Maggie: FAWCO Conference Rome

FAWCO conference Rome

Months later, this is a report about FAWCO's 42nd biennial conference, held in Rome from March 25 to 28.  Details about conference sessions and parallel meetings are on the FAWCO website.

Day One, Wednesday, started with an introduction of "Buddies," a system to match first-time attendees with old-timers, and an orientation meeting.  I had two buddies this year, one from AWC Malmö and one from Munich IWC.  Then we all moved to the conference hall for the first session of the Annual General Meeting.

As usual, AWG-LR, the small but mighty club from the south of France, was very much in evidence at the conference, and there were photos of AWG-LR activities in several of the slide and powerpoint presentations.  Four other members had registered for some of the sessions (PeggyRig, SusanRey, SueRich and RobynP), but unfortunately Peggy had to return home early.  Her name was cited as one of the three ladies registered for the conference who had also attended the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.  (Becky Tan and Donna Sebti are the others.)  This year 42 clubs from 22 countries were represented at the conference, with AWC Mumbai attending for the first time ever.  All 7 clubs from Region 5 were represented.  IWC Munich had the highest number of full conference participants (8), and AWC Amsterdam, AWC Bern, AAWE Paris, and AWC The Hague had 7 full conference participants each.  All 7 founding member clubs were represented (Antwerp, Berlin, The Hague, London, Paris, Vienna, and Zurich.  So much for the statistics.  You won't be tested on this.  

There were also a lot of 1st time attendees at the conference, and one of them was also the youngest participant, the daughter of the president of AWC Lagos.  AWG-LR was conveniently (in my opinion) seated between AWC Lagos and AWC Mumbai, which are the two clubs we asked to co-sponsor a FAWCO Development Grant with us next year, so it was perfect for photo ops.

FAWCO currently has 65 clubs in 34 countries, which is down from previous years.  The newest member club is AWG Oakville, Ontario, and membership of AWC Toronto is pending.   Members of all clubs are requested to reach out to other American clubs who might be interested in joining FAWCO.  There is a club in Seville, and Spain is now part of "our" Region 3, so Membership Chair Elizabeth Abbot's parting shot as she left the stage following her presentation (on Day Two), was, "I'll leave it to you, Maggie, to get them to join." 

This was the 20th year for the FAWCO Friendship Quilt, the theme of which was 'Backing Women,' and once again Roberta Zollner from IWC Munich stitched together all the 109 squares which had been contributed by 38 members from 22 clubs and FAUSA and Free the Girls.  Roberta was presented with a Backing Women pashmina shawl as a token of appreciation for all her efforts.  (The raffle for the quilt was held on the last day of the conference, and the lucky winner was Lee Sorenson, who remarked that she was president of FAWCO the year the first quilt was introduced, and has been buying raffle tickets ever since, so was thrilled to finally win.)

Sallie Chaballier, from Paris and FAWCO 1st VP

The three- or four-year Target programs address the UN Millenium Goals.  The first was water, the current project is women's rights.  The next Target will be education.  FAWCO is also trying to engage the next generation.  There are currently three programs: Youth Cultural Volunteers, UN Youth Representative, and Youth Ambassador.

Michele Bond, US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, was the keynote speaker for the first conference session.  It was not her first FAWCO conference; she was also in The Hague in 2004.  She has lived in the Kingdom of Lesotho and mentioned that although it is one of the poorest countries in the world, the female literacy rate there is 95%.  She thanked us for the work we do for American women abroad.  (personal note:  I spoke to her after the session because her son had just arrived in Indonesia as a Peace Corps volunteer.  I also was a PC volunteer, and have lived in Indonesia.)

Maggie with Michele Bond,

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Miscellaneous notes from the Wednesday afternoon sessions:

There is information on the internet about caring for loved ones from abroad.  Google "eldercare."

There are some UN Women videos on YouTube about empowering women.

Re tax and banking/ FATCA:  "A woman should not have to choose between her country and her husband."

If you have received a letter (or can get one) from your bank in the US that states, "We can no longer provide this service because you do not reside in the US," please send a copy to Lucy Laederich.

Re voting:  SILENCE =  CONSENT, so  VOTE!

Re Overseas Americans Week:  There are 7.6 million Americans living and/or working abroad.  If that figure represented the population of a State, it would be the 13th largest.  It is the same as the population of Greater Boston.

If your congressperson is not already a member of the Americans Abroad Caucus, please send him or her a letter (preferably hand-written) asking him or her to join.

