Annual General Assembly of the PA - November 2009 minutes

Minutes  of the AGM - 18th November 2009

INTRODUCTION and WELCOME ADDRESS
Cindy van Velzen (President of the PA) chaired the meeting of the PA and welcomed everyone to the 2009 AGM. She said how pleased she was to see so many people attending. She hoped that when parents appreciate the advantages that the PA brings to the school community, even more people will attend in the future.

Cindy van Velzen mentioned again that the PA is the voice of the parents within and beyond the school and therefore it is very important that the communication is clear and transparent. In order to represent parents well, the PA needs to know what parents think. The PA has opportunities to do this at the Educational council meetings with school management and teachers and the Administration board meetings with the secretary general of Brussels - Mrs Christmann, and on a more informal basis, at regular Management Meetings.

The members of the PA committee were introduced: Cindy van Velzen, Kevin Barber, Ana Gorey, Anja Buhner, Michel Messmer, Beth Klawun, Sarah Winthrop, Ramil Nasyrow. At this general Assembly, after the Bureau and the committee stand down, the PA is calling for new candidates for the Committee. Cindy hoped that the presentation of the annual report will persuade parents of the importance of the tasks and the good work of the Committee and others associated involved persons, and will stimulate new candidatures or willingness to join one of the working groups. She also stressed the fun and satisfaction brought by the team work of the Committee. She emphasised that parents joining working groups do not have to attend all the monthly committee meetings but rather can engage themselves together with other enthusiastic parents on specific projects/topics, e.g. canteen, events, euroboutique, website, sponsoring etc. She also emphasised that joining a working group is a good approach to get closely involved in the work of the Committee, learn more about what is undertaken without engaging and committing oneself too much.

APPROVAL of the AGENDA
Cindy van Velzen announced some modifications of the previously published agenda, and submitted the new agenda for adoption. The agenda was unanimously adopted.

annex 1 - agenda

APPROVAL of the MINUTES of the PA AGM 2008
Attendees were asked to approve last year’s AGM minutes (printed version made available at the meeting). There was a short discussion about last year’s minutes, the lack of time to read them (short notice and difficulties to remember about the assembly one year later) and that they were only available in German. It was proposed that this year’s minutes be read and approved by 2 PA parents elected to do this on behalf of all PA members, so that the minutes can be approved quickly and translated for all parents.
The 2008 minutes were approved.
Mrs Debjani Basu and Mr Franck Wastin volunteered and were duly elected to read the 2009 minutes and approve them on behalf of all PA members.

annex 2 - Minutes of PA AGM 2008.

Cindy Van Velzen suggested the meeting being held in English. It was reiterated that parents were welcome to speak in their preferred language and if translations were requested they could be done immediately. There was no objection and English was adopted as the main language of this meeting.

ANNUAL REPORT SCHOOL YEAR 2008/2009
The annual report, was presented by Cindy van Velzen.

annex 3(a) - annual report
annex 3(b) - presentation slides

Cindy van Velzen then called upon Mrs Ana Gorey to present an up-date on Interparents.

INTERPARENTS
It was explained that Interparents is very important because it has a seat on the Board of Governors of the European Schools. This board is made up of representatives from all the 27 member states and it decides on all issues concerning the European schools. There are several working groups, such as inspectors, budget, administration, pedagogical, curriculum, baccalaureate etc which report to the Board of Governors. The European School system is a very complex structure and is a real European institution. Interparents allows parents from all the European Schools to exchange views and their experiences and to establish whether parental concerns are localised or appear across all schools. For example, inspectors ask to talk to the PA when they are inspecting a school.
ESK is facing a big challenge this school year 2009/2010 as our school is the deputy of the main teaching committee meeting for all European Schools. In 2010/2011 ESK will be the principal school for this meeting. More than 21,000 students are passing the European Baccalaureate examination each year.

Cindy van Velzen then called upon Mrs Anja Bühner to present a report on After-school activities.

AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

There was a large programme of activities available for students in 2008/2009. Few of the activities were cancelled due to insufficient number of participants. This year, 2009/2010, more activities than last year are offered. E.g, more language clubs are on offer in support to language acquisition.

annex 4 - AA presentation - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5

Cindy van Velzen then called upon Mr Kevin Barber to present the financial report

FINANCIAL REPORT
Kevin reported that the PA financial situation is healthy and the PA is in a financial position allowing the promotion and support of school activities to the benefit of the students. The benefits taken from the sale of the school photos is used by the PA Social to sponsor students on school trips if they cannot otherwise meet the costs. The allocation of funds is done after consultation with the school. He recalled that families concerned must be a member of the PA.
Kevin Barber apologised that the financial figures have not yet been audited. Despite several attempts, he had not been able to contact the auditor who did not answer his messages. He proposed that the financial report is being approved at the meeting subject to confirmation of the auditor. This proposal was carried. After discussion it was established that it was not clear when the auditor would be available to audit the accounts, so it was proposed that a new auditor be elected to carry out the audit as soon as possible.
Mr Bill Scott-Stewart volunteered and introduced himself: He has 3 children in the English section and is an engineer by profession.
Mr Bill Scott-Stewart was nominated as auditor, seconded and duly elected unanimously as auditor for the 2008/2009 PA accounts.

Election of auditor for 209/2010
Mr Bill Scott-Stewart was also nominated, seconded and elected unanimously to act as auditor for the 2009/2010 PA accounts.

annex 5 - financial report presentation

Cindy Van Velzen declared that this ended the statutory part of the PA reports for the AGM.
The full annual report was unanimously accepted.
Mrs van Velzen was thanked formally for all her hard work as president of the PA.

CANTEEN REPORT by Mr Ramil Nasyrow
The canteen serves hot midday meals for all ESK students from Kindergarten to class 7 OS and for school staff.
Mr Ramil Nasyrow has been chairman of the canteen committee for the last 4- 5 years. He resigned from the canteen committee in the summer ’09 but presented the activity report 2008/2009 on behalf of the Canteen Committee, see presentation (annex 6) attached.
The committee comprises 4 PA reps and 3 school reps. Three of the PA reps have currently resigned from the Committee.

annex 6 - canteen committee report

The current situation of the canteen and some issues were discussed:
- Long queues on certain school days are a recurrent problem. It was requested that this is addressed as soon as possible. It was pointed out that the PA is encouraging the composition of a working group to look at all the issues concerning the running of the canteen with the new caterers Scolarest and to come up with some proposals.
- The Canteen committee presently owns capital equipment used for the daily operation of the canteen. It was asked who was responsible for repairs and about the arrangements for replacement of the capital equipment when it is necessary. Mr Nasyrow said that Scolarest puts 5000€ aside every year which is carried forward, to cover repair costs and the Canteen Committee meets the cost of anything above this. No information was given about replacing capital equipment.

There was a query about the election of new canteen members. Ana Gorey opposed the election of new Canteen committee members at this general assembly on the grounds that there were some serious issues still to be resolved by the old committee. Also, the canteen committee’s statutes are unclear about how new members are elected onto the committee and when and how the members of the former Committee (today still in function) have been elected.
In Ana Gorey’s opinion, until all documents of the canteen committee are handed over for inspection to the PA committee, the PA committee are in no position to nominate anyone to represent the PA in the canteen committee. She acknowledged the efforts made today to present the functioning of the committee and its current financial situation. However, there are some points that still need to be clarified. The functioning of the Canteen Committee seems to be still lacking some transparency on its statute and on its working and financial management.
Parents who have expressed a wish to become involved with the canteen issues were advised to form an independent working group, which the PA committee will fully support, that will work together with Scolarest and the school to monitor and make proposals on the day-to-day running of the canteen and its development in the future. The discussion could not be continued due to lack of time.
Nobody from the PA was elected this evening and instead, parents were invited to register in the canteen working group.
Ramil Nasyrow was thanked for all his hard work as president of the Canteen committee.

ELECTION of the COMMITTEE 2009/2010
Mr Bill Scott-Stewart was nominated to preside over the voting of new members. He was seconded and duly elected.

