The Princess was followed by:
Hon. Madame Vigdis Finnbogadottir
Former President of Iceland 1980 - 1996. First Women President in Europe. She currently holds Chair as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Languages. Founder Member of the Council of Woman World Leaders. She is Chair of the Institute Research Foundation in her name, believing that foreign languages are the key to communication between cultures. Language is the key to understanding and we should speak to the people to understand their culture and translate their literature.
Her letter included the following “Thank you for these wonderful days in Glasgow and my congratulations. The Congress is a wonderful success - and most rewarding for all the associations that have sent their representatives. I have had a marvellous time meeting with all these ladies from around the world.”
Madame Jane Chen
One of the most outstanding female representatives of Taiwan is currently representing Taiwan in the UK as a Consul. She addressed the delegates about the future role of Taiwan in world trade, communication between Taiwan and China with Research and Development being the main initiative.
It was an extraordinary feat to bring together the delegates from Taiwan and China in the same place and at the same time. Taiwan will continue to work on research and development and China will manufacture it. They do business together all the time overcoming, as entrepreneurs always do, politics in favour of trade. We were delighted to host all our guests.
Madame Joelle Roge
Representative of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. She told us that her organisation WIPO promotes the greater use of intellectual property for SME’s. And the need for patent to protect work on the Internet, protection of Domain Names and Intellectual Property.
Dr. Lily Segerman Peck
Author of Networking and Mentoring - A Woman’s Guide. Professional Lecturer on Career Management, goal setting, skills analysis, succession planning, selection interviews. Works to increase the number of women in Public Life. She is working with women into information technology, competition, students, women returners and the disabled.
Dr. Namane Magau
President of Business Woman Association of South Africa, working towards the empowerment of Women in South Africa. Dr. Magau gave a very powerful presentation and spoke not only about the problems of coping with Aids in her country but painted a powerful picture of the men of a village sitting under a tree discussing the problems of the day, whilst the women worked and brought them their food. When the men could not find a solution they went home to think about it overnight, discussing it with their wives, who gave them the solution. The next day when the men sat under the shade of the tree they told each other they were inspired and the solutions had come to them overnight. The traditional role of women had to change, as they were the roots of the tree and should be part of the discussions in partnership with their men.
Getting to Know You
After we had listened to our VIP speakers and introduced our guests, we wanted to hear from our delegates. We invited one delegate from each country to tell us about herself and her company, as we did in St. Petersburg a couple of years ago: only this time we did it at the beginning of the Congress rather than at the end. It was fascinating to hear about the variety of activities: the member from Morocco owned one of the largest building companies in her country, whilst the delegate from the USA has a roofing company and wanted to meet our Welsh delegate to buy Welsh Slate, the Maltese delegate was in insurance and wanted to meet the Turkish women in Insurance also, our Italian representative made security doors for banks and we could introduce her to our Euro Security Systems member, whilst our London member was in couture dress design, Laura Gucci was also there.
We learnt what the delegates businesses were and encouraged them to discuss importing and exporting opportunities.
We started our discussions with a panel chaired by Ainsley Gotto from Australia, presenting the history of mass communication beginning with the invention of radio transmission. From the outback of Australia to every village of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the radio gave the poorest and the most out-of-the-way communities a link with the outside world. Then, through the revolution brought about by television, not only did we all know what had happened throughout the business world, we could watch it happening daily. We benefited from the experience and wisdom of our guest speaker, Bronwyn Curtis, from Bloomberg TV. With this enormous expansion of broadcasting came the rapid penetration of advertising. We needed to use and work with the media to reach those millions of potential customers in ethical ways and a report was given on behalf of Havas Advertising, by Christine Chauvet from France, who gave us statistics about the various kinds of advertising and their usefulness. The conclusion was that we should use professionals for professionals and not try to do a poor job of it ourselves, whilst at the same time watching our spending and high expectations.
The next day we began our programme with the topic ‘Communication with the young’. Inviting Prof. Sara Carter of Strathclyde University to Chair the speakers, which included Erika Watson from Prowess, Susan Pease from NAWBO, USA to talk about Self Help Girls, and Lidia Satoris Angeles from Argentina. We also invited students from a school in Paisley to ask the questions from our distinguished panel and were shocked to learn that Madonna was their only role model. We offered to put Scottish BAWE members forward as Role Models.
Our second panel of the morning was ‘Communication with the new extended Europe’, chaired by Marta Turk from Slovenia. She gave us statistics about the large number of people coming into the EU from the Baltics, and then we had a contribution from Turkey, a new observer country, on their thoughts on the extended Europe of the future, with Dagmar Steinmetz from the VdU organisation, Germany having been born in the former Eastern Bloc country and living and working in both countries, finally hearing from Ludmila Chubiachuk, about the position of the Business Women’s Association in Russia.
Of course we could not forget our sponsors and a presentation from Claire Logie from the Bank of Scotland about funding for young entrepreneurs, the businesswomen of the future and the plans the bank has to expand their programmes for start-ups in the future. MasterCard gave us a good lesson in the presentation of the MasterCard brand and we finally had a brilliant presentation from Cisco Systems on their work worldwide on communication.
Finally we had a short presentation from Secretary Etta Carignani from AIDDA, the Italian Association on the ‘digital divide’, those that have and use high tech, those that have it but can’t or won’t use it, and those that need it but don’t have a reliable electricity supply. Are we truly global, or is it just those who have the use of technology that have that privilege? Can we help those developing countries or those countries in transition to become global through our association? To answer some of those questions we showed our FCEM solution with a demonstration of our global portal, C & Go.
The AGM that followed was supportive of the new rules on voting for the new world President of FCEM due to take place in Fez, Morocco in April. The appointment of the new President would be ratified by the members at the 53rd FCEM Congress due to take place in Buenos Aires in October.
The social events and the Congress were very well organised and our thanks go to Rosalind Woolfson and Tanya Hine who organised the drinks reception, the gorgeous Fashion Show, the Beating of the Retreat with a Pipe Band, the Princesses Auction for the Carers Foundation and the Ceremony of the Haggis and the Whisky Tour to Loch Lomond, which was efficiently arranged for the enjoyment of over 250 international delegates from 29 countries that attended.
We also thank the sponsors, Bank of Scotland for the Gala Dinner. A special vote of thanks to Debbie Burke for organising the FCEM Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, A Woman in the field of Communication, and to Vicky Reeves for being our UK nominee, one of the finalists with the award being won by the USA.
The winner from the USA of the FCEM Entrepreneur Award with the World President,
previous winner and the organiser Debbie Burke
Tinou Dutry was honoured as the founder of the British Association 50 years ago, and cut the beautiful BAWE Birthday Cake with the colours and logo of the association surrounded by the organising committee headed by Vice President Scotland, Tanya Hine, Hon. Past Presidents Katia Lewis, Eugene Maxwell, National President, Arline Woutersz and Scottish Founder Marilyn Orcharton for BAWE and Joke van den Boer, Tinou Dutry and World President Leyla Khaiat for FCEM.
Our founder and Hon. President Tinou Dutry cutting our 50 year cake
with Arline Woutersz and Tanya Hine
We would also like to thank Lynn Sampson of Meeting Makers, our conference organisers for the way they handled the sometimes very difficult situations for our delegates and their problems and the very good interpretation service in French and Spanish. The staff of the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, also merit a thank you and finally those members of BAWE that did manage to make it to Glasgow, I am sure they were not disappointed.
Post Congress trips were organised to the beautiful city of Edinburgh and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Conclusion
“Mature communication is a balance between courage and consideration.”
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