The sessions finished at 5:30pm to leave time for a Finance Committee Opening Meeting before departure from the hotel by buses for the Opening Dinner at the Residenza di Ripetta, where we were entertained by a trumpet fanfare, and a dramatic interlude by the Goddesses of Empowerment (from the host club, AWA Rome).

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Day Two, Thursday, started with a breakfast meeting organized by The FAWCO Foundation to provide a Development Grant writing workshop.  We realized that the dining room was too noisy for a meeting, so we breakfasted quickly and moved to a sitting area where we could hear and be heard.  There were plenty of questions, and plenty of suggestions (and corrections).  Then we moved to the main conference room for the second session of the AGM,

Any member of a club can nominate a FAWCO Rep for an Appreciation Award if she feels the Rep has done a good job of bringing FAWCO to the club.  This year's Rep Appreciation Awards went to Leslie Collingridge from AWC Chilterns, Amanda Dollinger from AWC Central Scotland, Kristen Haanes from AWC Oslo, Therese Hartwell from AW of the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia, and Hope Moore from Munich IWC.  This year, because of her exceptional service to FAWCO, Sara Von Moos from AWC Bern was honored with the Caroline Curtis Brown Service Award.  Sara recently returned to the US, and was not able to attend the conference.

Janet Darrow gave the FAUSA report, with a powerpoint presentation that caught everyone's attention.  When ex-pats relocate and return to the US, they sometimes have pets who are also uprooted and transported to new soil.  The photos were of some of these pets, and how they are coping.  There is even going to be a pet section on the new FAUSA website.  Although pets cannot yet become members of FAUSA, men and couples can now join.  FAUSA dues are $25 per year, or $40 for a couple, and a five-year membership at $100 has recently been introduced, as well as a gift membership.  The next FAUSA Getaway will be from October 1st to 4th in Ontario-on-the-Lake, Canada.

The FAWCO Foundation report by outgoing President Michele Hendrikse-Du Bois (which, just for the record, she pronounces Du Boys) was also a joy for me to watch.  I saw FOUR photos of AWG-LR fundraising or charitable activities, showing our Celtic Ceilidh for Free the Girls, our Heart Pillows for cancer victims, and our Thanksgiving raffle, which enabled us to contribute to the Disaster Relief Fund for victims of Ebola in Liberia.

Linda Douglass, wife of the US Ambassador to Italy and Honorary President of the conference host club AWA Rome was the keynote speaker for the second session.  Her talk addressed ending gender-based violence.

There were three parallel meetings after the general session on Thursday morning - one for current and in-coming club Presidents, one for FAWCO Reps (which was also open to anyone interested), and one for club members.  Italo-American Dr. Darius Arya, whom all the ladies who had taken the pre-conference tour were still drooling about, gave a presentation entitled Excavating Ancient Sites: why should we care?  As a Rep, I attended Sallie Chaballier’s talk on the “WIIFM” Factor (What’s In It For Me? – what FAWCO offers the club).  We divided into groups so we could share ideas, and then each group made a short report on what had been said.  As expected, we ran out of time, but were told we could continue the discussion at the Friday afternoon meeting about Sharing Success –What Works (and What Doesn’t).  Since one of the questions at the start of this session was, “What will you take back to your club from the Rome conference?” I somewhat jokingly said that I would be taking FAWCO Youth Ambassador Julia Goldsby back to AWG with me.

Regional meetings were held in the dining room at lunchtime, and it was even noisier than at breakfast.  Region 3 moved to a table at the side of the room, and discussed the possibility of holding the next Regional Conference in Bordeaux, even though there is not yet an official club there (plans for one are in the works).  It is disappointing that there was no Region 3 conference this year, but Paris hosted last year, and AWG hosted twice recently, so Bordeaux would make a nice change, and the Spanish clubs which joined Region 3 this year would, of course, be invited.  Lucy Laederich lives there and is willing to help coordinate, as long as there are plenty of other volunteers.  Dates in October were suggested, preferably the second weekend, to avoid the Toussaint school break.

