
Startpage Contact Imprint

FF Varel

Links

Startpage

Friendship Force 2011 World Conference Hamburg

Friendship Force International (FFI) connects people from the different continents and cultures by exchange and visiting programmes. The special way to travel with Friendship Force changes your vision of the world, suppresses traditional views and prejudices and opens totally new perspectives in international understanding. The Organisation has been nominated for the “Peace Nobel Award” for their successes in the “man to man diplomacy”. The Club Friendship Force Varel is part of this global network of friends and therefore they took the opportunity to participate in this year’s Friendship Force International World Conference in Hamburg.

In the following chapters these participants will report about their personal impressions and experiences from this Mega-Event and Friendship Force International at its best.

Notes and data about the conference

Friendship Force International Atlanta counted 285 participants from 22 Nations at the conference.

Another 105 guests, mainly from Germany, attended the formal Gala Banquet.

Two guests from Nepal, whose attendance had been sponsored by donations received a special warm welcome.

Besides the rather traditional participating countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia, the USA and various European Nations there were a series of guests from Azerbaijan, Burundi, Egypt, Israel, Kenya or Tanzania, who completed the colourful Friendship Force community of people.

Despite the recent natural catastrophe Japan sent a large delegation with Friendship Force Hiroshima who presented themselves as the hosts for next International World Conference in Hiroshima from October 30th to November 3th 2012 inviting everybody to visit them.

The participation of eight acting members of the Friendship Force International Board of Directors and three former members of the Board of Directors underlined the grade of importance of this World Conference.

The organizing team of Friendship Force Hamburg not only presented a harmonic progress of the conference but also the hospitable Hansa Town Hamburg as an open minded economic and cultural metropolis.

This very org team was very successful in preparing and running a informative offer of “workshops” coordinated with Friendship Force International Atlanta concerning the area “Outlooks to future developments of the organisation Friendship Force International”, the contents of which met the expectations of many participants.

Impression of the World Conference 2011 in Hamburg
by Horst Neumann, Honorary President of Friendship Force Varel:

The Hamburg Conference offered me as an “old hand“ a perspective backwards but also an outlook into Friendship Force future times. During conversations with beloved friends about old times there were some nostalgic feelings. However George Brown focussed our attention to the future by the following words “Preserve the best of the past and form the future“. In his leadership seminar he drew the contours of the future of Friendship Force as a worldwide organization, which – supported by the clubs – must take on the challenges of changing times: “The world is changing, we have to change!“


Workshop strategies	International gala	Eva Hain and Horst Neumann

Staff	Hiroshima presentation
Some very personal impressions from the World Conference by a Friendship Force “Rooky” From Gaby Friesen, Member of Friendship Force Varel since 2010: „If Horst calls himself an „old hand“ it remains to me as a „Rooky“ to report about the peculiar enthusiasm that was overwhelming me in the midst of 300 people from 22 different countries. The open minded atmosphere, the name tags and the special attention dedicated to us as first time participants made me feel familiar at this Conference. Regarding my club at Varel as my little family then this was a large international family meeting. It disclosed to me that there are lots of opportunities for international understanding once you take off to cross the borders between people. However I will not deny that I discovered that inside I still feel some limitations towards strangers. Consequently on my way to become a global citizen I should be travelling to countries which seem especially strange to me. As Hana from Egypt offered a specific invitation to us, I think this would be the next challenge. Additionally I liked the serious way of all participants in the workshops striving for understanding and improvements. Friendship Force International is a professionally acting organisation that is trying to adapt to any changing structures. Personally I want to contribute that the World Family will get new members and possibly also new ideas.

Worship in the “Michel” Church	An invitation to Egypt	Reception by the secound Mayor of Hamburg

News from the World Conference about the use of the internet by Friendship Force International
From Hans-Hermann Best, speaker of the Friendship Force Varel homepage working group

Due to other commitments I was only able to join the World Conference on Saturday and therefore I missed the preceding German Conference where I hoped to get some exchange of experience of the use of “TYPO 3” our newly envisaged internet presentation system. It’s a pity but that the way it is!?

So all Sunday I concentrated all my efforts in the participation of the following workshops:

(1) The Friendship Force in Europe
(2) Strategies for Club growth
(3) Social media
(4) Exchanges with a special theme

As the speaker of the homepage working group of our club I was naturally very interested in the topic „Social media“ and therefore I would like to report about some of the information given and received.

The emphasis of the introductory lecture was on the modern social internet communication system “facebook” leading me to a new access and understanding of this “new world”. Up to that point I had been warned by my relatives and friends to be very careful in the use of this media. In addition respective publications about the insufficient data protection and mishandling had supported my prejudices.

However at this workshop I learned that especially the US-American friends were very open in using the system extensively and without any mental barriers.

I also learned that meanwhile Friendship Force International had installed a platform, which could be used by authorized users to exchange any information between Friendship Force International members and clubs. The “Club of the month” event at the famila shopping centre Oldenburg-Wechloy (Germany) could have been a suitable example for the use of that system. Furthermore any authorised person may publish his opinion readable for everybody. “Facebook” is a relatively young internet communications-platform which offers also a German written part since spring 2008.

