The Assembly proved excellent for networking and reaching out to new people. There were 80 participants, about half attending were new and half were already URI members. New countries included: Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, Scotland, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy. Former countries included: Germany, Romania, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Russia, Finland.

Karimah made a proactive effort before the Assembly to include new countries and this effort proved successful! Newcomers came though Karimah’s contacts with other organizations such as the Society of Women’s Theological Research,” Parliament of the World's Religions and WCRP.

“So many really great people met from so many different places. It was exciting.”  Using English as the common language seemed to work well. Two Hindu women from Italy agreed to translate the Charter into Italian.  The connection with Frances Torredflot from UNESCO CC in Spain was renewed.

Raschid Bockemuehl and Sheik Bashir did an excellent job with financial tasks for assembly. All EEC-members cooperated very well and performed their tasks excellently. Planning-team members - Patrick, Deepak, Annie, Karimah, Heidi, Shaikh Bashir - took turns facilitating sessions.

Jean-Mathieu arranged much of the logistics in Brussels and the outing (walking-tour) to the European Union institutions. He also invited the whole conference to his home on Saturday night for dinner. Heidi filmed some sessions, the material of which can be used for further evaluation and capacity-building. It was very good to have Yoland Trevino, Chair of URI's GLobal Council, at the conference.  She shared with the plenary about the

International Day of Peace (IDP) vigil in Assisi, Italy, as well as about perspectives from the global level.

A URI-gathering in Berlin, which the URI Berlin CC is organizing for German-speaking URI-people and newcomers, was announced.  It will take place in Berlin September 29th to October 3rd, 2006. 

Next year's proposed date for the Europe Regional Assembly is Oct.27-29, 2006.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE ASSEMBLY: It is good to maintain balance between small group discussions, plenary sessions and sacred practices. It was essential to have raised funds to help cover travel costs for participants! We reinforced our experience that it is very beneficial meet each year for face to face exchange among CC members. It is important to include experiential processes for people to connect directly and to exchange information and knowledge with one another. It would have been beneficial to devote a plenary session for all CCs to exchange presentations about what they are doing.

COMMUNICATION IN REGION:  Services that work well in Europe are: our electronic newsletter, phone calls, the email list for CC members. (A new member from Scotland volunteered to create an e-list for people from Assembly to exchange photos!)  Karimah will update the URI Europe data base with all the new names.

REGIONAL DUES: The issue of regional dues was discussed by the Assembly participants. Most likely, the EEC will invite CCs who wish to join an MCC to do so and pay dues. CCs who do not wish to join the MCC will still receive some services that connect their work to region and to global. (Dues allocation that was discussed was: 50% directed to local CCs, 30% to regional support, 20% to global support.) No decisions were made – just discussion.

OTHER: Patrick Hanjoul and EEC board are working to raise funds to provide Karimah 20 hours. Currently, funds allow her only 10 work hours per week. Karimah suggested that people who worked so hard producing the Regional Assembly would appreciate a certificate of appreciation from URI Global, Global Council, etc.

CC MEETING of MEMBERS - questions put forward for the Meeting of Members were: “if you could give one advice to URI what would it be?" Also, "how might Charter Action Track Agenda items or UN Millennium Development Goals become more of a focus for CCs?"

IDEAS FOR FUTURE: It would be great if CC members could visit each other and share their work directly. Europe would like to take the lead in pioneering this idea. Partners in Leadership could be expanded to include more CCs ideas and be distributed more widely.

Karimah believes that people develop CCs and join URI because they realize the sincerity that URI is a journey people are taking together – all are invited to participate. Also, people are delighted with conversations, possibilities that arise, and friendships.