European Association of Jesuit Alumni/ae

Working for others

"En Todo Amar Y Servir"

Presidents' Conference, 4-5 March 2006

Minutes of the Bruxelles meeting on March 4th and 5th 2006
at the Faculté Universitaire de la Paix, Namur
and Collège St. Michel, Bruxelles

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Members present:
Eric de Langsdorff (P),F, P. Pierre Salembier SJ, F, Hervé Carrera, F, Filipe Garrido, PT, GianPaolo Marini, I, Bernard Kottrup, D, Francois-Xavier Camenen, F / WU, Bernard Thompson, GB / WU, , Sabine Perreau, F, Serge Delair, F, Gonçal Fábregas Alegret, (P),SP, P. Fernando Meseguer Ruiz S.J.,SP, José M. Chema Cabezudo, SP, Antoni Martinez, SP, Hermann v. Braunmühl (P), D, Ciro Cacchione (P), I, P. Uberto Ceroni SJ, I, Giuseppe Mariano, I, Vincenzo Gallinoni, I, Paul Rogers, GB, Stephen Gatt (P), MT, Michael Sheil SJ (Recteur),IRL, Mark Lochrin, IRL, P. Luk Arts SJ, B, Michel Denuyter, B, Louis Cooreman, B, Frank Judo (P),B, P. Maurice Pilette SJ, B, Alain Bayard (P), B, Alain Deneef, B / WU, Olivier Duterme, B, Michel Jadot, B, Charles Muraille, B, Pierre Lerusse, B, Wolfgang Wildner, A, Martynas Lukosevicius, LIT, Nomeda Miselyte, LIT, Henryk Ganowiak, PL, Gabor Nagy,HU, Zoltan Alakszai, HU, András Tóth, HU

Excused:
Hans Portisch, AUT, Enrique Rebés, SP, Olivier Martin, F

Warmly welcome of our group and presentation of the "Facultés Universitaires Notre Dame de la Paix" by Father Michel Scheuer s.j., Rector

Opening – prayer – meditation with Father Salembier SJ
The prayer has been written by Norbert Segard, deceased in 1981, former Minister under President Valery Giscard d’Estaing's government.

1. Welcome by Eric de Langsdorff
The agenda being quite full, everybody is kindly invited to see that arguments are not repeated, to give us the opportunity to discuss the priority issues, like the memorandum and articles of the association to comply with the Belgian law.
Move on to the agenda:

José Maria Cabezudo makes a report about the congress of Lisbon: 5 working groups dealed with different issues. We already got the conclusions of three of tem, 2 are still in preparation. As soon as we get all the elements for the report you will find it on the web-site of the confederation http://www.jesuits-europe.info/alumni and we will inform all our members.
Filipe takes the opportunity to thank all the participants of the Congress and offers a CD-ROM to each federation.

Presentation of our Hungarian friends. There are two educational institutions in Hungary: le College in Miskolc and a students residence in Budapest, founded in 1990.

Presentation of our Irish friends, Father Sheil SJ, Trustee of the Clongowes Wood College and Marc Lochrin, Treasurer of the Association of Alumni/ae of the college. There are five colleges in Ireland, Clongowes being the only boarding school.

Presentation of each President of a national federation and short report about their respective activities. (The reports of the different national federations have been sent by mail and photocopies have been handed out before the meeting).

2006 is a jubilee year with 3 anniversaries of the « Society of Jesus »: the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius Loyola, and the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Faber. The French Jesuits organise a pilgramage to Lourdes between Thursday, July 27th and August 4th 2006 and the French federation will be very busy helping out: alumni/ae are invited to join this pilgrimage. You will find further informations on the web-site of the federation: http://cofaec.cef.fr/ae-jesuites/ or on the Jesuit web site of the Province: http://www.amisdansleseigneur.com

Bernard Thompson gives informations about the activities of the World Union, one of its main goals is to recognized as a NGO.

Vincenzo Gallinoni gives informations about the activities of the UNAEC-Europe (European Union of all catholic alumni/ae).

2. Rereading « En Todo »
Rereading of the « En Todo », the participants are invited to give their opinion about the points they consider being the most important.
Emergent of gathering of opinions 6 subjects to be discussed in group:
- External and internal communication (report Hermann v. Braunmühl)
- Credibility and visibility of the Confederation
- Christian roots of the European Union (report François-Xavier Camenen)
- Solidarity program with the poor people (report Giuseppe Mariano)
- Relationship with the "Society of Jesus" Compagnie de Jésus (report Pierre Salembier SJ)
- The role of young people in our structure (report Nomeda Miselyte)

