Dear friends,

 

Last weekend the International Federation of Liberal Youth witnessed a new high point in its more than sixty years of history. IFLRY's Dutch member organizations JD and JOVD put up quite a show by organizing a smoothly run and highly successful 32nd General Assembly in The Hague, The Netherlands.

 

The General Assembly adopted a new Manifesto - in the making throughout 2009 - that was completely revised from the version that had been used for the past 15 years. Moreover, the GA elected a new Bureau that is going to lead our Federation for the next 2 years and I feel very honored to have been elected as your President.

I am joined by a fantastic team consisting of Frederik Ferie (Julis, Germany) as Secretary General, Jan van Run (JOVD, Netherlands) as Treasurer, and Mirna Mneimneh (Future Youth, Lebanon), Mauricio Lopez (Libertarian Youth), Naomi Ichihara Rokkum (NUV, Norway) and Jordi Villanueva (JNC, Catalunya) as Vice Presidents. You can reach the new Bureau via bureau@iflry.org or individually via <first name>@iflry.org . We would like to thank the previous Bureau for its hard work and commitment to the progress of our Federation over the past years and particularly to Paola Silva (UCJD, Colombia), who has been a member of the Bureau for the past 6 years.

 

The General Assembly also elected two new auditors: Mats Lofstrom (SU, Finland) and Emil Dyred (RU '94, Denmark) who can be reached via auditors@iflry.org .

 

In addition, I believe that the Standing Committees that took place during the GA have both seen important advancements. The SC on Manifesto & Resolutions has established a team that will prepare a proposal for the standardization of the format of resolutions submitted to IFLRY's statutory events (EC and GA). The SC on Membership discussed a more effective and transparent procedure for assessing membership applications that shall be put in place at future statutory events.

 

The new Bureau is very much looking forward to working on behalf of the Member Organizations in the coming two years. We shall present our Plan of Action by the 3rd week of January. Please keep track of our work and of major developments within our organization by following us on Twitter and by becoming part of our Facebook fan page. Unfortunately, our webpage still suffers from several technical errors but we will keep you informed as best as possible via the Bureau blog and our newsletter (if you have some IT skills to spare - please contact me).

 

At the General Assembly it became once more apparent that our Federation needs more financial support in order to keep its work going. You will very soon hear about our exclusive donor's programme Friends of IFLRY that will allow you to be of additional value to young liberals around the world while at the same time linking you up closer to the global liberal network. We're hoping for your support (already curious? please write treasurer@iflry.org ).

 

Finally, please be aware that we are always open for feedback and suggestions about the work of our Federation. Just contact any of us and we will try to work it out as best as we can.

Liberal regards,

Bart Woord