Mars & Mercury
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MARS & MERCURY - EUROPE INTERNATIONS COORDINATION COMMISSION Report of the General Meeting of the 20th of October 2017, held in Namur( Belgium ) At the request of the General President members of the Association Mars & Mercury – Europe met this day in General Assembly. Are present, Sirs: Pierre ZUMWALD Past & Acting General President and President of the Swiss Circle Philippe GIELEN Secretary General. ( B ) Jan LENIÈRE General Treasurer. ( B ) Ronald CAZAERCK Auditor ( B ) Pierre DEGREEF President of the Belgian Circle Marc Van de Wal Vice- President of the Belgian Circle Michel COURTIN Past General President ( B ) Pierre DISSEL Past General President & President of the French Circle Christian CUNY Delegate of the French Circle Jacques LEROY Delegate of the French Circle Henri BARTKOWIAK Delegate of the French Circle Alain LAYRAC Delegate of the French Circle Benoit CHAUCHEPRAT Delegate of the French Circle Ed POST President of the Dutch Circle H.Paul HADEWEG SCHEFFER Delegate of the Dutch Circle Jan UNGER Delegate of the Dutch Circle Denis AUGSBURGER Delegate of the Swiss Circle Olivier CINGRIA Delegate of the Swiss Circle Jean-Marc PETERMANN Delegate of the Swiss Circle Are excused Sirs: Hans MATHIJSEN General President ( Nl ) Michel GRETSCH Vice-President ad interim & President of the Luxemburg Circle Slawomir MICHALSKI General Vice-president ( Pl ) Marc DE BRACKELEER Delegate of the Belgian Circle Eddy DE BOCK Delegate of the Belgian Circle Hervé HUBERT Delegate of the Belgian Circle Guy MELCHIOR Delegate of the Belgian Circle Alain ARYS Delegate of the Belgian Circle Jos VANDORMAEL Delegate of the Belgian Circle Torben von Lowzow President of the Danish Circle Jesper T. LOK Past President of the Danish Circle Pierre CARRÉ Delegate of the French Circle Alexander TIEDKE President of the German Circle Wolf-Arthur KALDEN Past General President & Delegate of the German Circle Jean-Paul KRAUS Delegate of the Luxemburg Circle Jean-Paul SCHMIT Delegate of the Luxemburg Circle René FABER Delegate of the Luxemburg Circle Jan BAUDOUIN Past Président Général ( Nl ) Tawfik KAMIL Past President of the Dutch Circle Arnold SCHOLTEN Delegate of the Dutch Circle Frank EVERS Delegate of the Dutch Circle Jan Willem GEFKEN Delegate of the Dutch Circle Zygmunt BUGOWSKI President of the Polish Circle Joaquin ILLA JUANDO Past General President & President of the Spanish Circle Pagina 1 1 - Welcome of the acting General President Pierre Zumwald 2 - Agenda The agenda is adopted without any new items. 3 - Minutes of the General Meeting of November the 25th 2015 in Hasselt (B) The minutes of the meeting are adopted without remarks. 4 - Composition of the delegations : The list of potential participants , previously transmitted to all present delegates, is approved. The excused Presidents ( Germany, Denmark, Spain, Luxemburg, Poland ) and Delegates are mentioned. Spain is represented by Past General President Michel Courtin ( B ) 5 - Report of the General President: Mister Presidents, Mister Delegates Dear Sirs, dear friends, It’s a great honour for me to welcome you, if you allow me with this year the glove, at the occasion of the General Meeting of Mars and Mercury Europe in Namur. Due to serious causes not possible to transfer, I profoundly regret not to be able to assist to this meeting in Namur. I feel nevertheless confident knowing that the lead of this meeting is in hands of my predecessor, Colonel Zumwald, and our Secretary General, Philippe Gielen. From Sofia, Bulgaria, I send you my best greetings and enjoy me to meet you in the shortest delays in Belgium or elsewhere. 1. During our last meeting on the 25th November 2016 in Hasselt, we had big ambitions at the start. The same remains the objectives of the actual Presidency. The cardinal points – promotion of the contacts between the circles and their individual members and the participation to this contacts – are and will be pursued. Although some individual Circles has expressed reserves concerning sharing the data and coordinates of their members, what we noted, the ambition to promote the individual contacts between circles didn’t change. The ambition to form a European yearbook accessible to each member of each Circle was not abandoned but the form was changed : my predecessor, Pierre Zumwald, has created a Mars and Mercury site, which can contain the compilation of all European members who would give their agreement to be enclosed. Further : in a few weeks the National Secretaries will receive the invitation to kindly transmit to their members the existence of a M&M network in Linked In with the request, if they share the desire to meet each other over the European borders, to agree to join. Your President wrote it already in the marble… The M&M Europe site : as you could note, the reconstruction of the site could not yet be finalised. This meeting will enable you – thanks the initiatives of Pierre Zumwald – to acknowledge the content of the site as per next week ! Pierre Zumwald has launched the idea that the Vice-Presidency should manage the site but this theme confront us with the challenge of our vice-presidency, which will be treated later on in this report. 