First 2018 Members Council meeting in The Hague: Rebooting and starting afresh

On 6 March, the Network Association's Members Council gathered in the National Library of The Netherlands in The Hague for their first 2018 meeting. It was very fruitful, full of fresh ideas and breakthroughs, and resulting in positive structural changes that will pave the way for the Association’s work in 2018 and beyond.

First, we gave a warm welcome to the four new Councillors - Sara Di Giorgio, Kate Fernie, Peter Soemers, and Marco Streefkerk - who started serving their three-year terms. The Chair of the Europeana Network Association, Merete Sanderhoff, started the meeting with reflections on how to structure the common collaborative efforts in a better way to create and facilitate a true 'network of networks’.

The Council discussed the current and future Network Association’s aspirations, with the main objective to improve the current set-up in order to activate and strengthen the Network. The Councillors agreed that a strong Network with its own identity can effectively back up the core mission of Europeana and provide a high level of professional and personal fulfilment and a feeling of ownership for its members.

The plenary discussion then revolved around how each of the Councillors can contribute to a better functioning of the Association, turning the Europeana Joint Aspiration and ENA Approach into action. While focus on community-building efforts, they agreed to regularly work together in small groups on specific key areas of interest. Councillors were also asked to give their opinion about what they think has been working well and what some of the remaining challenges are.

Network made of communities

The afternoon session of the meeting was dedicated to the next key topic - implementation of the new community-based Network structure. The Network will be reshaped around 'communities' of interest. They will be based on areas of professional or personal common interest, the challenges and needs of the Network members, or thematic channels/markets of Europeana. They can have regional/national representation with members sharing knowledge and best practice and raising specific bottom-up initiatives in a way that is rewarding and challenging at the same time.

The Board and the Council identified and started exploring the future functioning of five proposed communities of interest:

Technical standards
Impact
Innovation within the sector
Outreach campaigns
Use of CHI In education and research.

Europeana Network Association Members Council meeting, 6 March 2018, Europeana, CC BY-SA

Contributing to the Europeana Migration Campaign

The Councillors were presented with the upcoming activities related to the Europeana Migration Campaign and its collection, being part of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH). The discussion then revolved around how the Councillors and their networks can contribute to the campaign and actively take part in cross-border activities related to the EYCH legacy and European Agenda for Culture. A few Councillors also shared their personal migration stories with Europeana teams during a small Europeana collection day simulation. Finally, the usual formalities such as updates on the Association budget, Working Groups and Task Forces were also on the agenda.

Coming up next

You can find some pictures from the meeting on Europeana Flickr, and the minutes of the meeting together with the presentations will be published shortly. The next meeting will take place in The Hague in July 2018. If you wish your elected representative to tackle specific topics, let them know!