Since the last General Assembly in Edinburgh in 2001 the work of EFTRE has been carried forward by the Executive and the Board along the lines agreed at that Assembly. There have been both some very positive developments and some less successful areas, mainly dependent on the time and energy available from the entirely volunteer membership of these committees.

Meetings

In the period 2001 – 2004 the EFTRE Board (which includes one representative of each nation that has member bodies or contacts) has met twice - in Münster and in Budapest. The elected Executive of six people has met additionally on four occasions - in Amsterdam, Haywards Heath (UK), Brussels and Paris. Marianna Szabó from Hungary has been co-opted on to the Executive to act as a link with contact organisations in Eastern Europe.

Changes in the Executive

At the end of the conference in Finland three members of the Executive will be standing down: Jeremy Taylor after 10 years on the Executive and 5 years as Chairman, Hans Fijn van Draat (who has been the only Treasurer that EFTRE has ever had!), and Carin Laudrup. The Board and Executive elected at this Assembly will therefore need to identify people willing and able to take on these roles for the next three years, with the considerable ‘behind the scenes’ work involved. Any organisation like EFTRE periodically needs to bring in new officers to provide fresh impetus and energy; there are at present more tasks and opportunities to be done than we are able to undertake.

Legal status and membership

Since the last Assembly EFTRE has been legally registered as an association within the Netherlands (where our bank account is currently held). This significant change provided an opportunity to produce new notepaper and a new version (in three languages) of our brochure. Since 2002 new organisations have joined EFTRE in Italy, Belgium, Romania and the Czech Republic. The current total of members is 49 member bodies from 16 countries. This represents a strengthening of our contacts in southern Europe, but less involvement in central and eastern Europe than had been hoped for following the extensive involvement of colleagues from that part of the continent in the Edinburgh conference. Potential contacts exist with organisations or individuals in Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Iceland, Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia.

Finances

There will be a separate report on the current financial situation of EFTRE, but it is worth mentioning here that considerable time has been spent over the last three years settling in the new financial arrangements agreed in Edinburgh. In particular the Exec has established a priority order for paying the expenses of its various representatives and committees, and has also negotiated reduced fees or alternative ‘payments through services’ with a number of member bodies. Overall we believe the new system is working well, though we would urge a small number of member bodies to pay some overdue subscriptions from previous years as soon as possible.
CoGREE

Over the last three years there has been an increase in the level of activities arranged jointly by the five organisations that now form the CoGREE alliance. EFTRE has been represented by Jeremy Taylor at the CoGREE meetings. Peter Schreiner from the Comenius Institut in Münster has taken on the main workload that enables CoGREE to function; we are very grateful to him. In May 2002 a very successful consultation involving member bodies from all five organisations, academics, politicians, religious groups and others involved in RE across Europe was held in Vienna on the theme of "Learning about and Learning from Religion: The Role of Religious Education for Living Together in a Europe of Conflict”. A Reader of documents and articles related to the theme was published before the consultation and a CDRom of the papers and proceedings was widely distributed after the event. Two further meetings are currently being planned: an invited consultation in Klingental, Alsace in October 2004 (related to a meeting of the Council of Europe), and a larger conference for members from all five organisations in Berlin in October 2005.

The Executive also responded to a proposal for a new initiative for further cooperation about RE in Europe that came from the University of Tübingen. It seemed to us to be a narrower proposal (both philosophically and geographically) than the existing work of CoGREE, so we were disinclined to support it in its present form.

Internet

The EFTRE website (www.eftre.org) has continued to expand and has become the major channel of communication within the organisation. We remain very grateful to Paul Hopkins for the work he does (at no charge to EFTRE) to make this possible.

Conferences

The Executive is extremely grateful to Juha Luodeslampi and the team in Finland for all the work they have done to arrange the conference in Järvenpää, in particular the way that there has been such cooperation between the Training Centre, the University, and the Lutheran and Orthodox churches, coupled with some financial and staffing support for the conference.

The Executive is exploring the possibility of holding the 2007 conference in Budapest.

Jeremy Taylor - 25th August 2004