Chairman’s Report

Chairman’s Report 30th June 2011

In this report, I shall categorically break down WUJS’ successes and challenges over the last month in a variety of areas of our work. This report is brief, but please be in contact for any more information.

Programming

WUJS has two major projects coming up in the next three months, and much of this last month has gone into ensuring the success of these programs. The first of these is the WUJS Presidents Conference, which will be held in Greece. We have been able to ensure that the program will be completely free for Presidents of unions to attend, and with support of the WZO we shall pay for the hotel and programming costs. We are excited that we shall be joined by countries that have never before attended, and intend on joining WUJS, including Chile. The program for this conference is based on the challenge of young leadership in an old world. The focus will be on ensuring that Jewish unions are doing all they can to facilitate student-led leadership, with different unions hosting sessions on areas in which they have had particular success.

Another of the major programs we have been working on is a Young Leaders Program in which we shall bring 20 non-Jewish young leaders from 10 different countries to Israel to provide them with a more in-depth knowledge of the reason. This program will include visits to the West Bank and meeting with PA representatives.

We have also been developing, along with a group of passionate Israeli students, the What Is Rael project. This project, which was developed by a group of Israelis, before partnering with WUJS, involves groups of Israeli students from a plurality of backgrounds, travelling to campuses around the World to give their perspective on life in Israel. The trip has garnered significant attention in Israel and beyond and we are confident of its continued success. We are currently preparing for a trip to South Africa, which is being organized on the South African end by SAUJS.

We are also developing our online resources and planning a variety of online campaigns, details of which will be released in due course. Included in this is a three-way partnership with AJC ACCESS and New Voices to publish an online International Student Blog.

Partner Organizations

We have continued over this last month our mission of building stronger relationships with our partner organizations:

The World Zionist Organization are helping support the What Is Rael project to South Africa as well as our Presidents Conference, and at this years Va’ad Hapoel we took a delegation of four students, from four countries, to represent Jewish students.

We have reached out to the World Jewish Congress, during their Governors Meeting, and I shall be meeting with new Secretary General ,Dan Diker, this month.

Our partnership with the American Jewish Committee has been greatly enhanced and we are pleased and proud to be launching an International Student Blog with them, thanks to a generous donation through ACCESS and a private donor.

We attended one day of the Jewish Agency’s Governor’s Board meeting in Jerusalem, but my many attempts to meet with Chairman Sharansky have as yet been unfruitful.

Our relationship with KKL has continued to strengthen. I met with Chairman Efi Stenzler this month where we set out our relationship in developing Jewish student leadership.

I was delighted to have become an honorary member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, America’s Jewish fraternity this month. We also have an upcoming meeting with the Director of Hillel Israel.

Other

Thanks to the generosity of the World Zionist Organization, we shall be moving into new offices in Jerusalem next month. We are very excited for this move and the opportunities it will bring for us to be based in the capital of the Jewish people.

We are very excited at the prospect of taking on a full time fellow from the Israel Research Fellowship program. We are interviewing candidates currently.

Wish best wishes to you all,

Oliver

Chairman’s Report Week Ending 27th January

On reflection I have decided to format my Chairman’s report slightly differently.  In order to make the report more readable and user-friendly, I will give an categorized update, as opposed to a day-by-day format.

Representations

During this two week period I had a number of introductory meeting with partner organizations.  I met with the World Jewish Congress Diplomatic Corp Head, Mr. Peleg Reshef.  As a former two-term Chairman of WUJS, Peleg had some important advice to depart.  I also took to him a project proposal that was well received and I am excited for opportunities ahead.

I met also with Ms. Ayelet Zelig, the Director of Programming for AJC Jerusalem.  We have long-standing and warm ties with the American Jewish Committee and thus is was a pleasure to meet her.  We agreed on areas for cooperation that will be cemented by my participation at AJC Global Forum in Washington D.C.

I met with the Committees Dept. of the WZO to formalize the process for Chaya Singer resigning from various boards and me taking over.

Administrative

We continued trying to set up new banking facilities.  Although our lawyers are employing maximum efforts to resolve the current impasse, one Executive Union remains unsatisfied.  I am hopeful this situation will be resolved soon.

We started work in earnest on the development of a new Website.  The design is being carried out by Eric Kounio, a Greek attendee at WUJS Congress, and a great designer.  Most of the design work is completed and being ironed out.  To fill out the content will take considerable longer, as a whole website’s worth of content needs to be filled in before launch.  I’m confident this can be done by March 1st.

