Zalillah Mohd Taib, World Committee Chairman, opens the work of the conference by welcoming warmly all the participants with a video speech:
Zalillah :
“Dear World Committee, Regional and Subregional Committees, guests, Fellowships and Central Branch members from near and far:Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening! WELCOME!/i>
Before I start, I would like to borrow your hands to welcome our new Central Branch group candidates and countries that have worked very hard to become NSGF. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the ISGF’s 29th and first ever virtual online World Conference. It wasn’t an easy decision and I am glad that the World Committee worked hard as a team to face all the challenges we met along the way. Particularly Wahid Labidi, our vicechair who led the World Conference team and NSGF Spain who put in so much effort for the supposed physical World Conference in Madrid, Spain.
I am grateful to our committee member Elín Richards & ex-officio Leny Doelman who volunteered themselves to cover our Secretary General, Nathalie Henrard when she was on maternity leaves. Without the two of them, many things won’t be able to run smoothly.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank NSGFs who extended their helping hands and suggestions to help us with the World Conference. Unfortunately, we were not able to take them all as we have many other considerations. All of us had gone through two very tough years! Most of us were or are still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ISGF World
Committee and World Bureau too can’t run away from this unwelcomed pandemic, we faced financial and many other challenges just like all of you. I am sure you have already read from the circulars that sent out by the World Bureau. I seek for your active participation in all the conference sessions with suggestions and feedback. Despite all the challenges we faced, I witnessed the unstoppable force of perseverance from all of you to get through this challenging time.
Most of us indeed preferred to have a face-to-face conference where we could have discussions, updates and share endless laughter together. But the reality hit us hard, there is nothing much we can do about it as there are too many travel restrictions from different countries and of course our lives are precious. We do not want to expose your lives to unnecessary risk.
We had received resolution on environment, lastly a proposition from Norway supported by Sweden and Finland to organize working groups during the 30th conference in 2024 to discuss environmental matters. The topic is sufficiently important to prepare the work of the 30th Conference between now and the conference. I will propose to the World Committee after this conference to create a correspondence group for this preparation.
With that, I would like to inform you that NSGF Spain has accepted our offer to be the host for the 30th ISGF World Conference.
Lastly, I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all our NSGFs, without your endless support, the movement would not have been able to come this far. So let us continue to walk hand-in-hand to a brighter future and keep thriving! Thank you!”
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Zalillah declares the World Conference is open and gives the floor to the platform party located in Brussels, in Belgium. The members of the panel are from left to right :
- Nathalie Henrard (Secretary General, Belgium)
- Martine Lévy (proposed to be WConf Chair, France)
- Cécile Bellet (proposed to be WConf Vice-Chair, Belgium)
There was tribute to ISGF “gone home” members and a minute of silence observed in their memory:
- Austria: Jutta and Werner Weilguny, Hans Strouhal, Kurt Pribich, Wilfried Martschini, Helmut Hauer, Margareta Schopper, Karl Homole
- Burkina Faso: Sabine Zigani
- Denmark/Danemark: Karin Boldsen, Paulli Martin
- Egypt: Abdelmalek Al-Zeini, Muhammad Al-Attar, Camelia Farhat
- Estonia: Ingrid Junisov Ghana: Saban Laryea, Salih Debi, Dorinda Bannerman Bruce, Jane Berko, Divine Dorlah
- Greece: Aris Sklivaniotis, Pantelis Dandolos, Maria Emiri, Anthoula Alatza, Aglaea Marouga
- India: Shiv Ram Mehta
- Lebanon: Dr. Suhail Bawji, Yousef Dandan
- Libya: Ali Sbeta, Abdalla Mudi, Basher Alhount, Zahra Jaefar, Basher Shnaty, Jamal Abdulaziz, Mohamed Kerwat, Abraheem Ahweedi, Abdulsalam Qddosha, Saleh Shenib, Hossni Ben Zarraa, Abdulrazq Bani, Fekri Khayat, Mohammed Alhouni, Khairia Kablan Morocco: Rharbi Taoufik, Guédira Abdelaziz, Jebrou Abdeljabbar
- Portugal: Rosa Leite
- Suriname: Pauline Landburg-Hermelijn, Francisca Rusland-Engelbrecht, Lea Huyzen, Henriette Reid, Elly Bourne-Monsels
- Uganda: Arch-Bishop Dr. Mpalanyi Livingstone Nkoyoyo, Mboize Max
- United Kingdom: David Mowbray, Jennifer Roberts
- Venezuela: Rodney Martinez Moncada
Voting system for the World Conference online
The Rules of Procedure have been adapted for the virtual Conference. The voting is done with online voting forms. Delegates must click on the link that appears in the chat to receive the voting form. In the voting forms there are three choices: in favour, against or abstain. Once the choice has been made it cannot be changed. For the election of World Committee members, delegates (full member countries) can vote with 3 votes and only use one vote for each candidate they wish to vote for.
