Day 4 - SF Session

The buses left the hotel by 7:30 am to BMSIT – the new campus, as most of the day’s events were to be held there.
The first of the sessions in the beautiful campus was the JF/SF/TT Sessions. The SF session began with introductions from the different Regional Coordinators on the happenings of their respective regions. Here are some of the updates in the order they were shared:

South America Region – RC: Andrea Ocares
*About 44 SF’s present in the Region.
*JF- SF breakfast held in January which enabled bonding and information sharing.
*Melton Share held with Sidharth, an Indian SF living in Chile on his experiences in Chile as an Indian, etc. This was very well received by the fellows.
*Another meeting was held in June with JF’s and about 6 SF’s.
*SF’s around Temuco are planning a Monthly Meeting which will enable them to keep in touch and work together on a regular basis.

Europe Region – RC: Matthias Reichardt
*JF-SF meet in November which enabled the Senior Fellows to meet up with the newer ones.
*SF meet in June with the focus being on the preparation of the Symposium with JF’s attending for a day.
*Training of International Trainers- Young Sieter (3 SF’s and 2 JF’s) with partner organizations.
Asia West – RC: Navneeth Kumar
*The activities revolved around Symposium preparation
*About 28 SF’s present in the region.
*Separate SF oriented session included in the annual Director’s Visit to BMS.
*SF meets planned on September, December which due to being vacation times will enable more *SF’s to participate in them.
*Professional workshops will be planned as suggested by a number of SF’s.

North America – RC : Carrie Radloff.
As Carrey could not be present at the Symposium Tanja briefed us on some of the updates from the region:
*The 3 former regions unified into 1 as it makes strategic sense.
*Plans for a local gathering in process.
*Highest Number of SF’s (about 110!) reside in the region.


Some of the other important issues the SF’s felt strongly about and discussed were:
*The EIG Grant and the possibilities for including more active SF’s
*Separate SF oriented sessions during the Symposium which could focus on important issues like professional development, interest based discussion, etc.
*The effects the regional separation of SF's had.
* Travelling SF's who live temporarily in differrent regions.
*Integrating new SF’s by providing them an opportunity to interact with the entire SF community.
*Partnerships with external organizations.
*Locating SF’s based on profession which interestingly enough has been planned for the portal expansion.
*The need for a common Goal to work towards to.
*Internal Fund raising before external fund raising which will make us aware on how strongly we feel about the cause and the need to contribute as one of the important questions when dealing with external fund raising would be on what the existing members are doing to contribute.