Chairman’s Report
Week ending Thursday 13th January 2011

Please find below my report, as promised in my manifesto, for the past two weeks. Be aware this is an overview of what I have been doing, and naturally I can not spell out every small detail of the work I’ve been doing.

Sunday 2nd January

Developed the the WUJS Wikipedia page (in my opinion a priority for organizational visibility). You can see the new page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WUJS. Drafted a contract for the hand over between Chaya and myself that was shared with the executive. Introduced myself by e-mail to American Jewish Committee and UN Watch. Spoke with Roy, our e-mail guy about setting up an account for me and each of the Executive. Began working on a new logo design, which was worked on by Eric Kunio. Had telephone meeting with employee of Jewish Agency who gave me some advice on who to contact at various agencies.

Monday 3rd January

Met with Chaya Singer to discuss everything with our hand over and got a grip on the situation. Continued working on branding with Eric. Visited our offices for the first time in the WIZO building and met the other people working in the office. I drafted e-mails to all of our partner organizations. I had a conversation with Itzik Yushuavev about ensuring good relations between WUJS and NUIS. Began mapping out plans for a year plan to give to our donors.

Tuesday 4th January

Gave interview to Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and Arutz Sheva radio (all three were published/aired which is good for our profile). Got our email account from Roy and sorted out the contacts etc. Started work in earnest on year plan (which is attached to this email). Booked meeting with StandWith Us. Met with someone from the Legacy Heritage Fellowship org which provides year long paid fellows to Jewish organizations. Arranged to meet an expert in charity finances. In the evening had dinner with a British philanthropist who generously offered us 5000 NIS in advance (which we need a bank account to accept!).

Wednesday 5th January

Met with the financial consultant, we discussed a huge range of issues, namely; opening a bank account, gaining a Nihul Takin (required for being eligible for Government grants) ad becoming tax exempt. I then proceeded on his advice to find a suitable lawyer and accountant. Getting a bank account will be quite a process due to a complete lack of financial accountability in last four years.

Thursday 6th January

Had telephone meeting with Rebecca from American Jewish Committee, that went very well. I informed her of our agenda for this year and we agreed that we’d like to further cooperate. She kindly invited me to this years AJC Annual Conference. The proceeded to visit the Office of Charity Registrations (bureaucracy central!) to collect all our paperwork in order to fill legal criteria for opening bank account. Printed out this paperwork and delivered to accountant and lawyer. Spent the afternoon writing full proposal for the previously mentioned potential fellowship.

Sunday 9th January

Met with StandWithUs in Jerusalem, it was pretty productive and we agreed to cooperate when possible. Met again with the accountant, agreed he will catch up on writing the last 4 financial reports that have not been submitted by previous chairs. He will also take control of paying the salaries, expenses etc. Then met with Yair from Kol voice, who we rate very highly.

Monday 10th January

Met with the lawyer in long detail. We worked out everything we need to do to bank independently again (which is a lot). He is going to speak with our ex-lawyers and get all the documentation we need, then he is going o draft the documents the entire Executive will need to sign. Booked meeting with Mr Duvdevani of WZO which will occur on 10th February.

Tuesday 11th January

Began exploring in earnest plans for a new website. Spoke with Aaron from CFJS and we agreed that we’d try cooperate on their students4israel portal, and we’d propose to have it host discussion on Durban III. We need to separately work on a new WUJS site which will begin to happen when our branding is complete. Began writing a full proposal for the Presidents Conference as I will be going to meet the President of the Thessaloniki community in Greece shortly.

Wednesday 12th January

Met with National Union of Israeli Students. First we went to the office in Tel-Aviv where we discussed the structure of NUIS and how our organizations could cooperate. We then proceeded to visit the unions of Bar Illan university so I could get a feel of how student politics work on Israeli campuses. We then proceeded to have long and substantive discussions on how our relationship could develop.

Thursday 13th January

Day just started but so far have booked meeting with WZO Diaspora Department. Now I’m writing this report, and going down to WZO offices soon to meet their accountant and the head of the Committees Department.

Conclusion

I believe this has been an extremely productive 2 weeks where we have made enormous progress in terms of getting our banking and legal situation sorted out. I do not want this to be dictating what we do at WUJS for too long and thus by the time of our next report I expect our bank account to be open and functioning. Another priority for the next two weeks will be getting the website development started. Apart from this one of my priorities over this past two weeks was to make sure everyone knows who I am and understand that we will be embarking on a major project of restructuring and reforming what WUJS is. I am confident most of the Jewish world out here understands that we have new leadership, that we are going to change, and change quickly, and that our Executive is on board.