News

Elections for trusteeship were held at today's AGM. All seven candidates were elected.

Name (for/against/abstain)

Ian Carter (43/5/3)
Edmund Grimley Evans (48/0/3)
Clare Hunter (50/1/0)
Damon Lord (44/3/4)
Lajo Miller (42/3/6)
Ed Robertson (48/3/0)
Richard Smith (45/1/5)

Ian Carter was re-elected president of EAB.

Pro tio, ke numero 986 (printempo 2019) de La Brita Esperantisto estis alŝutita por membroj, numero 985 (aŭtuno 2018) nun estas publike elŝutebla.

Several items of paperwork were distributed for the forthcoming AGM with the paper version of Update 84. Members will need to bring these with them. If you happen to lose yours, you can download copies here.

Update 85 (April 2019) has just been distributed to members. This means that Update 84 (January 2019) is now publicly downloadable.

Have you never been to an Esperanto event abroad? We'd like to help you take those first steps and are offering £200 towards your costs to participate in Somera Esperanto-Studado in Slovakia. It's an an event from July 12 to 20 and encompasses a mix of classroom activities (for all levels), tourism, and socialising -- all in Esperanto, of course!

Details about our scheme

All charities need to have people who are responsible in law for running them. These people are called trustees and we elect ours at the AGM. The current trustees would like to invite suitable candidates to stand for election in Dover.

The trustees communicate primarily by email and meet up to five times a year, whether in person at Esperanto House or online using Skype. There have to be at least four and there are currently seven, a mixture of people who have been involved in Esperanto for decades and some fresh faces coming via the Duolingo route or returning to Esperanto after a little time away. That means there is space for others to come on board to help run EAB.

Trusteeship puts you in a unique position to make decisions and influence the direction and work of the charity. If you have a vision for EAB, trusteeship is the best way to realise it. It isn't a paid role although you will be reimbursed out-of-pocket expenses incurred, such as travel costs to attend meetings.

Don't feel that you can't carry out the role if you're not fluent in Esperanto; meetings are held in English. It doesn't even matter if you're new. What counts is having ideas and being willing to work with the other trustees in the best interest of the charity.

Trustees come from a range of backgrounds. There isn't a particular model to follow, though some people may find themselves feeling at home in the role a bit more than many others, such as people who have previous experience of being a charity trustee. If that's you, then we'd love to hear from you, as we would from, say, people who run their own business or work in management or with budgets. If any of these things apply to you, then you could well thrive in the role, to the benefit of EAB.

If you think you might be interested, you should feel absolutely free to speak with Viv, Tim or one of the current trustees to get an idea of what is involved. There won't be any commitment assumed if you make an enquiry but we would really like to welcome new people with new ideas on board.

How to send in a nomination
To make your nomination known, please email Viv (eab@esperanto.org.uk) and make her aware that you wish to stand for election as a trustee. You must be a paid-up member of EAB and will need to be backed by two members, so please provide their names. She will then contact them herself to confirm that they wish to back you. Please ensure that emails reach Viv by 12:00 on Friday, February 8; nominations received afterwards unfortunately won't be accepted. If you submit a nomination from Viv but don't receive confirmation of receipts within a reasonable timeframe, please don't automatically assume your email arrived but check with her to be sure before the deadline.

Candidates will have the opportunity to present themselves in up to 200 words in the following issue of Update, so don't worry if you're new and don't know many people. All of us were new once!

After an extensive period of development, the Esperanto Association of Britain is launching a new online home today.

The site that you're currently seeing is not the finished version but we feel is stable enough now for EAB members to enjoy and assist with developing by offering their comments and suggestions and reporting bugs where they see them.

Feel free to make use of the discussion areas, join one of our social groups, make purchases from our shop, contribute articles, read up on our classroom courses and see what we offer as distance learning, as well as finding out how to find other Esperanto speakers.

And if you're new to the Esperanto Association of Britain, we invite you to read about who we are and what we do.

Most of the content is currently in English. That will change in the future when the site stabilises and new features, currently under development, appear. We invite you to check back regularly as the site continues to take shape and hope you'll enjoy using it.

We would like to pay tribute to Bill Walker, who administrated the previous site from its creation in 2005 until its retirement today.

Bill himself refers to simply stepping in back then as a stop-gap and not at all expecting to still be here running substantially the same site so many years later. We are delighted that Bill has offered to continue supporting EAB with this new site and will be part of the team going forward.

Following suggestions received from members over the course of several years, the trustees of EAB applied to the Charity Commission to revise the charitable object of EAB. The Charity Commission has approved the new wording and so the object of EAB reads now 'To advance education in and about the international language Esperanto and to preserve and promote the culture and heritage of Esperanto for the educational benefit of the general public.'

