Landau 28 June 2020.
Traditionally, the annual general meeting of SPHENISCO takes place on the last Saturday in June. In recent years, many members have not spared themselves a long journey to participate in the event at the Landau Zoo School. However, almost all members and cooperative partners from Peru, Chile and Argentina have never been there. This year however, they were; albeit "only" electronically. The Corona pandemic made it necessary to forgo a physical meeting. Technology nevertheless made it possible to unite a total of 33 members and employees of Sphenisco on the computer screen or on the telephone, and have the conference in order to hold the general meeting, as well as conduct the election of the board of directors and internal auditors.
The reports about the activities of the association had been previously made available on the internet to all members of the association as video presentations. In the videoconference on June 28th, these reports were summarized and put up for discussion. In addition, current and planned projects were presented, and requests and proposals formulated. The existing board consisting of 1st Chairman Gabriele Knauf, 2nd Chairman Dr. Christina Schubert and Treasurer Klaus Blumer was unanimously reelected for the next three years, as were the two auditors Susanne Janz and Reinhold Knauber. The Board would like to thank you for the trust placed in them! Overall, conversations and discussions were much less detailed and lively than at the joint meetings previously held "live" on the ground. Nevertheless, "Zoom" offers an alternative, especially for SPHENISCO. In the next few years, a video circuit could complement the annual general meeting in vivo, allowing members to participate without having to make their way to Landau. A special thank you goes out to Katja Resch for the technical assistance with "Zoom", in the course of the preparation for the meeting!
Dr. Christina Schubert
translated by Erich Greiner