MINUTES

TELEPHONE CONFERENCE OF THE BOARD

Monday 14^th January 2002 06.30 PM Danish time 

Iris Hölling
Judi Chamberlin
Karl Bach
Mary O’Hagan

Eva Hansen (secr) 

Apologies from Helen Connor and Gisela Sartori 

Contact could not be made to Masaji Koganezawa 

Iris chaired the meeting. 

1.                   Membership situation

 16 individual and 4 full members have paid their fees. Another reminder will be sent in about 2 weeks.

 2.                   Board members from Africa/Middle East

 The board will follow up on this point.

 3.                   Funding

 Karl will contact the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for any funding possibilities.

 Mary will examine UN private foundations.

 4.                   IDA

 It was decided that Judi and Mathew will attend the meeting in New York in February. Karl will contact Mathew and will ask IDA for funding of hotel and traveling expenses.

 Judi will ask SCI for accreditation to speak at the meeting.

 Mary will make a WNUSP response to Bengt Lindquist’s report to UN – to be copied to the panel of experts.

 UN Convention – it is in our interest to have the principles deleted. The time limit due to Mexican pressure is too short for us to get involved.

 Karl will mail a draft from DSI (a Danish Handicap Organisation).

 5.                   WHO materials

 Karl has mailed the material to the board, and it has been sent to all member organizations. No reply/input received. Deadline for comments to WHO is 30^th January. The board regrets this late involvement of WNUSP, and will ask for further time. The material seems to be very medical and negative with especially bad attitudes towards the poor countries.

 Karl and Mary will mail the rest of the board with their proposal for a reply to WHO.

 6.                   Registration of WNUSP

 Draft official letter enclosed with these minutes. Within a week the board is asked to mail the secretariat of organizations to be contacted, together with alterations/corrections of the official letter.

 Karl and Eva will continue with the UN registration.

 7.                   Discussions on the WNUSP tocipa mail list

 At the time there is 40-50 new mails per day, and only a few of them WNUSP related. The board decided therefore to change the name of the list to International User/Survivor Discussion List, and to create another list for WNUSP members only (subscription). Iris mails a wording/reason to the board.

 8.                   Costs of telephone conference

 The board members are asked to examine in each of their countries the costs of telephone conferences. It seems to be rather expensive in Denmark. The costs will be divided among board members’ organizations from now on (please give necessary information to the secretariat as to invoicing address).

 9.                   Action Plan

 Iris, Judi and Karl expect to have a proposal ready by the end of January.

 10.                 Other issues

 Eva will put all minutes of board meetings and telephone conferences on www.wnusp.org. (may be a little while, as we are changing design and structure right now).

 …

 Mail from Japan: The board kindly asks Masaji to give his input on this matter.

 …

 Mail from Club 13 about membership: Eva mails the conditions as stated in the Statutes to the organization.

 …

 Next telephone conference:  Tuesday 26^th February 2002 at 06.00 PM Danish Time

Any requests for change of time to the secretariat as soon as possible.