The original wording didn't have any wording which indicated responsibility for cultural heritage, the over 100 years of Esperanto literature held in the Butler Library, which members and the trustees believe is incumbent on EAB to protect. The new wording removes some superfluous wording which didn't obviously relate to measurable charitable activity.

After considerable research and internal discussion, the trustees presented the revised wording in the AGM of 2017, after which followed a period of consultation with members for one year. Articles inviting feedback from members were published in Update 78 and 79 and the revised wording was subjected to AGM approval in 2018. Of the 53 votes submitted, 43 were FOR, 8 AGAINST and 2 ABSTAINED. The trustees subsequently submitted the proposed wording to the Charity Commission, who have approved and therefore officialised it with immediate effect.

Earlier this week, EAB sent out the email below to its members, explaining how it uses their personal details, introducing a new privacy policy, and explaining that members who wish to receive emails about general information need specifically to opt in to it. We have set up a consent form so that those of you who would like to receive this type of email can indicate your wishes:

If you change your mind down the line, all you have to do is complete the form again and indicate that you don't consent. Alternatively, you can contact us through our other channels.

You may have heard about the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and received emails from other organisations explaining how they use your data or revising their privacy policies. The GDPR, which comes into effect on the 25 May 2018, is about ensuring that organisations which hold information on you act as responsible stewards of that data. They need to be clear on what data they hold and what they use it for. We are writing to you in order to comply with GDPR requirements, and to ask you to confirm that you would like to receive information from us.

How EAB uses your personal details

Here at the Esperanto Association of Britain we take your privacy seriously. We principally use your personal details in order to administer your membership, for example, sending you La Brita Esperantisto, Update and official documentation such as the Trustees’ Annual Report.

From time to time we send out an email which we believe to be of general interest; examples from the past year include informing you that Marjorie Boulton, the most eminent Esperantist in the country, had sadly passed away and making you aware of her funeral details, and an email from the organisers of our annual conference inviting you to take part.

We do not pass your personal details on to any third parties. We hold your details in our database for three months if your membership lapses in order to be able to send you a reminder to renew; if you choose not to renew, we delete your details after those three months.

What you need to do: opting in to allow us to contact you

The GDPR allows EAB to use your details in order to administer your membership, send you information about an event you’ve signed up for, reply to your emails and so on. The GDPR considers it a reasonable assumption that when you became a member, you intended for us to send you your magazines, that you expect us to use your email address to reply to you, and so on.

However, we are not able to assume that you would like us to contact you about things we consider might be of interest to you, such as those examples mentioned above, or to make you aware of a similar course to one which we know you’ve attended before and enjoyed.

In order to be able to contact you from time to time about this sort of thing, we need to know that you have actively consented. In order to make it easy for you to do so and for us to record that you have, we have set up a form at [link]. Please do take a moment to complete it; if you don’t, we unfortunately have to assume that you don’t wish to be contacted.

In line with the GDPR, we have updated our Privacy Policy, the changes to which will come into effect on the 25th May 2018. The updated Privacy Policy sets out how we will collect and use your personal data and what your individual data protection and privacy rights are. We encourage you to take a moment to visit our website and read our updated Privacy Policy.

In the future, we may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Therefore we encourage you to review the Privacy Policy periodically to keep up to date. We will always let you know if we make any material changes to the way we process your personal data.

If you change your mind in the future and decide to opt out, then you can simply contact the office by email at eab@esperanto.org.uk or write to Esperanto House, Station Road, Barlaston, ST12 9DE. We will immediately remove your details from the general mailing list.

[This is a "stop-press"/placeholder report - a more comprehensive report will be published in EAB Update or a copy of the minutes will be circulated to members with EAB Update]

EAB's 41^st Annual General Meeting was held on 15^th April 2018 at Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth. The meeting was chaired by Kat Newbould with fellow trustees Damon Lord, Clare Hunter, Ed Robertson and Sally Phillips. EAB president Ian Carter sent a video message honouring Marjorie Boulton.

The draft minutes of the previous AGM [in Edinburgh, May 2017] were presented. There was a lengthy discussion of suggested corrections and refinements to those minutes. The minutes (with agreed corrections) were approved as an accurate record of that previous AGM.

Clare Hunter presented the Trustees' Report [for year ending October 2017] and Financial Report [for year ending October 2017]. A full version of the financial report is available from the (relevant section of) the Charity Commission website, or on request to Esperanto House.

A question had been submitted about the Trustees' Handbook; Clare explained that this had become outdated and had been superseded by a Trustees' Induction Presentation which is presented to all new trustees.

The proposals to re-appoint the current independent examiner, and to leave the [voting member] subscription rates unchanged, were approved.

The proposal to amend the constitution ("object of the association") was discussed and voted upon.

"The Object of the Association shall be to advance education in and about the international language Esperanto and to preserve the culture and heritage of Esperanto for the educational benefit of the general public."

