Greetings from The President

I am writing with great pleasure to announce to you all that the AITA/IATA Secretariat in Oslo is now open for business

I want to introduce you to your new secretary Mrs. Christin Sund who is working part time and without salary to support our organization. Mrs. Sund is supported by Mr. Svein J. Svensson, The President of Norwegian Theatre Council. My fellow Board and Council members and all of AITA/IATA are extremely grateful to them and to Oslo for their generous offer and for the diligent way that they have managed the hand over from Tallinn office which is now closed.

This hand over has taken rather longer than we had anticipated due to technical difficulties in moving the email address and web sites from one host to another but as you can see all is now resolved and AITA/IATA Oslo is open for business.  Because this is part-time work, the secretariat may not be able to respond immediately but you will get a response as quickly as possible.

Below are the key issues that emerged from the first meeting of the new Council of AITA/IATA in Tromso on 20 July 2011.

There were many working groups and committees appointed to develop the work based on the vision statement of the President which had been approved by the General Assembly.

• Culture & Education Fund will be chaired by the treasurer, Mr. Tom De Rooij and other members are Spanish-speaking secretary, Mr. Guillermo Rodoni and NEATA representative, Mr. Steinar Arnesen.
• Solidarity Fund, which is based on the Norwegian grant and so it was decided that the chair of the committee will be the Chair of the Norwegian Theatre Council, which at the moment is Mr. Svein J. Svensson. The other members are treasurer, Mr. Tom De Rooij and Mr. Oscar Rekovski, SARA representative.
• Helle Hauger is leading the Standing Committee for Children and Youth with assistance from Mrs. Ines Skuflic Horvat, Mr. Josef Hollos, Mr.Carlos Cremata Malberti, Mr. L. Ali Lucky, Mr. Bernd Ruping, Mr. Ron Dodson and Mr. Frank Katoola.
• The next Congress and Festival 2013 will be in Monaco and the Joint Committee for Monaco was appointed. From AITA/IATA: Mrs. Merja Laaksovirta, President of AITA/IATA, Mr. Jacques Lemaire, President of CIFTA and Council members Mrs. Kathleen Maldonado, NARA representative and Mr. Josef Hollos, President of CEC.
• Vice-President, Mr. Roger Ellis was appointed to lead the Working Group for Communication with all language secretaries by his side.
• The Working Group for re-evaluating membership fees and associates´ subscriptions will be examined by Mr. Tom De Rooij and Mr. Jacques Lemaire.
• All Regional Council members will evaluate their own regions and give their views and suggestions to Mr. Jacques Lemaire who will recommend how to increase the number of AITA/IATA members.

 Additional Council meeting in Norway

• The AITA/IATA Council had an additional Council meeting with former Presidents and psychological expertise present, because of the tragic events in Oslo. The festival organizers took good care of all the participants and the Council supported their efforts. 

 AITA/IATA office move to Oslo

Due to the very difficult financial situation, AITA/IATA as an organization had to look for other options to run the office. The years in Tallinn were fruitful, especially economically because of the low costs of the secretariat. The introduction of the Euro changed this and put our costs on a more European level. The loss of one important part of our income forced us to cut our secretarial services in half and the situation from the point of view of a member of AITA/IATA changed. We took up happily the offer of assistance from Norway.

The new office will use the same email address as before – secretariat@aitaita.org - and the new mail address and phone number are:

c/o Norsk teaterrad
Postbox 1129 Sentrum
0104 Oslo
Norway

Visiting address:
Tollbugaten 17,
Oslo (close to Karl Johansgate – the main street).

Tel + 47 24141100 (officeour 1000 – 1400 local time)
Mobile numbers:
+47 926 38 527 (Christin
+47 900 76 027 (Svein)

I wish to thank Mrs. Ene Jurna from the bottom of my heart for her dedicated work and commitment to our association. And I also wish her the very best in her new job in the field of culture!

Other news

Berlin

As the new President I had a chance to visit in Berlin as the guest of BDAT (Bund Deutscher Amateur Theater).

Our discussions underlined the importance of global cooperation and cultural exchange. I had the pleasure of meeting all staff of BDAT, the President of Verband Berliner Amateurbuhnen, Mr. Jurgen Jacob, also the director of International Theatre Institute in Germany, Dr. Thomas Engel. These meetings and discussions also promoted the BDAT initiative “Theatre in development” of which we will hear more in future.

The office rooms of the BDAT are wonderful and in the middle of Berlin. The main issue – to find a good place for AITA/IATA archives - were also part of our discussions. The archives are currently located in Holland, in the Kunstfactor cellar shelves ( for which we are grateful, of course) and some are in Oslo. In order to be useful for future researchers the archives should be available. The opportunity to situate them in the middle of Europe is fascinating and I am eagerly waiting for the removal of archives to Berlin !

The next EB and Council meeting in France

We hold our first Board and Council meeting of 2012 in Nancy in early March, at the generous invitation of the President of FNCTA, Mr. Patrick Schoenstein and Mr. Jacques Lemaire , the President of CIFTA and French-speaking Secretary. We are all looking forward to some hard work but to also to the performances at the Humour en Poche national festival!

With warmest regards,

Merja Laaksovirta