A very special XXIII UEF Governing Council Meeting in Poznan Poland 5 Septembre 2020

Tuesday, September 08 , 2020 544

For the first time since the first Congress of UEF in Berlin, in 1965, the annual Governing Council Meeting of the Union of European Foresters was held virtually, using WebEx, due to the Corona virus situation all over the world and Europe.

 

For obvious security reasons, the UEF Presidency and SITLID, the Polish host of this XXIII  GCM, decided to organized our GCM in a virtual way. The security of everybody is a major priority and it would be too much risky to organize it as usually.

The UEF Presidency thanks very much our Polish member, SITLID for the huge work of organization during the last months.

 

The Presidency decided to travel to the forest centre in Puszczykowo, near Poznan, the capital of the Old Poland, to prepare in the best conditions the Governing Council Meeting,  to have direct contacts and to prepare the coming year of work before the UEF Congress in France in June 2021 in Chartres.

 

The 4 of Septembre 2020, the UEF Presidency and our Polish hosts prepared in detail the GCM and organized a test with the registred participants.

Then the Presidency had a long and fruitful Presidency meeting.

 

A tree planting ceremony gave a forest memory of this GCM, not far from the tree planted during the UEF Governing Council Meeting in 2002.

 

In the evening the Presidency members could discover the city centre of Poznan, beautiful historical city of the West part of Poland.

A gala dinner offered by SITLID gave the opportunity to share nice moments with the former Polish vice president of UEF, Piotr Grygier and the other members of the SITLID organization comitee of the GCM, around the SITLID President and former President of UEF, Piotr Paschalis and the UEF Polish vice president Tomasz Markiewicz.

Michael Diemer, UEF President, thanked a lot SITLID for the perfect welcoming and organization.

 

The UEF Governing Council Meeting started early in the Saturday 5 Septembre morning.

13 member organizations representing 11 countries attended the meeting, and after a checking of the legal votes allowed, the GCM could start.

 

The UEF Presidency could report in detail the activities of the year since the last GCM in Switzerland. You'll find the Presidency Powerpoint presentation in the meeting section of our website, "documents" part of the XXIII GCM or using this direct link: http://european-foresters.eu/docs/meetings/gcm/Presidency%20Activity%20Report%20GCM%202020%20%20final.pdf.

 

The budget and the accounts could be presented by our Treasurer Anna Petrakieva and the accounts auditor, Chris Christodoulou, from Cyprus gave his report about the accounts 2020.

The budget and accounts were approved.

 

A project of UEF position paper related to the new European Union forest policy and biodiversity strategy, connected with the Green Deal was discussed in detail and was approved by the GCM, in order to send it all over Europe to give the position of the professional foresters about it. You'll find it in the meeting section of our website, "documents" part of the XXIII GCM page or using this direct link: http://european-foresters.eu/docs/meetings/gcm/UEF%20Position%20Paper%20September%202020.pdf

 

Michael Diemer asked every member organization to translate it in national languages and to spread it in their countries.

Please, feel free to send us your local version in order to publish it too in our website.

 

Michael Diemer, UEF President thanked warmly all the participants of a very nice UEF Governing Council Meeting, in the corona virus background

 

At the end of the GCM, the Polish hosts of this UEF event gave the French representative the UEF flag. This flag will welcome the participants of the UEF XX Congress in June 2021 in Chartres, France.

 

The UEF Presidency

 

Photos: Tomasz Mackowiak