Minutes from the Founding General Assembly of The European DeafBlind Union (EDBU)
22nd of October 2003 in Fredericia, Denmark
Interim president Ove Bejsnap opened the founding general assembly. He stated that he had been looking forward to this event for many years, so it was a great pleasure that it now comes through. He wished that everybody would work with determination towards the common goals.
Ilse Bellamy read the list of delegates who have the right to vote. There were 16 delegates. The list was approved.
Stig Ohlson was suggested and appointed unanimously.
Charlotta Göller and Lex Grandia were proposed and elected.
Henrik Ottesen was proposed and elected.
Ilse Bellamy and Heidi Højgaard were appointed.
The previous agenda had been changed. The new agenda was read aloud and approved.
The election committee informed about the election procedure.
Ove Bejsnap explained how the interim board was established in 1999 with the sole aim of founding the EDBU. The board consisted of 5 members, one from each of the Scandinavian countries. Ove Bejsnap had been chosen as interim president as the general assembly was going to be held in Denmark.
The board had held 5 meetings and most of the time had been spent on working on a proposal for a constitution. Much time had also been spent on contacting deafblind people and organisations throughout Europe and finding solutions for how to finance a founding general assembly. The interim board had not been discussing political issues or goals.
The report from the interim board was approved.
Lex Grandia made a summary of the constitution and the discussions that had taken place. The two most difficult themes had been the questions of definition of deafblindness and memberships. He also pointed out that certain issues were not yet described in the constitution and this will be the job of the coming executive committee.
The general assembly adopted the constitution with 15 for and none against.
The list of member countries was read aloud and they confirmed that they wanted to be members of the EDBU. The chairman informed that Iceland also wanted to be a member, but had not been able to join the meeting.
All the mentioned countries were approved by the general assembly as members of the EDBU. So now there are 17 members of the EDBU
Kari Engan from Landsforbundet for Kombinert Syns- og Hørsels-hemmede/Døvblinde in Norway asked whether their association could be associated member as there are two national associations of the deafblind in Norway.
Lex Grandia explained that there can only be one national repre-sentative from each country, so the two associations have to agree on who to represent Norway. But, of course, Landsforbundet for Kombinert Syns- og Hørselshemmede/Døvblinde could be an associate member of the EDBU.
Nominations: Ove Bejsnap, Sanja Tarczay, Geir Jensen.
After re-election between Ove Bejsnap and Geir Jensen, Ove Bejsnap was elected as President with 12 votes
Nominations: Sergey Sorotkin, Geir Jensen, Sanja Tarczay.
Segey Sirotkin was elected as Vice-President with 8 votes.
Nominations: Geir Jensen, Józef.Mendrun
Józef Mendrun was elected with 11 votes.
There was only one candidate, Mona-Britt Broberg, who was elected with 12 votes
Nominations: Dimitar Parapanov, Geir Jensen, Jan Jakes, Julia Roessler.
Jan Jakes was elected with 11 votes.| Julia Roessler was elected with 10 votes
The chairman explained the role of the auditors. They are to follow the activities of the executive committee and report back to the general assembly. The chairman asked the assembly for nominations. Geir Jensen, Dimitar and Peter Vanhoutte were nominated.
Geir Jensen was elected with 10 votes and Dimitar Parapanov with 9 votes.
Linda Eriksson asked whether a member of the Election Committee could be a candidate for the next Executive Committee. The chair-man answered that if a person from the Election Committee accepts a nomination for the next Executive Committee, he or she will have to withdraw from the Election Committee.
There were 3 nominations: Sanja Tarczay, Daniel Alvarez and Lex Grandia. All three accepted their nominations, and all three were elected.
Ove Bejsnap suggested that the membership fee should be ¬ 30 per year.
Linda Eriksson pointed out that it could be a problem to members who do not have an organisation behind them.
Lex Grandia underlined that it could be a problem that the constitu-tion states that you have to pay your membership fee within 90 days.
Julia Roessler stated that it would not be advisable to decide a fixed fee at this moment and that It was important to be flexible.
Sanja Taczay proposed differentiated fees for Eastern and Western countries.
Linda Eriksson proposed a lower fee (10 15 ¬) and a recommen-dation to richer organisations to pay more.
The General Assembly decided not to make a decision about the union dues, but instead leave the decision to the Executive Committee.
The General Assembly did not want to decide the location of the secretariat at this assembly. In this case it is, according to the constitution, the responsibility of the President to secure that this decision is made at a later time.
Croatia offered to host the next General Assembly in the year 2007. The General Assembly accepted the offer.
Dieter Zelle asked whether there will be international sign language interpreters available at the next general assembly.
The chairman closed the General Assembly thanking everybody for their contributions.
Approved by the elected witnesses:
Charlotta Göller
Stockholm, November 2003
Lex Grandia
Aalborg, November 2003
(2007-03-13)