NEWSLETTER |

February 2004

CHAIR'S CORNER
2004 SERVAS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
GETTING EXCITED ABOUT SERVAS
SERVAS & THE UNITED NATIONS
WRITING OPPORTUNITY WITH TRANSITIONS ABROAD

Chair's Corner

by Gilbert Sherr

Our deepest thanks and gratitude to all of our hosts who have renewed their commitment to SERVAS in 2004. Your response to our annual appeal was phenomenal! And to our wonderful travelers, please consider becoming an overnight host or a day host! The SERVAS family wants you to continue to be involved. And for those of you waiting for the last moment to list yourself in our annual host book, that time is now. Please contact the office today to learn how you can be a host in 2004!

2004 Servas International Conference

Place: La Conrería, Tiana, Spain (15 Km from Barcelona)
Dates: 18-25 July 2004 (July 21 will be an all day trip.)
Registration Information: If you are currently a registered US host and are planning to go to Spain for the Servas International Conference, details and a registration form are available at www.servas.org/login.php for those with an active user-id and password. If you do not have a user-id and password, just sign up as a new user. SI will send a confirmation to the US Servas office who will confirm your current host status. You will then receive an e-mail from SI acknowledging that your user-id and password are active. Click on the link to the 2004 conference and there you will find the necessary information and on-line registration form. If you have any difficulties, please contact the New York office.
Contact persons: Frits Stuurman (SI General Secretary) and Luis Miguel Avendano (Spanish National Secretary) General information queries >

As of March, 2004 the Servas International Conference is FULL.

Getting Excited about Servas

by Phyllis Cole & Mary Jane Mikuriya

Why have a Servas get-together? You get to know other Servas hosts and travelers and to introduce others to Servas. We enjoy one another's company, get valuable information from each other, and are better able to refer Servas travelers to other hosts. Our experiences of hosting and traveling are deeper and more fun because of our regular Servas gatherings.

Some local Servas get-togethers have gone on for decades and some occur just once in a while. Differing formats meet local needs. In the DC area, people dine together in a restaurant and hold annual parties. In North Carolina, folks enjoy sharing covered dish dinners. The Utah group has been meeting monthly for four years. A Servas host in San Francisco volunteers his corporate kitchen and dining room with himself as chef! To learn more, go to the Servas website Events Page. If you are interested in getting some excitement about Servas started in your community, contact Mary Jane Mikuriya.

Servas and the UN

To keep you informed about the work that US Servas does at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, we have created a new UN page on the US Servas website.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 in the aftermath of World War II on the goal of promoting world peace. US Servas is accredited at the UN as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO). The UN is comprised of two parallel structures: one for Governments and one for Non Governmental Organizations. This is based on the premise that not all the governments represent all the people. US Servas is committed to working in the areas of Peace and Travel. This is being done in conjunction with the UN and other NGOs. For example, Servas made a contribution to the UN by holding a briefing on Responsible Tourism in New York in November 2000, and Sharon Wallenberg, US Servas Main UN Rep gave a presentation on US Servas at the World Summit on Peace through Tourism in Geneva in February 2003.

In addition to finding out about US Servas' UN activities, individual members of US Servas can become involved by visiting the UN. Please make arrangements well in advance of your visit to join our Reps at a Thursday morning briefing. Information on active participation in issues, such as writing to elected officials is published in the US Servas newsletter. To find out more email US Servas' Main UN Rep, Sharon Wallenberg.

To read more about US Servas and the United Nations go to our new UN page. Please be sure to check out the US Servas UN Reports on this page, which include information on a range of interesting and important issues affecting people around the world.

Writing Opportunity: Transitions Abroad

by Julie Schumacher Cohen

Transitions Abroad, both a travel magazine and web portal, has provided comprehensive work, travel, study and living articles, resources, programs and web links for over 26 years. They are currently looking for articles about work abroad. If you have had a work-abroad experience in the past or are currently working abroad now then they would love to hear from you. If Servas homestays were part of this experience please be sure to include this in your article.

Send all article submissions to Sherry (the current editor) at: Editor@TransitionsAbroad.com. For information on how to submit articles go to: Transitions Abroad's writer's guidelines.

This a wonderful opportunity for professional and amateur writers alike to share information and get connected with a great publication. If you have not visited the Transitions Abroad website, please take this opportunity to see the wide variety of useful information they provide. Please also take a moment to read a recently published article about Servas.

Today's world requires us to accept the oneness of humanity. In the past, isolated communities could afford to think of one another as fundamentally separate. Some could even exist in total isolation. But nowadays, whatever happens in one region eventually affects many other areas. Within the context of our inter-dependence, self-interest clearly lies in considering the interest of others.
--His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Thank you!