I would like to thank all of you who voted for me to be the president-elect for the next two years and the next president of AITA/IATA! I know the great responsibility that follows the congress decision. Furthermore, I am aware that I have to also gain, by my actions, the respect and the trust of 50% of our members who made a different choice. My best experiences during the last decades have shown me that amateur theatre people are constructive and creative and loyal, so I am convinced that together we will make this work and all the good plans will become a reality!
I humbly thank you for all the good wishes, congratulations, cards and flowers!
I want to thank from the bottom of my heart my good friend and colleague, Rob Van Genechten for the fair and just election campaign and the promise that our co-operation will continue in mutual good understanding. Also, I wish to express the gratitude of all of us for the efficient, professional and committed work Rob did as a treasurer of AITA/IATA.
In the first Council meeting after the Congress, in Monaco, there was a very good feeling and a lot of energy in the air and the president Paddy O´Dwyer encouraged us to proceed with the future strategic plans. So with his encouragement in mind I am suggesting that the Council of AITA/IATA start the serious analysis of the organization in order to understand, not only all the good we already have in our hands - our strengths and opportunities - but also to identify our weak points and the ‘threats’ to the organisation.
We gathered a lot of material for this work during the break-out groups in Monaco. The leaders of those groups have collated all the information to reflect the common view. The Council members from around the world will also give their expertise about the wishes and thoughts in their own cultural framework. I have a lot of experience of this type of process – if we can gain a deeper analytical understanding of the organization then we can work on the weaknesses and our strategic planning will be more precisely targeted.
In Monaco, the break-out group for Connecting People wanted to create the BRAND of AITA/IATA. The brand should be used everywhere even in visual representation, on letters, posters and AITA/IATA related events – fortunately the web site is under the construction at the moment.
The Council of AITA/IATA will meet in Dublin in the early days of November and this might be the starting point for the strategic planning and development to start!
With warm regards,Merja Laaksovirta
