Newsletter October 2020 – 3
Dear EPA members,
I am glad to have to opportunity to write you despite the difficult circumstances we are experiencing in the world.
As you may know, due to the Belgian law requirements, the EPA Board decided to meet in November in Brussels with the proxies of the members in order to assure the quorum and the validity of the statutory GAs. In this way, the EPA statutes would be adopted in the presence of a Belgian notary during a Special GA. Additionally, our second 2020 GA would be held “face-to-face + online” in order to guarantee the participation of all the members not present in Brussels. However, due to the evolution of the COVID-19 crisis, we expect that most of the Board members will have great difficulties to travel to Brussels in November. This will make not possible to hold valid GAs.
Therefore, as one of the priorities of the Board is transparency, it has been decided to replace the statutory meeting by an Informative Online Meeting on November 20th afternoon. No voting will be possible but all the usual information of a GA is being sent in this newsletter and will be presented to the members during the meeting. The day after our GA (November 21st morning), we will hold a webinar focused on Parenting in the Digital Age (our topic of the year 2020). We know it is not the same as a face-to-face conference but we think it will offer some added value to our Informative Online Meeting. As keynote speakers, we have invited experts from the Council of Europe and from our Media Literacy for Parents project. You can find the agenda of both events in this LINK. You can download the documents to be presented during the EPA online meeting in this LINK. You can register for both events in this Registration LINK (Registration Deadline: November 18th).
You can imagine how frustrating for the Board it is not having the possibility to organise during a whole year an event to give us the possibility of meeting face to face with you. We will do our best to give our members the opportunity to meet in person as soon as the situation will allow it.
In the next days, you will receive the Invitation to the EPA webinar for distribution among your partners and dissemination in your social media.
Before ending this newsletter, our office kindly asks to those members who have not already paid the 2020 membership fee to do it before our November meeting. Furthermore, we are fully aware that some of us are having financial difficulties due to this crisis. Regarding the 2021 membership, the Board wishes to remind you of the possibility of changing the fee amount based on your 2020 income. For members who are already paying the lower rate but still too high due to these special circumstances, we ask that you contact the Board. We are confident that together we will find a solution.
Kind regards,
Victor Petuya
EPA President
