European Association of Jesuit Alumni/ae

Working for others
"En Todo Amar Y Servir"

Presidents' Conference, Madrid, 19-21 October 2006

Report by the President  -  Suggestions for Action Plan

Minutes of the Madrid meeting on 19 - 22 octobre 2006
At the College Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo-Madrid

Members present:
Eric de LANGSDORFF (P),F, P. Pierre SALEMBIER SJ, F, Hervé CARRERA, F,
Bernard KOTTRUP, D, Enrique REBES, SP, Francois-Xavier CAMENEN, F / WU,
Sabine PERREAU, F, Gonçal FÁBREGAS ALEGRET, (P),SP,
P. Fernando MESEGUER RUIZ S.J., SP, José M. Chema CABEZUDO, SP, Antoni MARTINEZ, SP,
Alfonso RUIZ DE EGUIRO, SP, Javer FERNANDEZ DE LA VEGA MEDINA, SP
Ciro CACCHIONE (P), I, Paul ROGERS, GB, Stephen GATT (P), MT, P. Luk ARTS SJ, B,
Louis COOREMAN, B, Frank JUDO (P),B, P. Maurice PILETTE SJ, B, Alain BAYARD (P), B, Alain DENEEF, B / WU, Henryk GANOWIAK, PL, Magdalena CZECH, PL, Damian PACZYWSKI, PL, Lukas MYSZK, PL, Gerard LONG, IRL.

Excused:
Bernard THOMPSON, GB / WU, Simonas PETRULIS, LIT, Nomeda MISELYTE, LIT, Martynas LUKOSEVICIUS, LIT, Hans PORTISCH, AUT, Olivier MARTIN, F, Hermann v. BRAUNMÜHL, D, Gianpaolo MARINI, I, Giuseppe MARIANO, I

* *

1. Welcome

Opening – prayer
Welcome provided by Eric de Langsdorff
 
Presentation of our Polish and Irish friends:
Magdalena Czech being the new president of the Gdynia association, she is participating for the first time at such a meeting; she’s accompanied by Damian Paczywski and Lukas Myszk.
Gerard Long represents Ireland: there is no Irish national federation, only school associations exist: Belvedere College, Clongowes Wood College, Gonzaga College, this is why the representatives of the colleges participate in turn at the European meetings.

Presentation of the working program:
- elaboration of an action plan for the confederation (a document including the suggestions for action is distributes (and attached to the minutes).
- elaboration of suggestions and inspirations for the action of alumini/ae of our countries, in the name of the European Confederation addressed to the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus.

2. Round table and discussion:

- Italy: Ciro notices that we have been trying to get an action plan going for many years, but we never managed to do it, why? It seems that this is due to the working methods and communication means which seem to be inadequate. He suggest to decide one theme each year to reflect on and to finalize (cf. Eric’s document « Suggestions … », point B9); it also seems necessary to better determine the relationship the laity and the Company..
- Germany: Bernard observes that there are already good opportunities to discuss and to exchange ideas. Our members are firstly members of their local associations, this is why we need to improve to better communicate the result of our discussions to the associations, as this seems to be the most important problem.
- France: Sabine informs that on the occasion of the ignatian year, there was an important meeting-pilgrimage of the ignatian family at the end of July-beginning of August 2006 which brought nearly 10.000 participants together. The French federation took the opportunity to to organise a meeting for the alumni/ae to exchange on education and to organise its annual general assembly with the aim to elect a new President to succeed Eric at the end of his term. As nobody run for the election, it was decided to designate 3 members for the interim period to take charge of the Federation’s business and find a President to be designated at the next General Assembly.
- Malta: Stephen informs that they are trying to find their position as alumni/ae, to get in contact and to evaluate the possibilities to get them involved in different programs. For this purpose, a questionnaire was sent to every alumni/ae of the last 30 years (5933 in total): 970 of them answered, 517 of which were in favour of get again in contact with the Jesuits and the College in one way or another.
- Spain: Gonçal informs that in Spain, young people are well integrated in all the activities organised by their associations and federation; Alfonso Ruiz and Javer Fernandez (of the college of Gijon) are putting up a database with intend to send the software to all Spanish associations enabling them to put up a national search engine; they got the idea while discussing with Hermann von Braunmühl during the congress in Lisbon, where Hermann made a demonstration of the database system existing and functioning quite well in Germany.
- Poland: Damian indicates that in Gdynia, a communication problem exists between the almuni/ae and the pupils, this is why it has been decided to plan common activities; obviously the almuni/ae don’t really know how to assist pupils and the college; there is not much support from the college in this context. Amongst others, there is a concrete project of organising a sport event for alumni/ae and the pupils, of computer courses for seniors, and of an amateur film festival for, in a first run, the region of Gdynia and Gdansk; this project gives the opportunity to compare short films, to have an exchange on experiences and knowledge; a fund-raising is organised to broaden participation next year.
- Southern Belgium: Alain underlines the good relations existing between the alumni/ae, the colleges and the Company; they are also putting up a database on the basis of the model presented in Lisbon by Hermann: the two most important associations commissioned an external service provider to develop a web site with a data base; after becoming operational the other associations will be able to use it and to go online.
- Northern Belgium: Frank informs that during the « Federation day » the local associations committed themselves to improve their cooperation with all the other partners and actors of the colleges (parents, teachers, management, pupils…) to follow more than ever in the rallying project of the Company of Jesus; to promote this, the bureau of the Federation will visit the different colleges; the Federation is also setting up an association of alumni/ae in the only college without.
- Ireland: Gérard informs that there has been a fund raising campaign downtown, during which alumni/ae and pupils were fasting for several days. They collected 100.000 euros intended to finance projects for in patient children and an association looking after blind people.

