Minutes of the 33rd EVC Expert Panel Meeting
Present: Avi Sooful (Chair), Runette Kruger, Patrique deGraft-Yankson, Ebenezer Acquah, Ebenezer Kow Abraham (Secretary), Mary Clare-Akinyi Kidenda, Stefan Eisenhofer, Jana Tiborra, Ansgar Schnurr, Bernadette Van Haute, Ernst Wagner, Isadora Canela, Elsa Cuissard, Jane Otieno, Paul-Henri Souvenir Assako, and Kamau Wango.
Apologies: Mina Ton, Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel, Cristian Römmelt, Lize Kriel, and Constanze Kirchner.
Welcome
Avi opened the meeting with a warm welcome at 10:04 Ghana Time.
1. Membership Transitions
- New Appointments: The expert panel formally introduced and welcomed Jana Tiborra and Ansgar Schnurr from Giessen University as the newest members of the Expert Panel.
2. Governance, Legal, and Financial Frameworks
- Website Management: Pädagogische Hochschule Weingarten has officially assumed all legal and financial responsibilities for the EVC website, with operations facilitated through Christian Römmelt.
- Institutional Registration: Physical consultations are scheduled at the Registrar General’s Department in Accra to finalise the official registration of EVC and settle required nominal fees.
- EVC Constitution: The final version of the EVC constitution was adopted with specific technical corrections:
- Membership Tiers: The "associate membership" category was deleted; membership is now limited to "ordinary" or "honorary" categories.
- Board Clarification: The "Expert Panel of Directors" was officially amended to read Board of Directors, representing the core group coordinating activities, while the original Expert Panel remains the broader advisory and reporting body.
- Financial Oversight: EVC will establish a dedicated bank account in Winneba. The Internal Auditor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has committed to auditing EVC’s accounts pro bono once the affiliation with CerCCA is fully established.
- Grant Management Protocol: The panel clarified that the handling of research funds depends on specific donor requirements. While some grants may be transferred directly into the EVC, Ghana account, others may be held by a lead applicant at their respective institution. In cases where EVC is a partner, the membership must be kept fully informed of how funds are utilised, and all transactions must be recorded in the EVC account register to ensure a transparent audit trail.
3. Meeting Protocols
To maintain transparency and progress, EVC utilises a tiered meeting strategy:
- Board Meetings: The Board of Directors may hold separate, focused meetings to address specific logistics, financial oversight, or urgent administrative matters. These sessions are restricted to executive members unless specific outside expertise is required.
- Expert Panel: These meetings involve the broader group where portfolios report on active projects, research findings, and collaborative initiatives. This ensures that all active participants are aligned with the organisation’s creative and academic output.
- General Meetings: These serve as the primary forum for the entire EVC community. Communication flows upward from various committees to the central board, ensuring transparency. General meetings are the venue for electing leadership and making major constitutional decisions. This will be online as membership is transnational and transcontinental.
Suggested Leadership & Committee Appointments
- Executive Leadership: Avi Sooful (Chair); Mary Clare and Patrique (Tentative Deputy Chairs).
- Administrative & Financial Core: Ebenezer Abraham (Secretary) manages administrative flow, newsletters, and the website; Constant (Deputy Secretary) provides administrative support; Jana (Treasurer) oversees financial health.
- Laboratory Committee (Student & Youth Wing): Comprised of Isadora, Elsa, and Lukas. This branch acts as an experimental space for the next generation, focusing on the various communication strategies, webinars, and residencies.
- Research & Project Committees: Specialised groups drawn up from the Expert Panel to handle high-level advising:
- Research: Patrique, Ernst, Osuanyi, and Ansgar.
- Project: Mary Clare, Avi, Jana, Christian, and Esther.
Figure 1: The Organisation Chart: A Visual Summary of the EVC Leadership
NOTE: The structure of the leadership and committees is visually detailed in the organisation chart above. All names on the chart (organigram), as discussed above, are tentative pending formal elections by members.
4. Reports on Ongoing Global Projects
- New Futures Residency (Hout Bay, Cape Town): Elsa reported that a residency programme in Hout Bay is open for applications until May 10th. The theme, "reflecting on extractive relationships," shifts the focus from mining to exploring the local landscape through artistic and theoretical co-creation (Link).
- Decolonisation Book & Digital Project: Ansgar reported on a project exploring post-coloniality in art education. This initiative will start as a website for sharing draft papers and discussions to develop collective ideas before producing a final book (Link).
- The Imbali Project: Ernst updated the house on the Imbali project, mentioning that collaboration continues between Imbali, South Africa and Weingarten University, Germany to develop teacher manuals for school teachers in South Africa and Germany (Link).
- Institutional Collaborations: Ebenezer reported that students from UEW and Mozarteum University (under Prof. Iris Laner - Link) are currently developing an outline for exhibiting artworks from Ghana, and an Interactive Visualisation project involving the XR HUB Bavaria, TUM, and UEW is in the pipeline for the winter semester.
- Ghana-German Textbook: Avi reported that the Ghana-German textbook project (Link) could be revived as a pilot initiative. Funding and thematic focus are being discussed with Prof. Gabriel Schrüfer and Prof. Natasha Kelly of the Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth.
5. Any Other Business (AOB) and Closing
- International Keynote: Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel will deliver a keynote address at a conference (5-7 May) on restitution hosted by Zeppelin University, Germany (Link).
- Feedback on Publications: Feedback was provided from Kyle regarding the 2024 AI conference papers in Kenya. Ten conference papers will be published in the Journal "Image and Texts" and are scheduled for rolling online publication starting next week. While there are still challenges regarding the writing phase, the first five papers are expected to be online shortly.
- Closing Gratitude: The Chair extended congratulations to the Ghanaian colleagues for the successful Sankofa conference and thanked the New Futures team for their exceptional exhibition and online work.
Minutes Prepared By: Office of the Secretary