Minutes of the CEC Board meeting Prague, 22.–23. November 2011

Minutes of the CEC Board meeting
Prague, 22.–23. November 2011
Present: Josef Hollos, President
Lenka Laznovska, Vice President
Franz Josef Witting, Treasurer
Matjaz Šmalc, Artistic Coordinator
Katerina Dolezalova, General Secretary
Guest: Norbert Radermacher
1. Opening
Josef Hollos welcomed the members of the newly elected board. New members are: Franz Josef
Witting (Treasurer), Matjaz Smalc (Artistic Coordinator) and Katerina Dolezalova (General Secretary).
Thanks went to NIPOS for their organisation and to Norbert Rademacher for helping to move the CEC
Secretariat from Lingen to Prague.
2. Additions to the agenda
Matjaz Smalc proposed: to clarify the rules for the next election – who could stand, when would they
take place and how could people apply for a position on the CEC Board.
3. Review CEC and AITA/IATA General Assembly in Tromsø (July 16, 2011)
Elections: a review of the non-present electors:
- Slovakia: regarding the unfortunate financial situation the Slovak national centre wasn´t able
to pay the annual fee = NO VOTES for Slovakia
- Hungary: voted via proxy: Czech Republic
- Austria: voted via proxy: Switzerland/Südtirol
- Croatia: came late, voted via proxy: Russia
- Macedonia: voted via proxy: Belgium
The Minutes of the CEC General Assembly in Tromsø (July 16, 2011) were approved.
4. CEC Board Elections (added item)
Position of the “CEC representative”
- The position of the CEC representative on the AITA/IATA Council was unclear. To avoid
confusion the position must be made clear. There was considerable discussion on the issue
which ranged from does the CEC representative on the Council have to be a CEC board
member or can they sit outside the board? Do they have the right to vote and to be elected?
What form should the election take? Who makes the decision? To how many board members
should there be? After the discussion the CEC Board accepted the following:
There should be a change to the CEC statutes: the person who is the CEC President
embodies the CEC representative who sits on the AITA/IATA Council. But it is possible for
any other person on the CEC board to become the CEC representative: if the CEC President
wishes they may give the mandate of CEC Representative on the AITA/IATA Council to any
other person on the CEC board.
Number of people in the CEC Board
- The board will consist of five people (ie. the current number of CEC Board members). Five
people are necessary for decision making. There are five necessary functions and each
person will be elected to one of the five functions.

- Each board member can have only one position/function (President, Vice President,
Treasurer, Artistic Coordinator, General Secretary).
Election Rules
- Any person can stand for only one position/function.
- Josef Hollos draw up a list of questions about the elections and send it to board members
and all CEC members for them to comment on.
5. Status of CEC as legal body/ association – next steps
CEC has got permission from AITA/IATA to become a legal body.
- There was discussion about where CEC should be registered as a legal body? Belgium was
proposed because the law is most free for NGOs.
- Registration was needed for several reasons – for negotiations, responsibility, liability,
financing (account, fund seeking, etc.)
- Official language: English and German
- Help was needed to establish CEC’s legal status if it was registered: if a lawyer is available
hopefully a friend/colleague, who can advise for free, that would be most welcome.
- The content of the official status was discussed: it was agreed that “less is more” and that
the text of the status should be really open to motivate people to join and not discourage
them [from joining.
The board will work on the establishment of the CEC legal basis.
Finances
- CEC Board has accepted Josef Hollos´ proposal to move CEC funds from the private account
of Norbert Radermacher (who is no longer a board member ) to the private account of Franz
Josef Witting (since November 2011):
Franz Josef Witting
Volksbank Paderborn, Höxter
Detmold e.G.
Bankleitzahl (BLZ) 47260121
account:
9503513300
IBAN: DE 56 4726 0121 9503 5133 00
BIC: DGPBDE3MXXX
- It was agreed that as soon as the CEC becomes a legal body, a new account in Germany will
be opened.
6. Status of the European Theatre House in Lingen/Office in Prague
- The former arrangements with the Europäisches Theaterhaus Lingen (ETH) are no longer
working. Due to several changes in the town of Lingen new arrangements need to be
established. Josef Hollos as well as Norbert Radermacher attended several negotiations in
Lingen to resolve this issue.
- The following organizations were asked to join the ETH:
- county (Niedersachsen)
- town (City of Lingen)
- Theaterpädagogische Hochschule Lingen
- Emsländische-Landschaft/TPZ
- BDAT
- EDERED
- AITA/IATA
- IDEA Europe