2. The Presidency has defined that closer contacts with – among others – Poland, Germany and Denmark, should take place, that the bonds should be reinforced. We had already some preparing contacts with Poland and Germany. Concerning Denmark the efforts are announced . These efforts, which costs we have foreseen in 2016 on the 2017 budget, but which didn’t take place, will be realised during the year 2018. Pagina 2 The year 2017 was the year of reflexion and preparation . The Circles will see that in the year 2018 the intentions ( including their financial imputations ) will for sure take place , this also considering the position already taken in term of reserves. Visits to : - Poland – Denmark – Germany will follow and our Board will use the reserves, as put to their disposal in 2016 . In the year 2017 the request to your Assembly will be identical, moves will so be easier, from which you will be able to read the result in our next report of 2018. At this moment our Vice-Presidency is assured by M. Michel Gretsch , who acts to permit to the nominated Vice-President, Slawomir Michalski, and the Polish President , Colonel Zygmunt Bugowski, to continue with the actual phase of reflexion in their country, Poland. The Board has the view that our friends in Poland should receive the possibility to ensure themselves that the social environment in politics allow them to continue the active participation of Poland. Poland has the right to our support and your Board wants to give it to them. Further, next November , thanks to the introduction of our Dutch Past President , M. Tawfik Kamil, your president will be able to visit in Lisboa a representative of the Portuguese network who could be interested to establish a Circle in Portugal. This visit will take place in connection with a conference of another organisation to which I participate, so there will be no additional costs pour for M&M Europe. But it is understood that even if this visit has not immediately the, by your President expected, results the challenge to the Circles to raise up new Circles justifies in it selves the costs of their research. 3. The National Presidents and National Secretaries may expect an invitation to share their agenda of ( national ) activities with the Secretary General and their national colleagues : this is a first step to the opening of the Inter-European activities to the members of the other Circles, which, after introduction and acceptation, should have access to those, as usual in the international networks. The objective is the participation « cross border » of the Trans National M&M members to the activities of the other Clubs of the other Circles : you can only make better contacts and better relations between members at both sites of the border by real contacts. 4. M&M Europe aspires to organise, in 2018, in the bosom of NATO, a rendezvous on which all leaders and members of all Circles will be invited, the first initiatives of a possible cooperation with the International Society of Military Rights and War Rights took already place. We can add that this initiatives will not interfere in any way with the programs of the Belgian Circle, especially of Club Gent ( Genth ), which organizes on the 10th of November2018 the National Day of M&M Belgium The European Board wants to participate the best way possible to the initiatives of Club Gent and M&M Belgium in 2018 5. On ‘domestic’ level M. Philippe GIELEN and M. Jan LENIERE will explain you that the European Board has decided not ( yet ) to use your authorisation to establish a ‘’ Non Profit’ Association ‘’ following Belgian law, as the regular costs of this entity would cost about 8% of the annual budget. Because of this unforeseen aspect, we - as your managing directors – have decided to ask you the possibility to deliver the Board of M&M Europe a delay period of 3 ( three )years to establish the Non Profit Association. 6. Pagina 3 Mister Presidents, Mister Delegates, Dear Sirs, dear friends, Mars and Mercury is really a unique organisation : this unique character should be shown by each of our members in the respective Circles of which we are constituted. We have the luck to live in the years 2017 and 2018 instead of the horrible years 1917 and 1918 ; its to us to gather ourselves around the borders in this great Circle in which the « linking pin » is Mars et Mercury! From here I present to all of you, also in name of the Secretary General and the General Treasurer MM Philippe GIELEN et Jan LENIÈRE: - Thousand thanks for your comradeship ; - My best compliments to each delegation ; - My respects to all M&M Europe Circles.