2006 FSFE general assembly
A fortnight ago was the annual General Assembly meeting of FSFE. I’m not a member of the GA, but I was invited as an observer since I’m working full-time with them.
The venue was in Manchester, England, and there were England flags everywhere. I was worried that maybe this was a sign of a new separatist movement to take England out of the United Kingdom, but Gareth Bowker assured me that the flags were there because of a football competition.
No one was particularly curious about British cuisine, and there are Indian restaurants everywhere, so we ate curry each day – sometimes twice a day.
During the GA, there were the constitutionally mandatory things such as confirming accounts and accepting minutes of previous meetings. More time was spent making oral reports, reviewing the past year, and planning the coming year.
The only thing that continued uninterrupted was the incidental process of getting to know each other better. It can be very difficult to work on important projects with people whom you’ve never met (or rarely meet). We were together from midday Friday to midday Monday, but it wasn’t enough time.
Henrik Sandklef also wrote a blog entry mostly about the GA.