ICV 23 - General Assembly

For the General Assembly, we had to switch halls for it. Instead of being in a conference room, we moved to the main hall. It looks like a very nice place; two floors and a lot of silk like curtains lining the place. Kin, Michel and Graham took their places at a table and showcased their plastic signs with their specific office's flag. Michel was the only one that had a table flag and he was armed with a gavel, already stamped with a ICV 23 medal from this city. The meeting didn't start until 6:30 pm, so some folks either left for the day or just went to get a bite to eat. I stayed put so I can set this laptop up (with AC power!) and help with some of the set of for this GA. There are about four sections of seat on the ground floor, so I sat towards the right of the hall while most of the others chose the middle. I see some other folks sitting on the far left of the hall, where the other outlet is located at. I just chose this because I wanted to just be able to hear what needs to be said, be able to stand out, and of course charge my laptop. After discussing with a few folks on what I could do with the emails I send to the FOTW mailing list, just checking my watch to see who else decides to show up for this 2 hour plus meeting and running outside to grab a drink so I could survive this.

What I could tell is that before this meeting began, the FIAV officials were just explaining how the proposed constitutional amendments will go, if they are passed during this meeting. The main one of concern was about how members can be removed from the organization due to non participation. There were other minor amendments proposed by other groups, such as a medal/badge system for FIAV awards. After moving closer to the group, testing the limits of my laptop power cord and the testing of the mics that are on stage and checking for all of the delegates (missing a few folks, probably due to dinner), more photo ops and other misc. stuff, Michel officially opened the GA (twice, due to mic issues).

The first issue taken care of was the roll call. From what I noticed, a small group of folks managed to get at least 3 or 4 delegate cards. Even the FIAV board members got at least 2 cards each; Kin Spain and Gus T. managed to get the most with about 4 or 5 each. 11 organizations did not send folks here. The CSVA resigned, so the FIAV count was reduced to 51. 43 votes are possible, and I volunteered to count votes when needed. The first motion that was presented was the publishing of the minutes from ICV 22, with one small change (changing 2011 from ICV 23 to ICV 24, just a typo). The vote passed with no objections. Michel was reading the voting rules in many languages, and later gave a speech thanking for all of us for allowing all three of them to serve together on the FIAV board. He later mentioned about his travels to promote vexillology and asked us to promote our study the best that we can, especially to areas that need to develop, such as the Balkans, Asia and Latin America (Colombia was an example mentioned by him). Once again, he spoke again in French, Spanish and German (how many languages does that guy know?!). Kin spoke next, echoing the same sentiments and decided to take a more technical route than Michel, such as mentioning the web presence and also mentioned about the NAVA 42 meeting in Austin, Texas. Graham took the mic next, mostly mentioning about the congress that he helped set up and more about FIAV business than anything else.

The next discussion was the 2013 meeting, three places were suggested by the delegates; Netherlands, S. Africa and Australia. Then, two organizations wanted to become a part of FIAV with only a Dutch organization showing up (the SVR; a NZ organization did not sent a representative, so their admission was not voted upon). SVR needed a 2/3 votes to be accepted; the vote was pushed by the Swiss and passed with no objections. This again pushed the FIAV membership to 52, so the total plus/minus ratio is zero. This also increased the vote count for the various bench marks. The next vote was for ICV 25 in 2013; pushed forwarded by the Nordics. The Dutch made their presentation for ICV 25 in Rotterdam, which is a joint venture between a few Dutch organizations, a museum and also the city of Rotterdam. The proposed time was in early August. The Dutch won by a super majority, which Graham said it was the best proposal that he has ever seen from anyone. They also decided to vote on the ICV 26 in 2015; there was also three candidates for this meeting. It was Sydney pushed by FSA, and they gave a short presentation about Sydney. They mentioned about a cooperate sponsorship that will give yearly donations if they are chosen tonight. They mentioned many possible venues, including the capital of Australia and also mentioned they will host it later in August or early September. Sydney has a lot of flag history, including the early historical flags and military displays at various museums and memorials. They also looked into setting up visual displays and perhaps some interaction with the flags. In 2015, the 100th anniversary of ANZAC and a possible flag/constitution change was more enticers for wanting to go to Sydney. The next group was SAVA wanted to suggest folks to come to Johannesburg for 2015. Like Sydney, Johannesburg will have some support from military officials and will also have important events, such as the 25th anniversary of the RSA and also the 21st anniversary of the current national flag. Also due to the 2010 World Cup, South Africa will have a lot more infrastructure present, such as high speed rail and airports. India also wanted to host the conference, also wanting to hold it in August. I did not hear where the location in India was, but it was close to Gao. Mostly just an idea of what they want to do, but not really sure if that will even happen. So there will be a first vote to weed out the candidates. But there was a major concern about choosing a candidate 6 years in advance, mostly from the Swiss. Kin tried to explain everything that was going on, but there was a lot of confusion about this vote this early. Constitutionally, we weeded down the vote to SAVA and FSA; India only had 3 votes for it. Later, they decided to vote on having Sydney as the preliminary host for 2015. Some debate happened about choosing a place this early; the Swiss and Germans objected, but the Americans and Croatians begged to give Sydney that status of ICV 25 host. But the Croatian did mention that we could always choose someone in 2011 if Sydney fails. So the vote happens and we chose Sydney for ICV 26 in 2015 by a super majority.

Next, the amendment discussed was the non-sending of a delegate to three conferences in a row. This, pushed by the Croatians, will allow FIAV to cull absent members starting with ICV 24 in 2011. So this means if the member does not send a delegate to Washington, Rotterdam and Sydney, the member will be removed from FIAV. However, they will be able to reapply at a future meeting. Most of the organizations want this motion to pass because it will make things easier for members and also makes having meetings a lot easier. It passed with a 3/4th's majority easily. The next was the proposal by AVS to have a special badge or medal for the FIAV awards. After a few revotes (for the record, myself and the NAVA delegate was the vote counters appointed by FIAV), we got a vote of 30 yeses. 30 is the benchmark that is needed for a 2/3's vote, so it passed. Later, a discussion about the past ICV proceedings happened. NAVA said they will producing a report for an old ICV in Ottawa and a few others got published, especially the Congresses between York in 2001 and Berlin in 2007. JAVA was tasked with working on the report on proceedings of this meeting before the Washington in 2011. (I have JAVA's back on this). The next point was about changes to the flag information code, but due to workload of the Yokohama meeting and the passing of one of the main proponents of the changes, but they will be allowed to work on something for Washington in 2011.Next, the election of the FIAV board, so we kept Kin, Michel and Graham at their respective positions with a unanimous vote. The meeting was called to close at 8:15 PM and folks just walked on their merry way to dinner, hotel, sleep, or other locations.