General Assembly 2023: reconnecting & vitalizing the network

All gathered in the main hall. Photo: Angel Matilla

This years General Assembly was very rich and filled with aliveness!
We had a strong attendance from members, many information being shared and of course the “official business” such as voting and elections, but also a more time for reconnecting, sharing, song & movement – having added an extra day.

Council Elections

A total of 42 voting delegates were present in-person and online for the voting & election process. Photo: Angel Matilla

This year Council Member Jake Jay-Lewin has been facilitating a smooth council election having improved the Sociocratic election process as outlined in this document.

As part of this we released Steffen Emrich and Charlie Lenglez for their generous and invaluable service as Council members for the last 3-4 years and by the end of the process we were able to welcome Abdul Otman and Monique Wijn as our new Council members.

Abdul has already been on the Council for one year between 2021 – 2022 until he stepped down last year to make space for his new role as a father, but we were delighted that he decided to put himself again up for election and that he is now back on board!

Monique is the co-founder and board member of the Dutch Ecovillage Network and has been fundamental in the creation of the National Networks while being deeply involved in a variety of projects e.g. Clips.

Staff, Council & Timeline Presentations

As usual, staff was reporting on the engaged work they are doing in their areas (see here), while Armin gave us a detailed financial report. Also the team presented the 4 pillars of the GEN Strategy.

Membership – How to attract new members and keep current ones?

This year, we also took a deeper look at the current Membership Scheme and possible future scenarios for it.
We had some vital conversations and harvested feedback from our members on different proposed scenarios which will now be taken forth to shape an updated version of them.

If you would like to be involved in shaping them further, please get in touch at membership@gen-europe.org

Networking & Deep Sharing

Deep sharing time. Photo: Angel Matilla

This year we had more time to listen and share deeply. As part of these we gave space for GEN Intl. to share about its current situation and the challenges the international umbrella organization is facing at this point while being witness and sensing into how we can support our sister organization in these turbulent times. In the spirit of deep sharing and vulnerability, the still active war(trauma) between Russia and Ukraine was of course also still present in the field. In the last year there has still been so much solidarity and projects within our network and we as GEN EU endeavour to look only at what things unite us: love for the vibrant Earth, care about future generations, and ecotechnology development.

Thank you all so much for your ongoing support and active engagement in the network and we hope you’ll join us next year in Angsbacka, Sweden!
Exact dates will be confirmed soon!