3. Work shops:

o External communication
The questions to be answered are: What content do we want to communicate? To whom and how?:
Suggestions: We already do have a network, so let's use it.
Promote communication amongst us, the leaders of the local associations and federations.
Establish a list with e-mail addresses of the responsibles of the associations and federations for the edition of documents to give them the opportunity to exchange those documents by e-mail, indication in the subject the title of the publication and in the body a summary of the articles which could interest the alumni/ae.

internal communication (reminder)
We have to improve communication among ourselves :
- to acknowledge receipt of the mails.
- to respond within a reasonable time
- if we think we are not the right recipient, forward it to the person concerned
Bernard Kottrup has a list with e-mail addresses and a list of postal addresses + phone numbers, so don't hesitate to ask him.

o Visibility and Credibility:
Which are our means?
Which are our capacities?
Which is our message which makes the difference with other organisations?
External visibility: To be in contact with other organisations with Jesuit inspiration.

o Preamble of the European constitution
Does the constitution the mention Christian roots of the European civilisation?
Suggestion to keep a working group to study this question more thoroughly and to reformulate a text. (François-Xavier Camenen)

o Solidarity program with the poor people
It is suggested
to dress up a list of our humanitarian actions running in our associations and federations.
to participate at the Jesuit Refugee Service Europe and the Xavier network
to support the action of the world wide Pedro Arrupe network
to distribute a list of social and humanitarian actions organised by the Society to give the local associations the opportunity to back them up.

o Relationship with the Society of Jesus
Current state: The Society of Jesus has different relationships with the alumni/ae, varying from one region to the other. Some entertain good relations, other don't have any at all.
The text of the last General Congregation stipulates: Qualified Jesuits must be appointed to help them to pursue their spiritual, ethic and social education, and to identify their apostolic needs. (C.G. 34 D.13) The full text will be send soon to all by e-mail.
The next General Congregation will take place in January 2008. It is desirable that we indicate our wishes and actions in a message addressed to Father General.
The drafting must be finished by March 2007, which means that we need to discuss and formulate it beforehand.

o The role of young people in our structure
Young people meet, but without been organised and without wanting it.
Is there a sense in trying to organise individuals who don't wish it?
Suggestion: We ought to make the alumni/ae organisations better known in the upper classes, not to be too theoretical concerning values and spirituality, it would be better that we participate at common "events" at European level: the first opportunity could be the pilgrimage in Lourdes.

4. Memorandum and articles of association (intervention of Jean-François Ledoux, alumni and lawyer)
The Belgian law concerning international NGO's has changed in 2002; the statutes of the Confederation must be adapted by January 1st 2007. 90% of our statutes are in conformity with the law, which means that we still have some time. We will put up a working group charged with the clarification of different concepts (definition of the word « members », the congress, the general assembly, the board etc.). The modifications need to be discussed and formulated during the next two meetings, to be ready to register the statutes in Belgium at the beginning of 2007.

5. Financial situation (submitted by GianPaolo Marini)
Gianpaolo has sent the financial situation to everybody by mail and handed out photocopies to the assembly.
All the membership fees have been paid. No particular remarks, except that it is necessary to detail the different items of the budget 2006 a little bite more (to be considered for the next meeting).

6. Session, Sunday morning in the Collège St. Michel, Bruxelles
Report of Father Salembier concerning the trip of Éric de Langsdorff and Fr. Salembier to Rwanda, Burundi and Bukavu (RDC).

Round table and discussions:
- Frank Judo suggests, that to make the European Confederation better known, a member of the bureau should participate at some activities of the national federations.
- Father Pilette suggests to send the program of the meeting per e-mail 2 months in advance to be able to be better prepared.
- Giuseppe Mariano suggests to send a « newsletter » between the meetings to be better informed in time about what is happening in the different countries.
- Suggestion to organise the future meetings as follows: discuss the general issues at one meeting and discuss some of them more in details at the following meeting.
- We invite the Hungarian Federation to become a member of the European Confederation.
- Decision is taken to continue our work and our representation within the l’UNAEC-Europe and to pay our statutory fees.
- Suggestion is made to meet only once a year: modern communication means give the opportunity to inform each other and to tackle different issues by "newsletter", by mail, etc…
There are different opinions ; a first opinion poll gives 10 voices in favour, 6 against and 1 abstention ; this question will have to be discussed subsequently.
It will anyway be necessary to meet twice, in October 2006 and March 2007, to discuss issue, like the "message of Father General" and the revision of the statutes.

7. Next meetings of the European Confederation
The next meeting will take place in Madrid from October 19th to 22nd, at the same time as the meeting of the Spanish Federation.
Issue amongst others:
- Discussion about the message the alumni/ae in the name of the European Confederation want to address to the next General Congregation
- Amendments of the statutes.

8. Thanks
The Confederation wishes to thank the Belgian Wallon Federation, represented by Alain Bayard and Alain Deneef for the excellent organisation of the meetings and the very warm welcome in Namur and Bruxelles.

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