EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING

Transcription

1 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING Present: Leendert van Driel, Ron van der Veer, Paul Stokkermans, Ron van der Veer left meeting at Clarisse Buma had to go to St Maarten for medical reasons. Tadzio Bervoets is on vacation and sends apologies for absence Date: 7 th November 2017 [ am] SKYPE CALL AGENDA POINTS ACTION Outstanding action points: May October 2017 Lobbying plan and Dutch fundraising plan [Ron van der Veer] Action: Draft lobbying plan has been sent to Leendert and will be finalized and distributed to the Executive Committee soonest. Monthly newsletters: Secretariat will catch up and then produce monthly overviews of DCNA (Board and Secretariat) activities for distribution internally. Secretariat is understaffed and has been overloaded with work and unable to produced monthly overviews at this time. Board officers: Leendert will speak to Tadzio about his proposed resignation. Action: Leendert has been unable to reach Tadzio Save our Sharks: Ron van der Veer/KDM should submit request for continuing funding for Save our Sharks project to the Lottery. Ron van der Veer produced a proposal regarding the Euro 150,000 underspending on the Save our Sharks project. The proposal includes funding additional two years of Shark Week, fisheries exchanges and conference on law enforcement and legislation. SOS Committee Chair, Tadzio has yet to respond. Remark: Shark Committee has not yet been informed about the proposal regarding third year financing of the project. There is according to the secretariat an urgent need for a meeting and workshop soonest. Secretariat fears that considerable project momentum has been lost. Action: Ron will check with Tadzio and if that doesn t yield result will send his proposal to the shark committee as dep. Chair. If time permits the Save our Sharks project governance will be addressed at December 2017 Board meeting. If so a concrete proposal should be on the table then. Executive Committee: October approval of minutes Amendment: figures regarding Emergency Support were in Euro not $$ Note: - After 1 st December 2017 Guus Schutjes will no longer be our point contact at the Ministry of EZ. No news on his successor. - Secretariat capacity is severely limited due to staff shortage - Statia Marine Park 20 year celebrations will be held at the beginning of December. Kalli has been invited and will attend. Action: Leendert/Paul S request meeting with Brandaris Administration on the 7th December 2017 DECISION: Executive Committee meeting minutes 7 th September 2017 approved with amendment. Board meeting: December 2017 December Board meeting will be an Extraordinary Board meeting with two main topics for discussion: - DCNA restructuring - Emergency Support: restoration SSS

2 Expectation is that the DCNA restructuring discussions will take a full day and the restoration Saba, Statia, St Maarten ½ day leaving ½ day for current affairs (such as budget approval, audit approval etc) Action: DCNA restructuring document will be made available before Leendert leaves for China (10 th Nov 2017) Remark: all supporting documents for Board meetings need to be distributed 6 weeks ahead of the meeting. The Executive Committee and Board have not yet received any documentation on the DCNA Restructuring. This may make it hard for park members to take decisions since they will not be able to provide feedback from or involve their own Board members. Ron van der Veer: DCNA restructuring is not a new topic and DCNA Board needs to take decisions about restructuring urgently. There does not seem to be any harm in the restructuring proposal being distributed to Board members now: the topic has been very thoroughly and carefully prepared over the past few years, including through the important work done by Yves. In practice we hardly ever meet the six weeks deadline and Board members are aware that a proposal will be coming. Board meeting Dates: December 11 th 12 th 2017 Venue: Kura Hulanda [CARMABI is not able to accommodate the Board meeting] Agenda: Day 1: - DCNA restructuring - Organisational profiles Day 2: - Emergency support: restoration SSS - Current affairs including approval of budget, Board membership, committee reports Decision: Executive Committee approved Board meeting agenda as outlined. Events: - Meet and greet on Sunday 10 th December in the evening with external stakeholders - Ron van der Veer will contact Carmabi and will provide invitee list; venue Kura Hulanda Field trip: cancelled Board membership: - New Board members: Fleur Hermanides (EPIC); Arjen de Wolff (STINAPA) - Board terms ending: o Leendert o Kai Wulf o Glenn Thode o Ron Gomes Casseres o Ron van der Veer Action: Secretariat to contact Board members whose Board term is ending to ask if they will stand for reelection DCNA restructuring Leendert: As agreed at previous Board meetings, DCNA is a network organization which must support and assist member organizations and others working on nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean. There will be two components to DCNA s work in future: External stakeholders: managing relations with external stakeholders including governments (local, national and international), managing the political and business environment, managing funder relations and relationships with local NGOs and NGOs in the region as well as management of the media needs to be the prime focus of DCNA s work (all in close coordination with Park Management and Boards) Rationale: This work as some sort of parks back office is important in itself for the parks, but is also essential in order to fill the Trust Fund. DCNA needs to generate projects and project financing. DCNA also needs to be involved in the drafting of legislation and the formulation of policies (on all islands and in The Hague)and needs to concentrate on capacity building a different kind of capacity building that what has been done in the past which includes providing legal assistance to parks and administrative support. Park Boards and park management need to be strengthened. This will require a more tailor made approach: each park is unique.

