The meeting was called to order by President Duane
Clark at 7:02 pm. He welcomed those
attending.
Secretary’s Report: Doyle Geer moved to accept
the December General Meeting Minutes as published. Seconded by Jack Papritz.
Motion carried.
Membership forms containing the new dues for the year 2004 were distributed.
Treasurer’s
Report: Mark Lijek, Treasurer reported:
Savings Accounts:
Scholarship
Fund - $1740.05
Kisakata
Exchange Fund - $10,091.25
Significant
Events:
We
paid $335. for 500 new Sister City pins which includes the
Croatian
flag.
The
City of Anacortes reimbursed us $444.49 for Town Criers expenses.
The
December dinner showed a net profit of $107.60.
The
exchange students raised another $675.00, which is reflected in the savings
account balance above.
Vice
President’s Report: Don announced that the pins are
$2.00 each and “no charge” for new members.
Sidney
Report: No report
Kisakata: Doyle Geer, chairperson, announced that the Kisakata
student exchange transportation costs have been raised. (see treasurer’s report). Their travel dates are July 30 – August 9.
The golf tournament will be held June
27.
The Sports Auction will be held March
20. All members are encouraged to
attend.
Adult trip to Kisakata is being
arranged and will be announced at a later date.
A Kisakata group is expected March
17th.
Anne Martin McCool was happy that the
principal of the Kisakata Elementary School, Mikihiko Sato, visited the McCool
Gallery.
Lomonosov:
Ralph
Frey reviewed the various problems in Lomonosov. (see attachment for full report).
Croatia:
Nikki Lovric, chairperson, reported that the
first meeting of the Croatian Committee was held. Members are: John Lovric,
Don Lapworth, Duane Clark, and Doug McNett.
Student Exchange: There will be three students, 2 boys and a
girl, who will be visiting Anacortes the first week in July 2004. They will stay for about 25 days. Nikki is awaiting bio’s from each student
before homestays can be arranged. She
has arranged a tour of the Anacortes High School with Marsha Thompson. She also wants to arrange to show the
students where people within our ASCA & Croatian organizations work. Joyce Lapworth is arranging activities for
the ASCA to do with the students.
Kumpanija Visit, 2005: Still in the works:
A.
We
are awaiting a reply from Ivan Mirosevic who says that the Ministry of Culture
of the Republic of Croatia will sponsor their trip here. However, we do not know exactly what
“sponsor” means.
B.
They
would like to perform several shows and Nikki is working on getting a few
communities interested.
C.
They
would like to bring 40 performers.
Dinner ASCA & ACCA thank you – January 10,
2004: ASCA is hosting a dinner to
thank the Croatian Club for their efforts in helping make Vela Luka a Sister
City.
Doyle
suggested that we plan at least one dinner with ASCA and the Kumpanija
group. He also suggested that in
addition to the Anacortes Arts Festival, arrangements may be made for them to
perform at the Vancouver, BC Arts Festival and, of course, Brodniak Hall as
well as other performances.
Harold
Staab reported that the January 1, NEW YEARS PARTY at the Croatian Club was a
wonderful experience.
Hospitality: David requested volunteers for the clean-up
committee for our dinner events, and, especially a chairperson for the clean-up
committee. Renate Staab volunteered to be chairperson.
Duane presented the little white bear – a
gift sent by National Geographic for Lomonosov and indicated that we don’t know
why it was sent. Maria said that
perhaps it was because she subscribed to National Geographic for the Lomonosov
Library. Doyle moved that the bear go
to the Cap Sante Retirement Center to join about 400 other bears. Seconded by John. Passed.
Ways
and Means: Renate needs storage space
for items donated for the next garage sale.
If you have space in your garage, please give her a call, 293-9218.
Program:
Don reported on the Vela Luka trip that he
and Joyce took.
He reported that the Sister Cities
International had received $50,000. from the US govt. to distribute for
sustainable development in a Balkan country. We propose to request $5000.00 to
be put in the bank in Vela Luka and earmarked to purchase a 2 man Rowing Scull
for the Rowing Club of Vela Luka (ages 17-25 yrs.), if granted.
John Lovric reported that the Vela
Luka, Croatia/Anacortes Sister Cities Asso. relationship has received broad
e-mail distribution.
The Adult September trip to Croatia was discussed and an “interest in going” form sent around. It is anticipated that 35 people will be the limit. If you are interested in going, please call Don Lapworth, ph: 293-2439.