After the experience made in this workshop I came to the conclusion to put the topic “facebook” on the agenda of our homepage working group for discussion in the near future in order to come up with a proposal for our club committee.

A neutral but personal comment about the FFI-World Conference 2011 in Hamburg
From Manfred Diers in Oldenburg, member of FF Varel since 2010

For me as a newcomer in Friendship Force who so far has not participated in any exchange, as this year’s exchange to Japan had to be cancelled due to the natural disaster that struck the country, it was a lucky chance, that the World Conference 2011 was convened at Hamburg. For this reason my participation was possible without too much financial and timely effort.

It was most impressive to meet with 300 delegates from 22 countries from all over the world.
As a special sign was indicating that I was newcomer who participated for the first time I received a lot of support from any side in order not to get lost.

I was quite amazed about the excellent organisation of the Conference by the club of FF Hamburg. The workshops offered very good opportunities to learn about the background of the FFI administration. At this point I also learned to understand the immense effort and workload of the 45 employed and voluntary assistants in the Atlanta Organisation.
Today I would really enjoy the chance to attend the next but one World Conference scheduled for November 2013 at New Orleans. Possibly (be=streichen) there will also be a chance to visit friends from Oklahoma – which is not so far away from there.

The Friendship Force World Conference 2011 in Germany - in Hamburg
From Helmut Suhren, Club President of the last 10 years of FF Varel and his wife Heide

As soon as FFI published their decision, we decided that our participation at this event from August 26th to 30th is a must. After I laid the responsibility as president of FF Varel into younger hands this was going to be a farewell visit at one of the Conferences and a thank you gesture to many companions of the other clubs.

Hamburg was tempting, as everybody was expecting with a well arranged organisation, although application procedure seemed a little too formalistic to us. There is a plausible explanation for me when I apply to “we” in this context, because I am including my wife Heide as part of our party. During the 10 years of presidency in our club she had been at my side, shared my burden and gained a lot of friends.

Although there is a tendency of increasing seniority in our club, which may not be as bad as in all the others, however the availability of younger members for a committee job is scarce. In this respect we were quite surprised that some younger members of our club had decided to participate in the Conference and its workshops as well as enjoying the evening gala.

We would like to urge all those club members who are sceptical towards the various Conferences at national or European level or World Conferences arguing that they are superfluous to participate in such an event as this is the one and only way to judge the quality of these conferences.

On the one side there are the presentations of the president of FFI, George Brown, who himself lives Friendship Force and who stands very convincing and with his full heart for the idea of the organisation. Naturally he has to prioritize the interest of the total organisation and therefore patience is required for individual national interests.

On the other side there are the workshops, where „very experienced“ or „honorary“ Friendship Force members from different clubs or from the FFI headquarter will relay their knowledge and experiences, as for example the repeating topics of “How can we recruit new and younger members” or “What can we do to make our clubs more attractive” or similar questions.

The gala festival night of such conferences with music and dance always turns out to be a special event with the participants wearing their national dresses and offering open talks and extending the contacts network. Besides the publishing of new regulations etc…which can also be done by paperwork one of the main emphasis is to get in contact with other people and clubs

For us the gala festival night was very special this time because we had a real international table where 2 ladies from Azerbaijan, some guests from Japan and Kenya and 3 Germans had gathered and had an enjoyable evening.

We do not want to talk about the workshops in detail, as there will minutes published later on and as there was only the possibility to attend 4 of the 12 offered workshops I will just mention the one with the headline “How do foreigners see Germans“ and “How do Germans see themselves” that was lead by Barbara Stonebrink – Martin, supported by our president Birgit Wagner and myself (Helmut). During the discussion there were some quite explosive questions concerning the younger history. However at the end and on the basis of the judgement by many participants Barbara concluded that this workshop was one of the highlight of the conference.

Finally of course we do not regret having participated in the conference and having spent the major part of the costs privately.

Heide und Helmut Suhren

A retrospektive view at the FFI World Conference 2011 in Hamburg
Von Corda Caspers aus Varel

I had already been impressed by the comfortable and friendly atmosphere at the European Conference that had been organised by FF Varel in May 2010 although I was just an assistant and not a participant.

This positive feeling was confirmed and even intensified in Hamburg. I am repeatedly impressed

when I see people from different origin, culture and religion that are laughing together and talking to each other even without perfect knowledge of languages. It is a small world which is full of friends – offering lots of opportunities, as long as you remain open minded for new and different matters.


Smalltalk during the coffee-break	A short moment before the start of the Conference	The Night of the Gala Festival

Russian - Israelian - German Friendship

Not quite as positive was in my opinion the fact that the agenda of the workshops were only published at the beginning of the conference leaving no time for the attendees to prepare themselves for their contents which limited any discussions. Furthermore I believe that there was too much emphasis dedicated to the additional entertainment programme. I accept that one has to offer a cultural programme for the guests however sightseeing and workshops were out of balance. May be that I have a wrong perspective of the event “Conference”.
Nevertheless my participation was a further positive experience and a personal enrichment.

Corda Caspers