3 Conservation management: should focus on large, important multi island projects which may not be restricted to Caribbean islands and which could be related to coral and mangrove protection, pollution prevention and clean up as well as endangered species protection. Both components will require highly experienced staff members. Profiles for both staff functions have been drafted and will be sent to the Executive Committee (but not yet the Board) Action: Leendert will share proposal for the restructuring of DCNA with the Executive Committee before he leaves for China (10 th Nov 2017) DISCUSSION Ron van der Veer: DCNA restructuring is the most important issue for discussion plan an entire day and address staffing and financial consequences. Image wise it will be important. This must be the way forward for DCNA. Leendert has presented a lot of information in a few short sentences. It all seems to fall in line with what Yves Renard advised. Need something in writing. Leendert: has been in contact with Yves Renard. The intention is not that the DCNA restructuring deviates from discussions at the last Board meeting, but takes those discussions a step further. Given the importance of the topic need to act cautiously. Paul Stokkermans: main question is budget consequences. DCNA is in a weak financial position without the funding support from the Ministry BZK. With an extra high level salary how will this be funded? Leendert: DCNA has funding support from the Lottery. Until now funds have been put into the Trust Fund and all unallocated funds will now go to the Emergency Fund. Leendert plans to adjust this allocation in DCNA funding priorities are: 1. fill Trust Fund 2. acquire adequate operating funding DCNA needs to learn to live with funding uncertainty fact of life. This is the reason for the importance of multi island projects. Need to focus on this and to generate project funding. These project should generate adequate income for DCNA to hire project assistance on an ad hoc basis Ron van der Veer: DCNA needs a staff member with prime responsibility for fundraising. Need an investment in fundraising. This new position would be more than a full time job. Decision: Executive Committee agrees with DCNA restructuring as outlined with relation to organizational aspects. NOTE: Secretariat cannot comment on a restructuring plan without documentation. KDM does not agree with the proposal related to staffing which she has received from Leendert Leendert: for transparency a suggestion and proposal was made to KDM, which she is not happy with. It is not appropriate at this moment to go into the specifications of who will take which position. First the organizational picture must be clear and agreed upon. Emergency support SSS Current status Damage assessments: received from Saba, Statia and St Maarten. Send to Board members. Emergency support: focus is on clean up and maintenance. Work is underway. SCF need more manpower DCNA is able to cover these costs from the Emergency Support funding. Next steps Need to develop a long-term plan for support to SSS beyond the initial clean up including monitoring of marine parks and terrestrial park, monitoring recovery from storm damage. Board meeting will allow discussion of programmes, which are running and developing and anticipated and what role DCNA can play these projects. Selection of audit company PS Paul S: E&Y (3 year contract) is the cheapest but E&Y has the habit of overbilling and are difficult to work with. Plus Accountants provided a good quotation with a fixed cost for three years. Not possible to comment on or compare quality of audit company work from the information provided.

4 Secretariat: Secretariat capacity is critically low. Administrator is confident about audit preparation and execution with E&Y. Changing auditor at this time might incur considerable additional costs in accounting support if Secretariat is unable to adequately prepare for the audit. Decision: Work with E&Y for 2017 audit. Action: Sign contract with E&Y for one year with a strong request for them to allocate the same staff as in previous years. Projects: Best of Bats Executive Committee has received EU Secretariat explanation of constraints on BEST 2.0 funding DCNA now has the opportunity to present a revised project starting January /- STINAPA Bonaire. The Nature Foundation has agreed to withdraw from the project and negotiations are underway with STINAPA Bonaire to see if they are prepared to take on this project work. A.O.B Leendert is leaving for China and is available by only for the coming 3 weeks. He will be returning 2/3 rd December Next Executive Committee meeting: Sunday 10 th December (midday) at Kura Hulanda, Curacao.