The
meeting was adjourned at 8:25 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Jo
Fuqua
Attachment:
Spring 2004 Newsletter
Lomonosov Committee
It
seems life has little surprises to make our journey interesting. This is certainly the case for our
relationship with Lomonosov Russia in 2004.
A
little history is needed to understand the current situation. In November of 2003 St. Petersburg elected a
new Governor General. In the Russian
system St. Petersburg is the governing office for a large land area in and
around St. Petersburg headed by the Governor General. The system is governed/directed by the Governor General and a
Council. As an analogy think of the
Governor General of St. Petersburg as the Governor of the State of Washington. The exception is the Governor General has a
great deal more personal power, in some circles the Governor General is called
the Czar of St. Petersburg, than the
Governor of the state of Washington.
The Governor General appoints the Heads of Administration, mayors in our
system, for all of the surrounding communities and controls not only the
funding but how the elections are run.
Upon
taking office the new Governor General made several changes which directly
affect our Lomonosov Sister City relationship.
First Lomonosov will no longer be a free standing city. This means they will not have a Head of
Administration and his staff or the generally elected council from
Lomonosov. In its place Lomonosov will
be combined with Peterhof as one unit with one Head of Administration and one
set of service directors.
It
is not clear at the moment where or how many of the Lomonosov governmental
people/offices will go or in fact if they will have a job! Governmental polices have started to change
and several of these modifications have already effected our situation. For example the office which deals with
Letters of Invitations/Passport control has been closed and no one knows where
they have moved. [Irving August the
president of FLAME and I were asked to
attend the tenth anniversary of Kalinka in December but Marina Akhromova was not
able to get Irving a Letter of Invitation because of this situation. Irving did attend but all of the work for
the Letter of Invitation was done from this end not in Lomonosov.] The Lomonosov School System is no longer
able to issue student Letters of Invitations for incoming students and has
become subservient to the Peterhof School System! These are but a few examples as there are many more!
Where are we at the moment? Firstly our relationship has been with Lomonosov and not Peterhof. Without a governmental body in Lomonosov our Sister City Agreement is null and void. What is Peterhof’s position with respect to a Sister City relationship? The situation is completely unknown at the moment although a community near Framingham has been trying to establish a relationship without success for over a year. Peterhof is presently going through some people and policy changes resulting from the election. If you lookup in the Sister Cities International membership directory Peterhof has no relationships with this organization. This in no way means they many not have other relationships with other cities in different organizations. Having the Great Palace of Russia inside their city offers them a position very unlike Lomonosov not to mention a population of well over 100,000 compared to Lomonosov’s less than 40,000.
This
situation posses several interesting possibilities! First, should we make
a proposal to Peterhof to become a Sister City International member? If this is the case we need to determine if
Peterhof is interested and if Kalinka is interested! Should we want to do this who and when will this be
accomplished? Marina Akhromova is
ambivalent at the moment about this because it means her Kalinka organization
will require a great deal of changing and the added commitment to address these
issues. As you will recall Marina has
just lost her husband and she seems a bit disorganized currently. At the moment I have no idea if Kalinka
could take on the responsibility for representing the combined cities. This is a much larger and more complex task
which would require a great deal of time and effort on Kalinka’s part. Second, we currently are co holders of
Lomonosov as a Sister City with FLAME and I think we need to continue this
arrangement. It is gong to take a great
deal of time, travel and money to establish these new relationships. Third,
what is our action path? We need to
make some decisions. For the moment
both Framingham and Anacortes are going to sit back and see what the Russians
political process works out. Fourth, At
this point in time the situation has not completely changed the Possible
Projects listing but this may well not be the situation for long. In order to stay on track to complete our
promised works we are monitoring the situation for each project and will modify
our actions as needed.
All
of this sounds very depressing, and it is, but we still have all of the
personal relationships which we have made over the years that are not affected
by all of these governmental changes.
We need to demonstrate to these Russian friends our continued commitment
by writing to them and keeping in touch.
I would ask all of you to pass along any information you learn about
these situations so we can develop a composite picture of the situation.
As
history tells us the Russian governments come and go but the people remain the
same through it all. Now is the time
for us to do the unimaginable and let the Russians work out the solutions to
these situations without interference from the westerns.
Ralph
Frey
Chairman
Lomonosov
Committee
Anacortes
Sister City Association
January
14, 2004