Secretariat Survey

At the beginning of the quinquennium General Conference and the Trans–European Division Secretariat initiated assessments for union secretariats. The Secretariat assessment works in a similar way to the annual financial audit. Representatives from the General Conference, Division and other union secretaries join local representatives, to look at the routines and work that is being done.

In 21–22 January Baltic Union Conference Secretariat had such an assessment survey. It was conducted by Harald Wollan, General Conference Associate Secretary, and Audrey Andersson, Executive Secretary of the Trans-European Division. As usual, several other union secretaries joined our survey — Paul Lockham, Executive Secretary of the British Union Conference and Neven Klačmer, Executive Secretary of the Adriatic Union Conference. Executive secretaries from the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian conferences also were invited.

In the end of the survey Audrey Andersson, TED Executive Secretary, said: “Everyone learns when we do an assessment. The exchange of ideas and seeing how people work in different countries, enriches the work of secretariat and helps us all to improve. At the end of each assessment, there are commendations and recommendations and all the participants give a mark out of 600 based on certain criteria. We were delighted that Guntis Bukalders received over 500 points, which puts him in the outstanding category. This is excellent, particularly as he has only been in the job a short time.”

President of the Baltic Union Conference David Nõmmik: “The time that we spent here in Riga for the evaluation of Secretariat was very well organised and I would like to thank GC representative Harald Wollan and our division Executive secretary Audrey Anderson for their knowledge and wisdom in leading this meeting in the friendly and task–oriented manner. I think we all learned something that is relevant to our work. Even, if we knew something, it is good to receive a confirmation that we are on the right track or direction. In my opinion, the team that we had, was nicely chosen and everybody could learn something from each other. Personally, this meeting gave me some answers to my concerns and questions, and therefore I am very thankful to all the team members for their contributions.”

Baltic Union Conference Treasurer Zigurds Laudurgs Treasurer also had found evaluation useful: “I found the Secretariat Survey very useful, expecialy discussing all the process from preparing a committee’s agenda till following up different decisions. I also gained from our discussions about the archives and data protection.”

Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Conference secretaries were also invited to participate. Lithuanian Conference secretary Jurgita Kregždaitė was very impressed about this meeting: “These were the best days in my secretary work last year, because I got necessary information, which will improve my ministry. I’m looking forward to the BAUC secretaries meeting, to continue to talk and learn together.”

Baltic Union Conference was the tenth assessment to be carried out, leaving the Polish Union as the last assessment.