After the round table, François-Xavier presents the second draft of the text discussed during the Brussels’ meeting on Christians roots in Europe; this text giving raise to remarks or questions concerning among others the advisability of its spreading, Eric underlines, that it has the merit of providing good food for reflection of political nature about an important topical question concerning the citizens of all our countries, which makes it important to carry on the discussions on the level of each Federation, he also intends to get in touch with the Jesuit European Office, OCIPE, based in Brussels (a structure seeking to accompany the construction of Europe, to seek an enlightened advice concerning this text.

Concerning the working groups set up in Brussels (internal and external communication, relations with the Society of Jesus, young people, social activities), Eric underlines that he integrated some suggestions in the documents distributed (in connection with the action plan) he reads the report of the “youth” commission again chaired by Nomeda, underlying that it is very important that the question of inviting young people to participate at our meetings and activities is of crucial importance for each of us.

Finally, he points out that Giuseppe, rapporteur of the group « charity activities » is anxious to see the European Confederation having a project in this field; Giuseppe proposes to get in contact with the person in charge of the network of Ignatian solidarity in Europe, the Javier network, already made up of one Italian, two Spanish, one Portuguese and one German association.

3. Budget of the European Confederation

The results presented by Gianpaolo has been distributed and approved.
Eric indicates that he had some difficulties to give some financial support to young people wanting to attend the Madrid meeting, as there was no budget line adopted for this kind of expenditure (we only adopted a budget line for the organisation of meetings). He therefore suggests to add a budget line « young people » in the amount of 1.000 euros for 2007, to plan a contribution of the Confederation to Unaec-Europe of 150 euros and a budget line of 1.000 euros for different kind of supports needed by Jesuit structures looking after young people (for example sport events for young people coming from all over Europe), or refugees (for example, JRS Europe with the Arrupe-award).

4. Questions in relation with the statutes

Louis asks the following question: the statutes of the European Confederation is a ASBL(non profit making association) stipulate that the members are ASBLs too: now, the North Belgian Federation intends to change its legal form, can it stay a member of the European Confederation not being a ASBL anymore or do we have to change the texts of our statutes? This question will be submitted to our lawyer Jean-François (Ledoux), the text of our statutes being amended, we hope to be able to adopt a revised version at our Paris meeting.

5. Mission of the Confederation at the la 35th General Congregation

Eric explains the context: the Confederation has here the opportunity to address one or more postulates to the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus which will take place in January 2008.
In this context, Father Salembier underlines that they already took position about the cooperation with alumni/ae associations (cf distributed document) in a short paragraph of their order nr. 13 (dealing with the cooperation with lay persons) and that the background paper of the EC is the Charta « En todo amar y servir » which already expresses, among others, its objectives under § 1.4, so that the question merely is: “Which request do alumni/ae address to the Society to enable them to do their job?”
Eric adds that one could help inspire reflection by asking the following kind of questions: What specific things do we have to tell the Society? What was moving in our education? What are we ready to do to help Jesuits to assume their mission?

