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International Committee Meeting

Whilst I am not a member of the International Committee, I do attend the meetings as an observer, to get a closer understanding of what is going on in MGI. The International Committee meeting in Luxembourg, before the European area meeting, was rather slow going. The morning was taken up by a ‘One page business planning’ session, ran by Grant Field from Australia. This was trying to help identify the strategic priorities for MGI going forward, and we will have to wait and see what activity this leads to for the International and Managing committees.

Beyond that, the most useful discussion was a recognition of how unwieldy the committee has become, with multiple representatives for some regions. It was suggested that multiple representatives become single representatives with multiple votes in future, to try to make the committee more effective.

There was a summary of marketing activities and website changes that Patricia Fullalove has worked on, along with administration matters such as outstanding subscriptions. On that point, the committee felt that members who do not pay their 2009/10 international subscriptions by 1 October 2009 should be excluded from membership going forward.

On a more positive note, a number of potential new members were discussed and details of successful new membership applications will be circulated in due course. To help make joining the association financially easier for new members, the international committee meeting agreed to follow the UK and Ireland example of offering a 50 per cent reduction in annual subscriptions for at least a year for new members, depending on when in the financial year they joined.

Paul Winder