GEN Europe’s General Assembly 2026
Report written by Franziska Reißig (Membership manager GEN EU)
Overview
The 2026 General Assembly of GEN Europe brought together representatives of GEN Europe members for three days of reconnection, learning, as well as formal decision-making. The event combined community-building, thematic workshops, and the network’s official annual business.
Community Building & Networking (Friday, 10 July)
The Assembly opened with a morning dedicated to reconnection and community building. The two sessions were held with a lot of humour and heart by our two council members Guillaume Gouarraze and Ronja Tammenpää. In the afternoon, a Networking & Sharing Market brought together GEN Europe’s partner organisations, including Les Passages, ECOLISE, YTS, the National Network Working Group of GEN EU, Gaia Education, ECON, GEN Regions & GEN International. Giving the possibility to connect with our partner networks and initiatives.
The afternoon included a Staff & Council presentation to members, including a creative sketch by our council team. They were also announcing that Neus Valls Izard, will unfortunately by personal choice leave the council early. Annika Alex from our staff team, presented in the most innovative way possible the annual finance report. After this session we entered into open spaces – inviting for a Q&A with staff and council and NextGEN Europe.
The day closed with the “Yes to Sustainability” evening activity, celebrating 10 years of the initiative.
Vision, Purpose & Learning (Saturday, 11th July)
Saturday morning was dedicated to a guided discussion on GEN Europe’s new vision and purpose, held by the council member Anne Bretschneider and the general coordinator Manja Vrenko. Using the methodology of the Fishbowl, member representatives were able to express and discuss the new vision & purpose statement. The facilitation team summarised four threads from the fishbowl to carry forward:
- What responsibility the network wants to take regarding dismantling systems of oppression
- The relationship between spirituality, activism, and ecovillage culture
- How to approach the more-than-human world
- The need for shared understanding/terminology on systems of oppression (a webinar was suggested)
Cristine’s follow-up workshop series during the Gathering invited members to shape a guiding question to work on together; the harvest from this feeds back to the Council as a contribution to co-creating GEN Europe’s direction.
A separate informal thread emerged around generational change within communities, with interest in a possible follow-up meeting/team on this topic.
In order to integrate the feedback shared by members during this session, we invite all of you to join different online sessions, continuing the discussion. Stay tuned!
The afternoon was held by Céline Lebrun-Shaat and Aliz Pocsuvalszki from a partner network ECON introducing members to the topic of “Transformative Organizing“.
The intention of this session was to offer a complementary pathway to engage politically with the world outside of ecovillages and respond pro-actively to the challenges communities might face. Topics included for example leadership, Organizing Practices, Campaigning, Story-telling and practical examples, interwoven in a participatory, interactive practice. You can check out the Transformative Organizing presentation for GEN Europe here.
Official General Assembly (Sunday, 12th July)
The formal part of the Assembly addressed the network’s core annual business:
Attendance: 43 paying full members in total; 36 present at the Assembly, with 80+ participants overall at the gathering.
We celebrate the approval of three new full ecovillage members this year! Get to know them:
Member Feedback on the Gathering Format (Sunday, 12th July)
Right after the usual business session, a dedicated fishbowl session invited members to reflect on how the annual Gathering is serving the network. Recurring themes included:
Looking Ahead
The Assembly’s last afternoon started with a presentation from the newly launched International Ecovillage Research Institute. Presented by Anne-Kathrin Schwab, Taisa Mattos, Daniel Greenberg, Ana Margarida Esteves and Declan Kennedy. This session bridged into open spaces on various ecovillage topics, brought for by ecovillagers. After that Terra Rosa presented themselves as our host for the 2027 Gathering. The decision was later revoked by the community.
GA 2026 – All photos taken by Aleksandra Stompel