5 DECISIONS: OCTOBER 2017 Executive Committee meeting minutes 5 th September 2017 approved. BNMP Management Plan: Executive Committee approves roll over of unspent funds for BNMP management plan to ACTION POINTS: OCTOBER 2017 Vogelbescherming: Chair will have a meeting with Vogelbescherming on 8 th November 2017 and provide feedback to the Executive Committee about the institutional relationship Aruba Lottery application: Chair will speak to Greg Peterson and get more details about his application to the Dutch Postcode Lottery DCNA work: Executive Committee to discuss whether work such as the development of management plans for parks should be funded by DCNA in future Damage assessment reports: Secretariat to send copies of damage assessments to DCNA Board members Post hurricane support: Need to develop a long-term plan for support to SSS beyond the initial clean up including monitoring of marine and terrestrial parks, monitoring recovery from storm damage. Emergency support: Chair will remind Ministry EZ (Guus Schutjes) of the agreement that DCNA has with the Ministry EZ regarding emergency support Best of Bats: Secretariat to request a substantial postponement for the launch of the Best of Bats project (one year) with support from Ron van der Veer if necessary. Save our Sharks: Secretariat to send out invitations for Amsterdam meeting 12 th October 2017 Secretariat staffing: Executive Committee to continue discussion about Secretariat staffing at next meeting Board meeting: Secretariat to call Board meeting for 11 th 12 th December on Curaçao. Restructuring: Chair will share well formulated proposal for the restructuring of DCNA with the Executive Committee in the coming weeks DECISIONS: SEPTEMBER 2017 DCNA Board meeting - Park board members: park board chair or their representative will be invited as Observers (without voting rights) to attend DCNA Board meetings including closed Board sessions Executive Committee meeting minutes 8 th August 2017 approved. Draft 2018 action plan and budget: pre-approved by the Executive Committee DCNA to jointly organizing a high profile event on Saba with any contribution to cover the DCNA component of the costs Board meeting invitations approved: Eugene Holiday, Saba Governor, Adrian del Nevo, Arjan de Groene, Paul Hoetjes, Guus Schutjes (and include any suggestions from STENAPA) to the open part of the Board meeting on Thursday 26 th October ACTION POINTS: SEPTEMBER 2017 Lobbying plan will be combined with Dutch fundraising plan draft document will be ready in 2 weeks (Ron van der Veer with Herman Sieben) Monthly newsletters: Secretariat will catch up and then produce monthly overviews of DCNA (Board and Secretariat) activities for distribution internally Board officers: Leendert will speak to Tadzio about his proposed resignation DCNA restructuring: to be discussed by Executive Committee at next meeting (October)

6 Selection of audit company: Quotations from audit companies must be submitted to DCNA by 2 nd October 2017 Save our Sharks: Ron van der Veer/KDM should submit request for continuing funding for Save our Sharks project to the Lottery. Board meeting agenda: Leendert to provide items for Board meeting agenda: including nomination of Board Officers Conservation project assistant: Secretariat to send list of final candidates for position of Conservation Project Assistant to Executive Committee Netherlands trip Sept 2017: KDM to send overview of appointments in the Netherlands to Executive Committee. Meetings are firstly with funders to follow up on reporting and secondarily project contacts. Ron van der Veer to call KDM to set up meetings in the Netherlands ACTION POINTS: AUGUST DCNA budget: Secretariat to provide a 2018 Action Plan and clarification of Secretariat costs action plan and budget will be discussed at Executive Committee meeting in September 2017 (completed) Restructuring: Recommendation for DCNA restructuring will be discussed at the Executive Committee meeting in September audit: Secretariat to secure quotations from audit companies (Ernst & Young, PWC, Baker Tilly) for DCNA only and to review this with Treasurer Save our Sharks project Shark Committee to o follow up with the Lottery to confirm if there is Euro 25,000 in additional funding for the project o take decisions about unspent funds based on the Shark Project Manual and if necessary the Shark Committee will make a proposal to the Board for approval o address issue of SOS project underspending Ron van der Veer to make a proposal to the Shark Committee regarding SOS project bookkeeping and project execution Secretariat to review Shark Project Manual for procedures to be taken regarding unspent funds and the (potential) need for donor approval October Board meeting agenda: Leendert will inform Secretariat of agenda items and Secretariat will put together a draft agenda which will be discussed by the Executive Committee at the September meeting WNF Master Class: Secretariat to respond positively to WNF and request more information International Coral Summit: Tadzio to follow up on the proposed International Coral Summit / Vic Ferguson ACTION POINTS: JULY 2017 Trust Fund disbursements: Treasurer and Chair to authorize payments to parks Trust Fund Committee provided overview of disbursements - disbursement is underway missing one signature for payment instructions / signature needs to be added to MCB accounts Emergency Fund: Trust Fund Committee provided overview of repayments (2017) Best of Bats: all project contracts signed 2017 audit: Paul Stokkermans informed Secretariat that quotations should be solicited from Ernst and Young, PWC, Baker Tilly (20 th July) / Secretariat reminded Parks that they need to make arrangements for their 2017 audit needs Travel Policy: finalized and distributed to Board / signed Travel contracts being required for all non Board members Secretariat staff: Conservation Project Assistant hire process initiated / Emeray Martha accepted offer Board membership: EPIC membership confirmed and paperwork being completed