program activity, these developments are important for the entire AFS Network. In order to deal with these challenges and opportunities, AFS International and EFIL need to explore closer collaboration. The Board of Trustees provided the President the green light to proceed in exploring approaches for this cooperation.
The Trustees reviewed the financial projections for the years 2005 – 2007 and noted that the Administration expects to present a balanced budget for 2007 in spite of continuing inflation and little program growth in 2006. If these projections become reality, this will require more fundraising as well as well as some tough choices. The Board also renewed lines of credit for AFS Australia, South Africa and Sweden, after careful consideration of each partner’s situation and plans.
Feedback from the Network indicates unanimous support for the need to rebuild the reserves of AFS International. In line with comments received from a number of Partners and the Management Council, the Board supports a proposal from the Finance Committee and the Administration that aims to gradually rebuild, beginning in 2007, the loss in the liability fund that occurred over a number of years. Several mechanisms are foreseen, including a moderate increase in the per cap contributions to the liability fund. The detailed proposal will be communicated in the near future. This will give Partners a chance to provide further input to the Trustees before the May meeting, when a final decision will be made, and then to include the new amount in their own budgets for 2007, as appropriate.
Several monitoring reports were presented to Board on Educational Results, Human Resources, Marketing and Communications and our Intervention with Partners. An update on Information Technology and Risk Management were also presented and discussed.
An important time of the meeting was spent on the election of two new Term Trustees and Board leadership positions. The new term Trustees in the Class of 2008 (serving through January 2009), elected from among a group of outstanding candidates, are Ronaldo Veirano from Brazil and Dr. Kofi Apraku from Ghana.
J. Brian Atwood was elected unanimously as the new Chairperson of the Board of Trustees. Other leadership positions are: Patrick Worms as Vice Chair, Ulrich Weiss as Chair of the Finance Committee, Keith Stock as Chair of the Audit Committee, Gert Lucas as Chair of the Board Development Committee, and Maleeratna “Lee” Plumchitchom as Chair of the Nominating Committee.
The new Executive Committee now includes: Brian Atwood (Chair), Tachi Cazal, Gert Lucas, Victor Oporto, Mietta Rodeschini, Yuzo Takada, Patrick Worms and Ulrich Weiss.
The Nominating Committee consists of: Eduardo Enmanuel, Christian Kurtén, Bill Meserve, Maleeratna “Lee” Plumchitchom and Ronaldo Veirano.
The draft minutes will provide more information on the discussions and other topics we addressed. We encourage you to take a look and contact one of the Trustees if you have any questions.
We are pleased with the outcomes of the meetings and the constructive and forward looking discussions we had. We are encouraged by the collaboration and accomplishments of the Network since our Network Meeting in Torino in September of last year. We are very confident that we will continue working together in this way in the future to meet current and future challenges.
Warm regards,
Víctor Oporto, Outgoing Chair, Board of Trustees
Tachi Cazal, President and CEO
on behalf of the AFs International Board of Trustees
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