The Board (president, vice-president and treasurer) of the PA committee stand down followed by the other members of the PA committee

The following members were asked and they agreed to continue on the committee for their second year:

Michel Messmer (French section GS)
Madeleine Koch (French section GS)
Sarah Winthrop (English section OS)
Cindy van Velzen (Dutch section/SWALS)
Kevin Baber (treasurer)
Flemming Merrild - transport committee (Mr. Flemming did not attend the assembly but expressed his candidature and wish to continue in forehand)

There was a call for candidates for the Committee. The following candidates presented themselves:

Anja Bühner (for re-election)
Ana Gorey (for re-election)
Letizia Dalle Donne
Barbara Bellosa
Ann Sierig
Barbara Weiner
Jacqueline Ribeiro
Nathalie Beroard-Barth
David Cegretin
Debjani Basu
Christiane Sardain
Hamid Bateni
 

The following parents were duly, unanimously elected on the PA Committee:

Anja Bühner (German section GS)
Ana Gorey (English section OS)
Letizia Dalle Donne (German section GS)
Barbara Bellosa (English section GS)
Ann Sierig (English section GS)
Barbara Weiner (German section OS)
Jacqueline Ribeiro (German section OS)
Nathalie Beroard-Barth (French Section OS)
David Cegretin (French section OS)
Debjani Basu (independent position)
Christiane Sardain (independent position)
Hamid Bateni (independent position)

All the persons above accepted the results of the voting and agreed to sit on the PA Committee.

(special note - an independent position is a position on the committee that is open to anyone irrespective of their language section. They can do any job that needs to be done eg treasurer, and also if necessary, be co-opted as a section rep to the end of the school year if an existing rep has to resign for any reason.) All the available seats in the committee have been filled this year.

Mr Bill Scott-Stewart was thanked for his participation in the election process.

OBJECTIVES 2009/2010
Cindy van Velzen then presented the provisional aims and goals for the PA for 2009/2010. - Language, Lost hours and Ligne Directifs. She reiterated that the PA will continue to strengthen the work towards communication, community and canteen and to build on what was achieved last year. see annex 3 (b) - slide presentation.

annex 7 - aims and objectives 2008-2009 and 2009-2010

School Advisory Council (SAC)
Ana Gorey gave an up-date on the SAC. She reminded everyone that this was a very important group who had the task of establishing a school development plan for ESK which would directly impact budgetary decisions.
There was a comment from the floor observing that although Herr Hoyem had stated at the first meeting that this was an “open” meeting for all this year and that email addresses of parents interested to attend the meetings as observer had been collected, parents have received no information from the school about the next meeting or copies of the minutes from the previous meetings. It was feared that parents lose trust in the management about SAC, as any information about the next meeting scheduled in 7 days, has not been communicated yet. Cindy agreed that the PA would request that parents be informed immediately about the forthcoming SAC meeting.

Canteen and new caterer - Scolarest
Cindy apologised on behalf of Scolarest, as the canteen chef was too unwell to give a presentation up-date on the canteen. However the information will be published on the website as soon as possible.
Cindy reminded all parents that pre-ordering meals was very important to the smooth running of the canteen at meal times. Scolarest have reported that there is concern about the non-payment of meals. Although they assured parents that no student will be refused a hot meal, too many students are regularly turning up without ID cards or with ID cards that have not been credited with money. To date over 1000 meals have been served without payment and Scolarest are working hard to claim back payment from parents. The PA would like to thank Scolarest for their continuing hard work and will remind parents that the situation of free meals for students cannot continue. The school is also looking earnestly for solutions to alleviate the problems of long queues at lunchtime. The proposal of lengthening the school day by 10 minutes has been put aside and alternative solutions within the existing Oberschule timetable will be examined.

Lost hours
Absenteeism in teaching staff is of great concern to many parents. Some parents feel that the school is not seen to be trying to tackle this problem, although it was confirmed by the PA Interparent reps that this was a big issue for all European schools. It was requested that the information about teachers being away from the school for official reasons be distributed earlier so that parents are aware that their children might be affected.

Cindy van Velzen closed the meeting and thanked all for attending, and looked forward to an exciting and positive school year.