Members Council in The Hague: paving the Association work for 2017

The first 2017 meeting of the Members Council took place in The Hague on 21-22 February: the Europeana Office had the great pleasure of welcoming the representatives of the Members Council at the KB, the National Library of The Netherlands. 27 out of 36 Councillors attended for an invigorating two days that paved the Association work for the coming months. Revised Strategy, Activity Plan 2017, new Task Forces and Working Groups and interactive sessions were on the agenda.

Europeana Network Association Members Council meeting, 21 & 22 February 2017, public domain

Welcome aboard!

For some of the newly elected Councillors, it was the first meeting of this kind. The Chair of the Europeana Network Association, Merete Sanderhoff, kicked off the meeting with a very warm welcome and introduced the full two-day programme.

The introductory session was a true ice-breaker exercise where some Councillors shared their experience: “I joined the Europeana Members Council in 2015 because I found it exciting to be part of a large group of people of various backgrounds and exchange ideas on how to improve Europeana and its network,” said Wim van Dongen.

Revised Strategy, Business Plan, campaigns, and more

The new Management Board was formally introduced, and the Councillors were presented with some highly relevant information such as the new Europeana strategic positioning, Business Plan 2017, Association budget, and Activity Plan for the year. They also had an opportunity to learn more about the next #AllezCulture campaigns, including #AllezLiterature, and the Association’s input for the European Year of Cultural Heritage proposed for 2018. Another focus was an endorsement of the new Europeana Aspiration and Europeana Network Association Approach that were refined following the feedback of the Council at and since the last meeting in November 2016 in Riga.

Association engagement

The Councillors actively participated in three different sessions designed to reflect on the best ways to increase the Association engagement and Members Council representation. This was further emphasised by Marcin Werla: “Councillors should all actively participate within the Association and promote Europeana to their own communities!”

Task Forces and Working Groups review

Topics discussed on the second day evolved around the overview and evaluation of the Europeana Network Association’s existing and proposed Task Forces and Working Groups. The Council set up a new Library Working Group dedicated to the library community. Following the termination of The European Library services, the Members Council will investigate how to best support the community with challenges such as metadata, aggregation or awareness of Europeana in the library community. The Library working group is chaired by Uldis Zarins. The MC also went through the voting and approval process of four Task Force proposals, namely Impact Assessment Task Force, Network Participation Framework Task Force, Advanced documentation of 3D Digital Assets, and Resource Citation/Object Identity Standardization Task Force. Network members were invited to join those Task Forces through the February network newsletter, and all are already up and running

Europeana Network Association Members Council meeting, 21 & 22 February 2017, public domain

Thank you!

It was not all only about hard work: the Council members had the opportunity to visit the Dutch Parliament, and Wim van Dongen reminded that the elective role of a Parliament obviously resonates well with their mandate as Councillors.

Merete Sanderhoff wrapped-up the meeting in the afternoon of the second day by thanking the Members Council for participating and contributing to a very positive and fruitful event.

The presentations held during these two days can be found on Europeana Slideshare, and some really nice photographs on Europeana’s Flickr. The minutes will be published shortly.

Coming up next

The next meeting will take place in the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen on 6-7 July 2017!

If you wish your elected representative to tackle specific topics, let them know right now by contacting them.