This proposal will now be submitted to the Charity Commission for their consideration (as, legally, it cannot be adopted witout their approval).

The votes for the Mananagement Committee* were counted by Viv O'Dunne.
[*The Management Committee comprises the Trustees of the Association.]
Ian Carter, Edmund Grimley Evans, Clare Hunter, Damon Lord, Laura Miller, Kathryn Newbould and Ed Robertson were elected as trustees.

Ian Carter was the sole candidate for president of the Association, and so was re-appointed president.

The meeting ended with further discussion and suggestions from the membership. Tim Owen presented a proposal for the 2019 British Experanto Conference - the 100^th - to be held in Dover, with an optional day excursion to Calais.

(Original report.)

[This is a "stop-press"/placeholder report - a more comprehensive report will be published in EAB Update or a copy of the minutes will be circulated to members with EAB Update]

EAB's 40^th Annual General Meeting was held on 21^st May 2016 at The Melting Pot, Edinburgh. The meeting was led by trustees Clare Hunter, Ian Carter and Ed Robertson.

The minutes of the previous AGM [in Liverpool, March 2016], the Trustees' Report [for year ending October 2016] and Financial Report [for year ending October 2016] were presented. The minutes were approved as an accurate record of what had been said at the previous AGM, and there were then some comments and discussions about other matters. It was clarified that the Trustees' report is a report by the Trustees (not the Members) to the Charity Commission and had already been submitted in February (along with the financial statement); there were then some further comments and discussions about other matters. There was a question about the footnote references in the summary financial statement; Clare Hunter explained that the full 16-page statement (including footnotes) are accessible to all via the (relevant section of) the Charity Commission website, or on request to Esperanto House.

The proposals to re-appoint the current independent examiner, and to leave the [voting member] subscription rates unchanged, were all approved.

Clare Hunter introduced a discussion about the object of the charity (i.e. its stated mission and purpose). The trusees intend to review and perhaps to revise this, to address members' concerns (expressed at previous AGMs) about the heritage of the Bulter Library and Esperanto culture in Britain. The wording has to be chosen carefully, because it can have legal consequences for the charitable status of the Association, and will then have to be approved by the Charity Commission and a future Annual General Meeting before it can be adopted. A working draft revision was presented for discussion; Clare explained any wording which implies that the charity works for or benefits only a select or exclusive community would probably fail to satisfy the Charity Commission's rules.

• Working draft revision: "To advance education in and about the international language Esperanto, and to preserve the cultural heritage of Esperanto, for the educational benefit of the general public."

The votes for the Mananagement Committee* were counted by Viv O'Dunne.

[*The Management Committee comprises the Trustees of the Association.]
Ian Carter, Geoffrey Greatrex, Edmund Grimley Evans, Clare Hunter, Damon Lord, Kathryn Newbould, Sally Phillips, Ed Robertson and Geoffrey Sutton were elected as trustees.

Ian Carter was the sole candidate for president of the Association, and so remained president.

The motion to amend the EAB constitution (to revert to a previous version) was not carried.

(Original report.)

[This is a "stop-press"/placeholder report - a more comprehensive report will be published in EAB Update or a copy of the minutes will be circulated to members with EAB Update]

EAB's 39^th Annual General Meeting was held on 20^th March 2016 at The Gateway Conference Centre, Liverpool. The meeting was chaired by (Honorary Secretary) Tim Owen at the request of the outgoing President Paul Gubbins and the Vice-President Edmund Grimley-Evans, neither of whom were able to attend in person.

The minutes of the previous AGM [in Brighton, April 2015], the Trustees' Report [for year ending October 2015] and Financial Report [for year ending October 2015] were presented.

The proposals to receive the minutes of the previous AGM, to re-appoint the current independent examiner, and to leave the [voting member] subscription rates unchanged, were all approved.

Various suggestions and comments were received from the members present. Topics discussed included the option of spending money on resorces to manage/organise the Butler library; recuritment of new trustees; the drawing power of combined events e.g. Buchanan Masterclass with British Congress; fortcoming EAB courses and events (see esperanto.org.uk/events); EAB will refund KER examination fees for (up to) ten successful exam-takers at the June KER session in London organised by Renato Corsetti; the NoJEF trustees are considering options for merging administration activities with those of EAB (subject to further legal advice).

Ed Robertson announced that the 2017 British Esperanto Congress will be a joint venture with the 2017 Scottish Congress, to be held in Edinburgh in the second half of May 2017 (the precise date still To Be Confirmed).

The votes for the ManCom* were counted by Viv O'Dunne.

[* ManCom= Management Committee, and Trustees of the Association]

Ian Carter, Edmund Grimley Evans, Clare Hunter, Tim Owen, Ed Robertson were elected as trustees.

(Original report.)