                  

The Face-2-Face session followed lunch on Thursday.  That is when FAWCO committees and Task Forces have tables with information and sign-up sheets, and there is a table for the sale of books by clubs  and club members.  Robyn sat with the FAWCO President at this table so she could answer questions about our SEASON cookbook and autograph copies as they were sold.  There were other tables, and items on sale, but I cannot comment on them because I was representing the Clubs in Motion chair, Nancy Ward from Dublin, who could not be at the conference.  Nancy had also asked me to take over the CiM chair, and I initially refused, thinking I would not have the time, but on the last day of the conference I agreed to chair Clubs in Motion for the coming year.  I shared the Face-2-Face table with my roommate, Rozanne Van Rie, from AWC Antwerp, who asked people to fill out a survey on caring for aging family members from afar.  (If you are in this category, I can get a copy of the survey for you to fill out for one of the members of her club.)  The Face-2-Face session lasted only one hour, which was not enough for people to circulate and see everything, AND buy SEASON cookbooks, so I continued to “network” after the session, missing the coffee break.  In fact, I missed almost ALL the coffee breaks during the conference.  I was too busy selling SEASON cookbooks, or turning in silent auction items donated by AWG members, or trying to deal with problems caused by hotel room keys that did not work, or explaining FAWCO Dev Grants to prospective co-sponsors for “ours,” or voting for the favorite Backing Women photo… or just talking.  (Why do I imagine that that does not surprise you?)  I was also in and out of the conference communications center because I had been asked before the conference to take photos and submit them daily.  At any rate, the final tally was 32 SEASON cookbooks sold, and I have been receiving e-mails from some of the lucky ladies who bought them, and who think they are wonderful, beautiful, filled with great recipes, etc.  One club has requested information about our publishers because they would like to print a book too.

The Thursday program ended with three parallel workshops, and a rotation that allowed people to attend two of the three.  I attended the FAWCO Foundation and Club2Club Fundraising Exchange, which included a briefing on The Foundation’s programs, and an interactive session focusing on fundraising challenges and successes.  There was a vast array of challenges, mainly due to the variety in the different member clubs.  Some, like AWG, are relatively small.  Some are huge.  Some, like AWG, have a relatively stable membership.  Some have members that stay only a couple of years in the host country.

I decided to skip the talk by Paula Lucas, from the American Overseas Domestic Violence Crisis Center, because Paula came to talk to AWG after the Marrakech conference in 2011, and I’ve kept in contact with her and AODVC ever since.  Instead, I went to the presentation by Melissa Watson and Dave Terpstra of Free the Girls: Fight Human Trafficking.  Melissa is National Director, and Dave is one of the Founders, and the Global Director.  He lives in Mozambique.  In fact, he flew directly back to Mozambique from Rome, and, thanks to my special arrangements with Melissa before the conference, he took with him the 60+ more bras donated by AWG.  AWG has a special place in Melissa’s heart; she says we were one of the first FAWCO clubs to participate in the bra drive, when I carried the first bagful across the Atlantic to a drop-off point in Philadelphia in October 2014. When we learned in early March that a shipment of bras to Mozambique had gone missing, and AAWE Paris said they would collect more at their upcoming fundraising luncheon, LindaL volunteered to take any bras collected by AWG with her to Paris.  But thanks to Laetitia’s efforts in the village where she now lives, the donations far exceeded our expectations, and arrived in Montferrier too late for Linda to take them to Paris.  So I contacted Melissa and asked if I could bring them to Rome and give them either to her, or to people from FAUSA who would be returning Stateside after the conference and could post them from there to the collection point.  Melissa replied that she would carry bras to the ends of the earth for us.  Nice to know we are appreciated.  Dave shared stories and photos of women in the Free the Girls program around the world, and I enjoyed the talk, but I would not be honest if I did not add that afterwards I heard other ladies talking in the hotel, and several objected to the use of the word “girls,” particularly after all these women have been through.  Just saying….

The workshops ran a bit late, and we had to rush to get ready for the bus to the evening event.  We were supposed to attend a cocktail party at the Ambassador’s residence, but there was a change in plans, and  a “Traditional Roman Dinner and Rome-by-Night Bus Tour” was proposed instead.  The dinner was at the Taverna de’ Mercanti, and was, in my humble opinion, far less traditional than the meal at Da Massi on Tuesday evening.  No antipasti.  The first dish was pasta with pesto sauce.  The second dish was pasta with tomato sauce.  The “main” course was meatballs in tomato sauce served with “frites.”  The dessert was nice, and anything after the first carafe of wine (for 8 to 10 people) cost extra.  It is true that the setting was charming, but the delicious aromas wafting from the grill alongside the tables just made us sorrier that our own meal was such a disappointment.

Editor:  to be continued in further postings from Maggie, including a speech from Cindy McCain, pictured below with Maggie.