- A problem was raised: Norbert Rademacher and Josef Hollos noted that AITA/IATA, not CEC
had been asked to join ETH. This misunderstanding had to be resolved between AITA/IATA
and CEC, not CEC and Lingen. Josef Hollos will be in communication with Merja Laaksovirta,
AITA/IATA President and will make it clear that CEC had the ability to deal with Lingen and
that preferably they should give a written mandate to CEC. Once CEC becomes a legal body,
the situation will be easier.
- BDAT: Board meeting December, 17th: Norbert Radermacher will push the BDAT Board to
accept the idea of the World Festival of Children’s Theatre in Lingen and ETH as its organizer.
Without the acceptance of BDAT as the National Centre of Germany, there is little chance of
a World Festival being organized under the umbrella of AITA/IATA.
- Cooperation between ETH and CEC:
- Norbert Radermacher hoped that it would be a long-term cooperation
- What can ETH do – proposals:
- Send information about events, festivals, educational activities directly to the
CEC members
- Communicate with the other AITA/IATA world members (especially CIFTA,
NEATA) about specific tasks (agreed with CEC Secretariat; for example CEC
Festival)
- Organise an annual theatre conference in May in Lingen; if there is a will to do
so and if there is a possibility to continue this tradition.
- Organise the Festival of Children’s Theatre
- If there is any power in Lingen to do projects such as the World Festival of Children’s Theatre
or conferences, it would be short-sighted of CEC not to t take the chance to do so.
- It was agreed that any news will be communicated via e-mail, as well as the result of the
BDAT Board Meeting in December 2011. In the meantime the board will work on the
establishment of the legal basis of CEC. CEC is able to represent AITA/IATA.
7. Future plans, communication
Communication: New possibilities? What do we want to publish and what can we publish?
There are two ways of communication, and two groups of interest:
1. Vertical communication: CEC to national centers, members
- Means: website (to be updated more often), e-Newsletter of AITA/IATA, news from the CEC
region, e-mails
- Advantage: AITA/IATA newsletter already exists
- Disadvantage: needs more time and a webmaster to sort the information
- Solution: NIPOS´s IT department can do the job of the webmaster (consulted with head of
the department, Mr. Petr Machacek) and during December the time/costs will be estimated.
As soon as possible Norbert Radermacher and Katerina Dolezalova will communicate with
Frank Engel, the former CEC webmaster, to get the information and approval for working
with the CEC website.
- Website: will publish links to interesting events, short texts/newsletter: on the website/via
newsletter
2. Horizontal communication: theatre groups and members among themselves
- Means: facebook and other social networks
- Advantage: doesn´t have to be managed, only push people to publish their contributions and
share. Solution: it´s important to start: invite people, popularize our groups and activity.
Facebook is “harmless” – if you step out, it doesn´t matter. That is manageable. Manager:
Matjaz Smalc in cooperation with Katerina Dolezalova.

