On October 8th and 9th, the members of the Coordinating Team (CT) of the SAVA Working Group of SCI had a meeting in order to review the group´s activity in the past year and to prepare for the upcoming Annual Meeting. The meeting was kindly hosted by GAIA Kosovo in Gracanica, Kosovo.
The meeting served as a prolific space to discuss the current achievements by comparing them to the proposed annual working plan for 2017-2018 and to propose measure that will improve the performance of the coordinating team and of the working group in general. As a result, these are several highlights from the meeting:
- After collecting feedback from members about the role of the SAVA WG and how the WG should be functioning in the upcoming future, the CT decided to apply the given suggestion and to introduce changes in the functioning of the WG;
- The CT developed a new structure for the Working Group which will allow more space for each member to participate actively and to contribute in a certain area; the new structure proposal shall be voted during the upcoming Annual Meeting;
- As for the Annual Meeting, the proposal is to have it online at the end of October, with the final date to be decided by all members through joint voting; the meeting will be held online, just like last year, giving the opportunity to all branches to participate;
- New promotional materials will be developed to present SAVA WG towards potential new members and other SCI members who want to know more about the WG;
- A new call for members of the CT has been developed and shared with all SAVA WG members, in order to fill in the available places. Every member of the CT has a responsibility connected to their mandate. Currently 3 positions are open;
- The CT evaluated all the available funding opportunities (upcoming deadlines for grants, other contributions from already running projects, etc.) and identified future deadlines for preparing joint project applications that will strengthen the networking inside the WG.
The meeting highlighted once again the need to keep in touch more closely with all group members and to focus on more specific areas for cooperation in order to strengthen the networking component. Following the successful completion of the meeting´s objectives, the preparations for the Annual Meeting are in full swing.