ANSA Strategy & Work Meeting (Mitgliedertreffen) 2022

The Strategy & Work Meeting 2022 was organised as a hybrid event again – on 02. & 03. April 2022.

This year, we intended to meet in person again, but because of the new Corona variant discovered in late 2021, we decided to make it a hybrid event. Instead of a fully digital event, we gave the option to the participants to meet up with fellow members in their region to offer small personal gatherings, with a small compensation for local transport and food. This would encourage a few members to meet up, and attend the event together digitally. In total 27 participants, where 2 joined from Africa (Ghana and Nigeria) discussed various future topics of the association.

An extraordinary members’ assembly was held before the meeting to discuss proposals for new members for our Board of Advisors (BoA). This is because ANSA wants to expand the current BoA to be more diverse.

At the meeting, a new ANSA working group was introduced – ANSA Academic. This group will focus on the academic activities within ANSA like organizing webinars, symposia, colloquia, etc. Further work was done in the working groups: 1) ANSA Conference 2022, 2) ANSA Photo Exhibition, 3) ANSA Communication & Networking, 4) ANSA Academic and 5) Media & Live Streaming. The latter group also assisted in hosting the meeting itself.

As usual for every strategy and work meeting, we also organised skills workshops to give a space for members to share useful skills with other members. The topics were “Basics of Data Protection & Picture Rights”, “Structures of DAAD” and we had an open room for discussion with one of our Board of Advisors, Mr. Christoph Kohlmeyer.

We also offered a digital cultural programme. All participants were able to watch the film “Félicité” simultaneously via the service of a cinema. A discussion round vividly engaged on single mothers’ experiences in Africa, one of the aspects the movie touched on.

On the second day, we continued further work and discussions within all working groups, where each group later presented their planned activities for the coming year. Similar to last year, we were able to enrich the event with a surprise box, which was sent to all participants (within Germany).

As the pandemic has affected the last two meetings, ANSA supports that digital events have been helpful, and making it hybrid added the in-person touch we have all missed. Therefore, for the ANSA conference 2022, a physical conference is being planned. The working group is currently preparing the funding application for a “Small Alumni Event”.

The Strategy and Work Meeting needed less financial resources than expected; it was supported financially by DAAD.