Continuing on the dialogue design we created in 2011 we have expanded it a bit for 2012. During 2012 we will have two gatherings for each region and two general assembly meetings.
In May we held the first series of Regional gatherings, the focus of the regional gatherings was reports and peer-to-peer sharing, Nepal conference preparation, Review of the candidates for the GLT/ Board, and recommendations for the General Assembly in June. Some other highlights were:
• North / South America – This is our smallest region in terms of the number of ICA’s but the perhaps the largest in terms of budget and expansive programs. This has traditionally been driven by the north with US and Canada, their efforts expanded even more this year with programs both domestic and International. What was surprising is the work of our colleagues in South with Peru expanding their work nationally and ICA Chile/ Guatemala working with colleagues from Brazil, Columbia and Bolivia.
• Africa Europe Middle East – The region with the most members but has also had the most difficulty with communication and interchange. The Europe connections are growing with ICA UK joining as an associate member involving six other countries in Africa in their programs. ICA Zimbabwe and OPAD (Zambia) continue their programing with Aids HIV and youth. Kenya as well as working with its own programs is exploring East African collaboration. Our colleagues in West Africa have had more difficulty communicating and collaborating, we are hoping for expansion of our Francophone community with a group of facilitators working with ICA Taiwan emerging in Paris.
• Asia Pacific – The region has continued to maintain a high level of peer to peer collaboration with all of the ICA’spartnering with at least one other country and often with several ICA and Non ICA organizations as they work beyond their borders. Greater China has seen expansion of ToP and community development efforts. New projects initiated by Japan have been going on in Haiti, India, Nepal and Japan itself.
Our June General Assembly is hosted in Canada but electronically we invite all members both associate and statutory plus guests. There will be two General Assemblies in 2012 the first was focused on four areas: Current reality, Nepal conference preparation, the election of new members of the global leadership team/ICAI board, and to begin the dialogue on several strategic areas that we will discuss over the next six months until the General Assembly in Dec 2012.
Current reality – the purpose was to check on participation the governance model which we began in 2010 focused primarily on the increasing access of members through virtual connection using skype, adobe connect and other virtual tools. The other area is the work on peer-topeer which involves every ICA sharing the resources and wisdom with other ICA’s and organizations beyond their own national boundaries. |
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The result of the dialogue was overwhelming support for the new ways although there are still technical difficulties especially for Africa the access is so much more than before. In the peer to peer every ICA except two has benefited and those two are working on ways they can self initiate.
Nepal conference preparation – We discussed recruitment (45 foreign and at least as many local, the virtual conference site is targeted to be up and running on July first with a large group working on each theme.
The election committee received nominations from statutory members for three people and they were reviewed and shared with all members. The election was unanimous and they will join Shankar Jadhav, Isabel Urrutia Delamaza and Gerald Gomani on the Global Leadership Team Nov 1 2012.
• Krishna K. Shrestha - Australia
• Seva Gandhi - USA
• Staci Kentish – Canada
At the suggestion of the election committee, Lawrence Philbrook, will informally relate to the board as President Emeritus for one more year.
Finally we began to discuss strategy, with the shift away from a secretariat form to a board and peer-to-peer structure it is important that we not lose our ability to ask global and regional strategic questions. During the remainder of the year and in preparation for the end of the year General Assembly we proposed three questions:
• What is the world asking the ICA network to be and to contribute over the next 20 years? Beginning to explore the broader question. We have said ICA strategically works in CONTEXTUAL RE-EDUCATION worked toward achieving “new breakthroughs in methodology and curricula in order to allow each individual to respond creatively to the complex demands of our time” STRUCTURAL RE-FORMULATION worked toward assisting “communities and organizations to realize their potential for effective decisionmaking and self-sustained structures in order to overcome apathy and a sense of powerlessness.”
SPIRIT RE-MOTIVATION worked toward releasing the human imagination “from cynicism and despair in order to see the possibilities for significant individual and corporate engagement in human history.”
• Global top structure – How do we explore top development and expansion beyond the local / national structures we have created? What is the quality system and consistency needed?
• What is a new and exciting way to do global conferences- who will take the lead for the next one in 4 years? Should they be regional, virtual or ….? There is another general assembly at the end of the year so the conversation is not over it is just beginning.
Larry Philbrook is an ICAI Global
Leadership Team member and President,
ICAI; Director, ICA Taiwan |
