Author
Thomas Heimann, Alpha1 Deutschland eV, as published in Alpha1 Journal 2/2022.
The leaders and their deputies of our self-help groups meet several times a year to exchange information and discuss current topics. This year, our strategy workshop was the focus of two sessions – one online in March and the other in person in July – where we jointly analyzed and evaluated the situation after two winters of the pandemic and developed our future prospects. We reported on this in the last newsletter.
During our online meeting in September, we retrospectively looked at what goals from the workshop had already been implemented, tackled, or where there were still bigger hurdles than previously suspected.
We will regularly include these small retrospectives in the future to check whether we are all still on the right track, or whether we can make adjustments and improvements.
In doing so, we will continually remind ourselves what self-help groups are actually for and what they are for.
Following the motto: "Modernize (and digitize) self-help without losing heart and closeness."„
The second major topic at this meeting was the future financial support of the self-help groups by the association.
Due to the positive experiences gained during the COVID-19 pandemic with online meetings on the one hand, and the regional reorganization of self-help groups on the other, it is no longer essential for a club member to be assigned to only one regional group. Rather, it is highly desirable that as many members as possible participate in online meetings, regardless of their region. The same applies to in-person events, for example, in metropolitan areas where several self-help groups are located nearby. Providing as much information as possible to as many people as possible is more important than rigid group assignments.
For us at the club, this meant that the rigid allocation of funds based on group size (a "watering can" approach) is no longer appropriate. We are now shifting our support more towards project-based funding. Those who accomplish a great deal and provide assistance for self-help initiatives must also receive more funding.
