SI MONTHLY NEWS DECEMBER 2006 Exco Info
From SI Exco News
Servas International Distant Interviewers
Servas welcomes Travelers, Students, Workers.
Servas International Distant Interviewers serve potential Servas travelers far from their local interviewers for instance in Africa, Nepal and elsewhere.
Servas International Distant Interviewers help people become qualified Servas Travelers, or Travelers who wish to renew their Letter of Introduction.
Who are the S I Distant Interviewers?
1) Africa: Rita Dessauvage, National Secretary , Belgium ( rita.dessauvage@telenet.be > 2) Nepal: Sercan Duygan, National Secretary , Turkey ) sercanduygan@gmail.com 3) Elsewhere: contact Mary Jane Mikuriya, Vice President Servas International mikuriya@aol.com who will arrange with Edith Sommers of the USA Distant Voting Team.
Note to Travelers: Before trying this process to renew your Letter of Introduction please ask your home country interviewer, who will provide a speedier service.
• Travelers using the Distant Interview process must accept procedures of the Distant Interviewer's home country. Once approved, your Servas Letter of Introduction will be issued from the Distant Interviewer's home Servas member group.
• Traveler pays the usual fees as required by the Distant Interviewer's Member Group, plus mailing costs for the Traveler Application packet of forms and information and the approved stamped Letter of Introduction and Host Lists.
• Traveler arranges the Interview at a time and date convenient to the Distant Interviewer, in enough time to receive the Letter of Introduction and Host Lists before the Traveler's travel departure date.
• Traveler completes and sends the Servas application documents and fees to the Distant Interviewer prior to the Distant Interview so that the documents can be consulted during the Interview.
This arrangement is based on a successful Distant Interview procedure already set within Servas USA: (where 3 Distant Interviewers serve 5 time zones.)
First-time interviews of new Servas travelers will take an hour or more. Renewal interviews are shorter. The Distant Interviewer signs the Letter of Introduction and arranges for an international stamp and also for the requested Host Lists to be sent to the newly approved traveler.
Thanks to Vice President Mary Jane Mikuriya who researched these arrangements: mikuriya[at]aol.com
How to improve Distant Interviewing? Please send any suggestions to former Servas International President, Geoff Maltby, who has agreed to watch and evaluate: geoffmaltby@ [at]optusnet.com.au
Interested in Interviewing? Did you know that an Interviewer's Manual exists? Would you like information on setting up Interviewer's training? Please contact Mary Jane: mikuriya[at]aol.com
Gary Sealey, President, 26 December, 2006
Exco activities in December
EXCO appointed an external auditor for auditing Servas accounts for the year ending 31st December, 2004. The auditor is Vasudev Pai & Co. of Bangalore, India. The auditor's report is expected by 15th January, 2007.
EXCO is also preparing for the first ever Distant Voting of Servas International which will take place in 2007. General Secretary, Pramod Kumar has written to all National Secretaries asking them to provide the contact details of their Authorised Voter and their preference for the medium of Distant Voting, whether, e-mail, fax, postal mail and the preferred language for voting material. All National Secretaries are requested to e-mail this information to Pramod immediately at pramod.servas@gmail.com if they have not already done so. This is urgent.
President, Gary Sealey and Treasurer, Omer met some volunteers in Venice to discuss the Intelligent Road Map idea. They also discussed how to improve the Servas Web site.
President, Gary Sealey met Chris Slader of Conflict Resolution Committee in London to discuss the Nepal situation.
Distant Interviewers have been appointed to serve travellers located far from qualified local interviewers.
Pramod Kumar, General Secretary
Some Stamps statistics from our Treasurer
(These are in .xls It may be possible to use the active sheet. However I have not tried it out on this format. Ed)
uploaded by Amelia
