Minutes from the Annual
General Meeting 2004
minutes from the annual general meeting (AGM) of the
denmark-lesotho
network (DLN), september
18, 2004.
Summary in English of the minutes from the General
Assembly of the
Denmark Lesotho Network (DLN), held on 18th September
2004
1. The Chairman's report of 2004
As a first point on the agenda the Chairman presented a report
onthe activities of DLN for 2004. It was pointed out that there has
beensome progress in the work of DLN but that things could have
gonefaster. An important observation was that the contact with
Lesotho hasunfortunately been somewhat sporadic which calls for a
strengthening ofthe network in Lesotho. A suggestion in this
respect is to make futurenewsletters and other reports available in
English.
2. Reports from the working groups
a) the Information Group
Main results in 2004 have been the publishing of the
newsletterLumela.dk three times, as well as the setting up of a
homepagewww.lumela.dk. The editor of the newspaper Mopheme,
Lawrence Keketso,had been offered DKK 1.000 to write an article
about the presentsituation in Lesotho, but he has not been able to
keep the deadline. Asa result the latest Lumela.dk has been rather
thin. The first twonewsletters covered some general material about
Lesotho, but theInformation Group raised the question of whether
this was what thenewsletter should be about. It was suggested that
perhaps there shouldbe more information about what is happening in
DLN. The informationgroup urged the members to give feedback on
their ideas about what thenewsletters should cover, as well as the
purpose of use of thehomepage.
>b) the Project Identification Group
An application from the Lesotho Preschool and Daycare
Association(LPDCA - an educational institution for preschool
teachers) wasreceived this autumn. This brings to four the number
of organisationswith which DLN is now in contact:
Beautiful Gate (a children's home), the Transformation
ResourceCentre (TRC - a human rights organisation), the Rural
Self-HelpDevelopment Association (RSDA - an agricultural
organisation) andLPDCA.
Since only RSDA had sent a usable project description it
wasdecided to draw up an application form for future use by
applicants. Itwas done in February and it was distributed in March
while Karsten Lundwas in Lesotho. He has arranged with the Lesotho
Council of NGOs (LCN)to keep the forms available and try to
distribute them among potentialapplicants in Lesotho. The previous
MS PAB Chairman Prof. TumeloTsikoane also expressed his readiness
to help with establishingcontacts.
During the spring DLN received competed application forms from
theLesotho Child Counselling Unit (LCCU), LPDCA and Chaplin
AthleticsDevelopment Club (CADC). Though somewhat incomplete, these
applicationsare ready to be processed. DLN has not yet, however,
sent aconfirmation that the applications have been received. The
ProjectIdentification Group met four times during this year, never
in fullhowever. Attempts to arrange meetings with the Fundraising
Group havebeen unsuccessful.
c) the Fundraising Group
The report of the group notes that no funds for supporting
projectsin Lesotho have been sought to date. The materials are
incomplete andcannot be used as a basis for applying for funding.
It was suggestedthat since keeping the project identification and
the fundraisingactivities apart has proven unsuccessful, the future
structure of DLNshould be discussed. It was pointed out that it is
difficult to meetregularly since people live in different parts of
Denmark, thereforegeographical considerations should be taken into
account when theworking groups are set up. However, this was not
the only reason littlewas accomplished this year, with the hope
that bad conscience wouldmake the coming year more
constructive.
Discussion on the basis of the reports
a) Discussion of the report of the Information
Group
The general opinion was that the group has done a good job and
themembers expressed satisfaction with the newsletters. The
followingremarks were made:
- Receiving a newsletter gives one the feeling of belonging to
anorganisation. It is good to be informed of what has been
happeninginside and outside of Lesotho as people do not have the
time in theirdaily lives to search for news. The newsletters are
particularly goodand informative for those members who have never
visited Lesotho. Itwas suggested that the news clips could end with
links to moreinformation on the given subject. Another suggestion
was to make thenewsletters in English as well, so that the Basothos
can read them too.It would also be OK with a mixture of Danish and
English. Thenewsletters could also give information about the
projects supported byDLN.
- The homepage is important and should be kept. It should be
inEnglish. Another opinion was that it should be mostly in English,
withlinks to the Danish articles. There was a short discussion
concerningwhat the name of the homepage should be.
- Groupcare can replace or complement the homepage. It should
beintroduced as an internal discussion forum on the Internet.
- The language of DLN should generally be English - at least if
wetake the word 'network' seriously. It was suggested that the
minutesfrom the meetings can be taken in Danish after which a
summary inEnglish could be made.
- The question arose of whether it might be a good idea to makeuse
of the Embassy of Lesotho in Denmark. They could perhaps take
partin the General Assembly. It was widely agreed that the Embassy
shouldbe contacted. There was a suggestion to make the General
Assembly moreinteresting by inviting people who could give talks
about southernAfrica.
b) Discussion on the topic of project identification and
management
It was generally agreed that the structure of the
organisationshould be changed so that the Project Identification
Group and theFundraising Group become one. The following remarks
were made duringthe discussion:
The two groups should become one, and geographical
considerationsshould be taken into account so that it is easy for
people to meet. -The decision-making process needs to be better
specified. - The presentstructure is too clumsy and slow, there
should be a representative ofeach group on the board. - One board
member should be responsible foreach group. - In any case there
should be one member of the board whowould be responsible for
projects and be a member of the Project Group.- The board itself
should be responsible for projects so that decisionscan be made
quickly and actions can be taken swiftly. - Some projectscan be set
up in such a way that they depend on a single person. Inthis case
one single person with contacts and knowledge can be used asthe
driving force behind the given project. - The project group is
themost important group in DLN as it represents our goal. - It
wasgenerally agreed that the board should consist of four members
out ofwhich one member is a full member of the Project Group,
another memberis responsible for the contact with the Information
Group, and theremaining two are ordinary board members. However,
there should be acontact between the board and the group
responsible for organisingcharity as well as ordinary parties,
together with any other workinggroups that might be set up in the
future.
c) A general discussion
Our work at present is on a small scale - a situation that
DLNshould do something about. - However, even though the scale is
small,this is the only realistic possibility for the moment bearing
in mindthe financial resources that DLN has at present. - Small is
OK as longas we are inexperienced and learning by doing and have
not yet shownthat we are able to carry out small projects. - We
should not letourselves be limited by our humble budget as we can
get funds foradministration if we apply to one of the Danish
funding institutions. -We can apply for 10% for administrative
purposes when we support aproject.
Another discussion concerned the contact with Lesotho. - How do
wekeep this contact? One suggestion was to look at how the
Denmark-GhanaAssociation works as they have a long-standing
experience withmaintaining contact with Ghana. In April Tsikoane
volunteered toestablish contacts with some of the strong former MS
partners whichcould perhaps be used as contacts in Lesotho. LCN can
establishcontacts but we need to make a description of DLN's target
group sothat they know with whom they should take up contact. By
way ofestablishing contacts in Lesotho we can show that DLN is
indeed anetwork, i.e. that there are two partners. This could be
done with thehelp of Danes who have been living in Lesotho for a
long time.
The homepage is important and it should be possible to get
theapplication form from it. - We need to work with a local NGO in
Lesothoas a way to establish contacts. - Results will lead to
contacts, i.e.the wider public will surely get word of a successful
support of aproject from our side.
The question arose of whether the information leaflet about
DLNshould be published in English. Another question was how to
monitor theuse of the money coming from Denmark for a project. It
was pointed outthat the financing institution will provide
guidelines as to monitoringas well as possibly give money for
it.