A first exchange gave the opportunity to highlight the following questions and assertions:
- is education still a priority of vocation of the Society?
- the concept of the “ignatian family” is still of great importance: our message must clearly state this importance.
- We cannot consider our educational mission being just an educational auxiliary; it also has to take into account our acquired skills: it would be useful to ask the question au Father Rotsaert for example to find out which are the missions where our intervention would be welcomed…
- The message does include the different aspects of our education which left their marks and which we appreciated, for example, education and freedom, curiosity, interest, justice and responsibility.
- We don’t refer enough to the Charta « en todo amar y servir », which says in one of the first paragraphs that we should refer to the message of Father General:
To deepen awareness of our reasonability as alumni/ae to build a more just and human society; to offer each other concrete friendship and support, both locally and across national boundaries; to serve others in common humanitarian projects; and to further the Ignatian tradition
- until now, the only action mentioned is continuous
- concerning education, it has to mentioned that there exists an action committee in each college, in Ireland, giving teachers, pupils, parents and Jesuits the opportunity to meet regularly; twice a year this big family meets to discuss and define concrete projects. This is very successful and gives a good opportunity to promote the integration of all partners; in France there are also associations at local level, regional level (bringing the local leaders together) and at national level (with UNIREF).

6. 50th anniversary of the World Union

François-Xavier, Secretary of the World Union, gives us the following information: after the exploratory journey of Bernard (Thompson), President of the World Union, in Miami and Mexico, the anniversary will be celebrated in Miami from October 3rd au 5th October; an exhibition with historical documents will recount the highlights of the World union; the venue will gather representatives of 500 member associations and federations; 3 speakers of high quality will address the venue (among others Alain, one of our representatives at the World Union), we will discuss the possibility to become an NGO associated with the United Nations, of the new edition of the ETC. The presence of the African delegates (Jean Toto, vice-pdt of the World Union) and Géronce Balegamire (Democratic Republic of Congo), will give the opportunity to speak about the next world congress planned in Yaoundé in July 2009: the Executive Committee will meet in Miami with the representatives of all continents to define the exact place and date; he also adds that the list of the associations and federations can be consulted on the following web-site: www.jesuitalumni.org. Eric indicates that he has the intention address the plenary in Miami to inform about the European context and strategy, in the framework of the discussion about the strategies of other continents (Africa, Australia, Latin America…)

7. Action plan for the confederation

According to Eric, this plan should build on two principles (subsidiarity and proportionality) in force for the political constitution of Europe; the subsidiarity principle is intended to ensure that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the local associations and federations; the proportionality principle entails a process of weighing-up between costs, financial, technical and human means needed by the EC, the Federations and the Associations.
As volunteers, we have to stick to projects feasible with our own means at a level reachable for the EC, that is to say Europe.
Each President is invited to send Bernard or Eric until the end of the year the proposals for priority actions for 2007 by using the preparatory document distributed for this purpose, not forgetting to indicate what they are able to take in charge themselves. He considers that it is of great advantage that we organised regular meetings, providing us with a certain transparency and giving us the opportunity to integrate our friends from Eastern Europe and some young people.
But there is still one thing which has to be sorted out: the renewal of the European Confederation still has to be done, which means that decisions have to be taken on the long run concerning the team which will lead the EC, we will have to keep thinking about it in 2007. How is going to take over the Presidency?

8. Next meetings of the European Confederation

The next meeting of the European Confederation will be held on Saturday March 3rd and Sunday March 4th in Paris. Eric and Bernard will get in touch with our friends who didn’t contact us for this meeting (notably our friends from Hungary and Portugal). - themes to be discussed among others:
- message of the alumni/ae to be addressed by the Confederation to the next General Congregation
- amendment of the statutes
- next Congress of the congress European confederation
- report and summary of the anniversary meeting of the World union in Miami
- implementation of the action (actions realized, prioritisation of the actions, allocation of responsibilities…)
Pierre Salembier suggests to devote some more time to prayers in the framework of spiritual exercises, for example during one morning at the beginning of the meeting.

The second meeting in 2007 could be organized the second week-end of October in Frankfurt (Germany), knowing that this could change according to Bernard’s information, the German Federation needs to come to an arrangement with the German University and Father Rector for the details.

We would like to remind you that the core documents of our activities (minutes of the meetings, the text “En todo”, the list of the federations, etc.) can be consulted on our web-site: www.jesuits-europe.info/alumni

9. Thanks

The Confederation wishes to thank the Spanish Confederation for the organisation of the meeting and the very warm welcome in Madrid.
 
 
Bernard Kottrup
Secretary
November 27th 2006

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