Before each vote the participants are reminded who can vote by the Secretary General. On each day the conference was quorate as there were more than 50% +1 of the Member Countries present (Saturday 26th February 2022 the number present was 44 = 22 + 1 = 23 for a simple majority and on Sunday 27th February 2022 the number was 50 = 25 + 1 = 26 for a simple majority).
Programme
The Conference starts with the appointment of : the Chairman of the World Conference (Martine Levy, France), the Vice-Chairman of the World Conference (Cécile Bellet, Belgium), the Resolution Committee (Jane Wardropper, UK; Jean-François Lévy, France) and the Tellers (Elin Richards, Iceland; Leny Doelman, Netherlands).
Martine Levy, World Conference Chairman, welcomes everyone and draws attention to the unfortunate situation during which this World Conference is held, where Ukraine is being at war with Russia. She reminds everyone of Baden Powell’s quote : “A scout is a friend to all and is a brother to every other Scout” and urges all the participants to think of them deeply and fraternally. She starts her speech “ It is a honour to have been asked by the World Committee to chair this conference and thank you all for voting. Let me introduce our Vice-Chairman, Cécile Bellet (former secretary general) and Nathalie Henrard, our new secretary general, you may not have met her yet but you will meet her later next time. Thanks to them for helping me in this World Conference. My thanks go to everyone involved with the 29th World Conference, and especially all NSGF’s for accepting all the changes that have come about as a result of the pandemic, and I hope you enjoy the new way of working!”
Resolutions of the 29th World conference
Resolution1: Rules of procedure
The Conference, having received the rules of procedure for the special conference on-line, accepts them.
Resolution 2: Officials
The Conference, having received the propositions by the World Committee, accepts the following nominations
- Chair Mrs Martine LEVY
- Vice-chair Mrs Cécile BELLET
Resolution committee
- Ms Jane WARDROPPER
- Mr Jean-François LEVY
Tellers
- Mrs Elin RICHARDS
- Mrs Leny DOELMAN
Resolution3: Agenda
The Conference having received the draft agenda accepts it
Resolution 4: Full members
The Conference,
Having received the report from the World Committee and the presentation of NSGF’s candidates
Accepts the following countries as Full Members of ISGF: Angola, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Palestine, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela
Resolution 5: Associate members
The Conference,
Having received the report from the World Committee and the presentation of NSGF’s candidates
Accepts the following countries as Associate members of ISGF: Brazil, Netherlands, Peru, South Korea, Suriname
Resolution 6: Resignation of membership
The Conference,
Having heard the presentation by the World Committee on the Turkish NSGF
Notes the resignation of this NSGF
The conference also noted the resignation of Hungary
Resolution 7: Election of new World Committee members
The Conference
Having seen the videos of presentation of the candidates and read the additional information provided,
Having voted [in secret ballot]
Elects as new members of the World Committee.
- Prosper Bani Ghana Africa
- Vanessa Hoogenbergen Curaçao Western Hemisphere
- Ana Rodrigues Portugal Europe
Resolution 8: Membership fees
The Conference
Taking note of the recommendation by the World Committee
Decides to extend the present fee system with an increase of 11 percent to allow for inflation; consequently the per capita fees in Euros for the 3 levels of countries based on their GNP will be 2.51, 1.68 and 0.83 for the triennium 2023-2025.
Resolution 9: Amendments to the Constitution and byelaws of ISGF
The Conference,
Having studied the amendments to the Constitution and Bye-laws proposed by the World Committee and the sub-amendments from Austria
Accepts the World Committee’s amendments as modified by the sub-amendments from Austria
Note that the consolidated text will be circulated after the Conference
Resolution 10: 30th Conference
The Conference noted that Spain accepted the proposition from World Committee that it hosts the 30th Conference in 2024.
Resolution 11: Finance
The Conference noted the difficulties incurred with the accounts. It accepted that the new World Committee would examine the question during a meeting in March and fix a deadline which will be circulated to the membership
Resolution 12: Quadrennial report
The Conference,
Having received the quadrennial report 2017-2021
Accepts the quadrennial report as presented.
Overview of the voting results
Due to the calculation system used by the platform to hold the virtual Conference, the panel had trouble to receive and communicate the results of the voting on the first day. To ensure full transparency the results are presented here:
