25th IAPA Annual General Meeting 17 March, 2019 Luxembourg

25th IAPA Annual General Meeting 17 March, 2019 Luxembourg

 

 

The 25th International Au Pair Association Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held during WETM-IAC 2019 on Sunday 17 March, 2019 from 11:20-13:00 at the ALVISSE PARC HOTEL, Luxembourg.

34 Full Voting members were present in the room, with 11 organisations holding a proxy vote for members unable to attend.

During the AGM we presented an overview of the activities of the last year and provided our outlook for the year 2019.

Chair Delphine Vaills welcomed all members and gave a brief overview over last year´s achievements. She stressed that 2019 marks a special year for IAPA as we can be proud to celebrate our 25th anniversary.

Again this year the IAPA Board as well as its Managing Director Patricia Brunner were happy to be able to present a healthy, well functioning organisation to their members. A lot has been achieved over the last year such as the successful conference WETM-IAC in Seville, the rebranding and a new website and further educational opportunities for our members like our webinars series and further interesting plans would be announced to the audience.

IAPA Board Elections

We congratulate Delphine Vaills (Europair Services, France)  who was reelected as chair for another 3 year term and Michael Xie (Lopair, China) to his election as new IAPA Board member.

At the same time the IAPA Board, the management as well as the whole membership would like to thank Mrs Ellen Heesen-Hiemstra for all her work and commitment during the last 3 years.

We all hope that she will continue to support us with her ideas, inspirations and knowledge.

Read more about the candidates for this year’s elections as well as about Duties and Responsibilities of IAPA Board members.

Finances

Treasurer Goran Rannefors presented the Annual Accounts of the Association. IAPA presents itself also this year in a stable situation. Its cashflow is good and the reserves on the bank didn’t need to be touched. Even though IAPA´s end result for 2018 shows a small loss caused by a write down of debts owed by WYSE Travel Confederation and the costs for our website it is in good standing and will further invest in creating benefits for its members and in advocating for safe and high quality au pair programmes.

When presenting the budget Goran Rannefors explained that in 2019 there will be higher costs for the new project: International Au Pair Day as well as the workshop in Mexico, therefore a small loss will again be expected.

The members approved the presented:

Membership fees had been raised for this year already in last years AGM, therefore the fees will remain the same level.

Rebranding /Website

The biggest and most time, money and energy consuming project in 2018 was certainly IAPA´s rebranding with the new website. After the new logo had already been presented during last year´s AGM the new website had to be created. The website went live  22. December 2018 and feedback from members and other people was and is very positive.

 

London Workshop for UK agencies

Linda James reported about the workshop that the IAPA Board held in London in November 2018where the Board members were able to welcome about 26 participants from 20 British agencies.

Prior to the workshop PB had taken a small survey among IAPA agencies sending au pairs to the UKand asked them about their view regarding the UK programme, their cooperation with UK agencies, support for au pairs, what they liked about the programme and where they saw room for improvement.

The survey was presented to the participants and was a good starting point for the following S.W.O.T. Analysis and group work that followed.

Read more about the workshop in the IAPA Annual Report 2018

Membership

Ellen Heesen-Hiemstra presented details on membership and provided an update on the membership statistics per end of December 2018.

In 2018 IAPA membership increased slightly to 172 after it had decreased to 164 the year before.

Since the AGM in 2018 IAPA was able to welcome 15 new members. The present Full Voting members ratified all these new members.

Unfortunately also 11 members resigned last year, though we are very glad to see that we only had to disaffiliate 2 members this year. Also the disaffiliation was ratified by the members present.

Ellen reminded members of the membership referral programme by which members can receive a  reduction of 100,-€ on their next annual membership fee for each new member they successfully referred to IAPA.

Download and read the whole annual report 2018 here:

IAPA Annual Report 2018

Plans for 2019

Apart from offering more webinars, increasing advocacy work to lobby for the au pair programme worldwide the IAPA Board had more surprise its members

IAPA International Workshop 2019 Mexico

After the very positive experiences in Brazil, Colombia, China and UK the Board has decided to travel to Mexico City in November to hold a workshop there.

Introducing “International Au Pair Day”

Ellen Heesen-Hiemstra presented IAPA´s newest project:

She first showed a little video to transport the emotion of what the International Au Pair Day is about: A day to celebrate au pairs, their work but also an opportunity toshowcase the au pair programme as a whole.

The date the IAPA Board chose for this International Au Pair Day is the 24thof November as it marks the day when exactly 50 year ago the European Committee defined a set of rules and regulations for the au pair programme for the first time ever.

The goal will be to establish International Au Pair Day that will be celebrated every year.

Ellen Heesen-Hiemstra called on all members to actively participate in this Au Pair Day and celebrate it worldwide. 

 

Honoring Longstanding and founding IAPA Members

With 2019 being a special year of celebration IAPA is also proud to be able to celebrate so many loyal, members.

Delphine Valls called up the following members to hand out their certificate to them. Especially impressive was the big group of members who had been with IAPA from the first moment and have been keeping up their loyalty and support every since.

10 years
Name of Organisation              Country
Youth Discovery Programmes SA
Au Pair Link Ltd NZ
Busy Bee Au Pairs Ltd UK
International Au Pair Italy Italy
International Options Inc. Col
20 years
Name of Organisation            Country
Juventud y Cultura Spain
25 Years
Name of Organisation Country
Au Pair in America USA
American Institute for Foreign Study GER
Atlantis Exchange NOR
Childcare International Ltd UK
Club RCI Spain
Cultural Care Au Pair USA
Europair Services France
Interexchange USA
Travel Active NL

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