Updated: Monday, November 01, 2004 03:10 PM

Regional Activities and Expectations of the IOCE Board - 2004

As you will have seen from reports on the Kuala Lumpur and Bonn meetings we are at last moving forward on the IOCE project. We have prepared and begun to circulate publicity material, nearly completed the design of the website, held meetings with potential sponsors, will shortly finalise our legal status by incorporation under Canadian law and begun to refine and specify a workplan. One of the main things the Executive has come to realise is that nearly all the next stage activities of the IOCE launch will require a strong regional focus. It is at the regional level that member associations and networks have their main loyalties – and where they appear to value an IOCE input. It is also at a regional level that we will have to:

• Recruit IOCE members including negotiating a reasonable membership fee
• Gather information relevant to the IOCE website under some standard categories
• Open up discussions with regional sponsors and institutional partners for regional support
• Give and get feedback from members of IOCE – it is no good having a Board member from a region who communicates with no one in their region!
• Identify activities at regional and inter regional levels.