Promoting other activities
- Yes, CEC wants to promote these activities, but they need to be identified?. This could be
done by the webmaster (Mr. Machacek, CZ?) in cooperation with the Board /Matjaz Smalc.
- Information about different events needs to be filtered so that Quality/Interesting national
and international ones are put on the website and others (regional, local) are published via
facebook.
Join people together
- CEC has the advantage, that unlike other European networks (e.g. AMATEO) it has its own
specific area of work (theatre) which is not too wide. It works with specific groups and
people.
- CEC can work as a “netbridge” to direct communication or channel it between groups
directly without help from anyone else. How? By putting all the addresses together.
8. Festivals of AITA/IATA – ideas, future
- World Theatre Festival Monaco 2013: Josef Hollos is a member of the joint committee
together with 4 representatives from other AITA/IATA regions
- Australian Children’s Festival 2012 in Sydney cancelled
- Youth festival Estonia cancelled
- World Festival of Performing Arts for Children (PAT) in Toyama Japan (30 July to 5 August
2012) will take place as planned.
Ideas:
- Josef Hollos: perhaps in 2 years there will be a World children theatre Festival in Vienna
- Matjaz Smalc: inspiration: theatre festivals at the border of two countries:
- Children international festival in Graz – Maribor (grant: INTERREG)
- Bad Radkersburg/Radgona (1 week at the beginning of summer; in former times there was a
huge festival which took place on a bridge between the two countries)
Shakespeare festivals in GB: 2 festivals: 1. Shakespeare Royal Society: groups from GB
invited, which do something about Shakespeare; 2. World Shakespeare festival (professional
and amateur theatre groups across GB), for 2012 already settled
- EDERED 2012 Turkey – workshop for youth; information will come soon via e-mail
- Turkey: theatre group of housewives – big thing: the women can leave the house and get
free
9. Artistic Development Committee
Recommendations:
name country
Nomination of
National Centre
Iva Peter-Dragan Croatia Croatia
Kevin Dowsett Great Britain Great Britain
Stephan Schnell Germany Germany
Roman Cernik
Czech
Republic
Czech Republic
Joke Elbers Netherlands Ireland
Decision: the future Artistic Development Committee (ADC) will consist of:
- Matjaz Smalc – Artistic Coordinator
- Iva Peter-Dragan – member
- Kevin Dowsett – member

- Stephan Schnell – member
- Roman Cernik – member
-Joke Elebers – independent expert
Mrs. Joke Elbers will cooperate with the ADC as the independent expert. The board hopes
that the cooperation will continue.
- Meetings: 1x, maximum 2 times per year, online session possible.
Themes of the next ADC meeting:
- TIP: how should the organization of TIP work and who will be responsible for it? Issue of the
ADC. By the end of January at the latest it will be known where the next TIP will take place..
- Training courses – Theatre Master classes: check, inform and support such activities. There
will be many participants who are interested. People are able to pay a lot of money for a
master class.
- Other festivals/activities: Stephan Schnell – organising an International Children’s theatre
camp
- How should be the Criteria of the theatre festivals? Pass the information.
10. Reports of the Board Members
Matjaz Smalc:
- travelling to GB (project „Round and round“, 3rd edition; for young directors, short
performance on a theme + workshop afterwards) will refer about CEC issues
- In November it is the end of the festival of theatre of former Yugoslavia Countries
Lenka Laznovska:
- Slovak National Centre has grave problems with covering the fee for AITA/IATA and CEC.
Josef Hollos is invited in January to Slovakia to convince the politicians to support their
activities.
- Festival in Martin (Slovakia) - next year the 90 th edition, could become also a CEC festival, if
the support is provided. The general problem is the lack of money. The political leaders have
stopped all the support of international activities.
11. CEC Festival 2012 and CEC General Assembly 2012
- Josef Hollos informed, that the next CEC general Assembly should take place in Belgium, 1 st
half of July 2012
12. Any other business
- Agenda and Minutes of CEC Board: after discussion it was agreed that these should be
communicated among the Board members as well as the CEC Members.
Prague, November 2011
Minutes: Katerina Dolezalova
Authorized: Josef Hollos
Translation to German: Josef Hollos
English corrections: Anne Gilmour