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History and Background:
This fund was suggested, agreed, and founded at the General Assembly after Lola Sola died. She deeply inspired many of us upon personal acquaintance and all of us in EUW are indebted to her. She was a strong, highly motivated woman much revered in her own country of Austria.
The objectives of the Fund were two fold:
a) to honour her name,
b) to provide the means for key women, as yet out of reach of the western democracies, and under the yoke of Communism, to come to our meetings, be supported financially and to benefit fromstrong networkwe had forged since 1948.
I was at that time British Chairman. Pam Mackay and I dealt with the running and distribution with absolutely no admin costs and this continued when I was International Chairman with the added strength of a "god mothering system" set up to give individual countries special support from a near neighbour ie. Austria and Hungary , Sweden and Estonia UK and Poland etc..
The flaw lies now in the question of INCOME GENERATION.
Political discipline in most countries varied and even France with its semi- NGO status finds it impossible to raise funds. The burden fell on the British Section, and willingly because the aims and needs were clear.
Now the situation has changed;
though a) still remains, the Board must decide whether b) is still relevant.
Francoise and I have met twice and once in Berlin with Gretha.
We agree that basically there is still a need for the fund to continue to help for example the women of the Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, perhaps Turkey , too.
The biggest question is still the funding. This can definitely not be provided by the British where the membership is ageing and declining.
There are those who consider that it is demeaning to hold a raffle which I gather Doris thinks is insuffiently "serious", We consider this to be a pity because a lottery done properly did give a little fun as well as involve everyone and made quite a lot of money at each International meeting.
Since the idea of a national levy didn’t seem popular this was the best suggestion Francoise and I could see except that Private Sponsorship is worth trying. Surely amongst us we know someone who would wish to support this work.!!
We suggest you consider a Five year Action plan for the fund and thereafter to reconsider its usefulness, or. to wind it up altogether now-, but either way we need to know your wishes and where you thinkfunds might come from. All three of us are happy to remain involved, I think, but request you do let us know , please.
With all good wishes for 2005 and for and excellent meeting in Brussles, and with love from Angela