FAWCO News – Region 5 Meeting

FAWCO Region 5 Regional Meeting: Nov 6-8, 2009

by Kate B

Everyone had a fabulous time at the AWCH hosted FAWCO Region 5 Meeting “FAWCO and FUN” in Aachen, November 6-8th. Thirty attendees from Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Munich, Amsterdam and The Hague enjoyed learning about the latest FAWCO news as well as touring the town.

The meeting kicked off on Friday evening with a welcome by Frauke R-H, our regional coordinator, followed by dinner. During dinner, My-Linh Kunst presented “Bringing FAWCO Into Your Club”. Old and new friends enjoyed chatting and catching up with one another.

We got down to business bright and early Saturday morning. Michelle Miller from Cologne started off with some information about banking for Americans Overseas. The topic raised several questions and we hope to have a speaker from FAWCO come to Hamburg to delve into the topic further. The main focus of the morning was The Target Program – a four year program designed to choose one global issue for all of the clubs to work on. It will combine education and fundraising to help the UN attain their Millenium Goals. Worldwide clubs submitted nine proposals and we heard from four of them: Water, Maternal Health, Iodine Deficiency, and Abolishing Modern day Slavery. All of the presentations were moving and eye opening; too bad we cannot do all of them! The last presentation before lunch was about the FAWCO Foundation. Elsie Bose reminded us of all of the Development Grants and Educational Awards which are available for us to apply for and provided some great fundraising tips.

After our lunch break and FUN part, we took a pause from FAWCO and heard two presentations on energy. Our guest speaker, Jacey Rogers from Areva NP GmbH, taught us about CO2- free nuclear energy. We learned how a nuclear power plant works, that the power is 100% reliable, and that the plants themselves are safer than you would think. We learned about the different types of plants, how the US plants vary versus the ones in Europe and Japan, and that several countries recycle their nuclear waste (the US and Germany do not!). The discussion was a lively one that raised many questions including what the difference between 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl was. Jacey really gave a fabulous presentation! Our own Chris L then presented Wind Energy to us. We learned that the technology originated in Denmark hundreds of years ago. The technology took off in the early 90s and has been steadily increasing in popularity and usage since. This increase has largely been fueled by financial incentives, but the ever evolving technology has also played a role.

After exploring the local nightlife, our 8 am workshop on Sunday came all too soon! Everyone got involved in our workshop focusing on volunteerism and fundraising. Elizabeth Kennedy from The Hague lead us in a discussion on what kind of groups of volunteers we have in our club and how to get them involved. Angelika McLarren from Berlin tempted us all with a bag of Hershey Kisses – we were very creative in how we could raise money to buy them! During brunch we started a general discussion of club issues such as Information Management: best practices and club processes. Ideas ranged from a member database to transfer of data on a USB stick to club publications. This will most likely be a topic at the annual conference in March. The exchange of information and ideas from various clubs was a great way to end the meeting.

FAWCO meetings really inspire you to get involved and to take action at a global and local level. The annual conference is in Boston in March and I hope to see many of you there. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Finally, I would like to say thank you to AWCH FAWCO committee for their help and to Frauke for planning a wonderful weekend of fun!

originally published in Currents Jan/Feb 2010