WE ARE READY TO START
New challenges and objectives for 2017:
We are ready to start!
Letter to Members of ALDA, from Mr. Oriano Otočan, President of ALDA
Dear friends,
It is with great pleasure that we welcome this new year, full of good ideas, new challenges and objectives of continuous improvement for our association. I would like to thank you for the great achievements we reached with mutual trust and joint cooperation in 2016, and I hope you celebrated the end of this successful year together with your families and dear ones.
We are now ready to start with commitment and determination, motivated by the fact that we all know how much our action is required to improve the development of good governance within our cities and countries, our involvement in public life, and undertake our democratic responsibilities as citizens of our towns and of our world. The complexity and richness of ALDA's network make our association unique, with a huge potentiality. Up to today, our network includes more than 40 countries from all around Europe and the Neighboring countries, ensuring geographical relevance and diversity; and all different actors and bodies involved in ALDA's activities, by combining their different competences, establish a real, tangible and fruitful space for the exchange of experience, of good practices and sustainable cooperation.
Some of you have been joining ALDA for many years, having the chance to see the successful evolution of our association, while some of you recently joined our network and are now discovering the advantages of being in such a big family, as ALDA is. Certainly all of us, all the more than 240 members we are and I sincerely thank you for your trust we are now ready to move together our first steps through this new challenging year, that foresees the opening of new LDAs, the beating heart of our organisation; the implementation of new projects aiming at the valorisation of our culture, our rights and our identity as human beings and citizens; the establishment of new partnerships and cooperation.
Our agenda for the year 2017 is already full of commitments, events, meetings, training, actions and many more. We have already started our work, with that same passion that characterize us. And I also seize the opportunity to announce that we are already working for the organisation of the annual General Assembly that will take place for this 2017 in the beautiful city of Torun in Poland, on the Vistula River, from 11th to 13th May, with the support of the Region Kuyavian Pomerania. This is the occasion to meet all together once a year to discuss about strategic views and needs of the association itself. I really hope to meet you all in this occasion, and soon you will get all information needed to join us. For the moment we would be very pleased if you could save the date.
Soon you will furthermore receive the requests of payment for the membership fees of 2017. Receiving these payments on time allows us operating more efficiently, so we thank you in advance for processing the payment at your earliest convenience. I thank you for your kind attention, cooperation, support and commitment. Together with our Governing Board members, our Secretary General, and all the staff of ALDA, I really wish you all the best for this new year, in the hope that this year would bring us all the achievements we are going to set together.
With my warmest regards,
Oriano Otočan
President of European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA)
