Your Skål International Council held the first Zoom meeting this year on the 11th February with 28 Councillors in attendance.

The meeting had a lot of energy and renewed ideas, with much of the discussion revolving around membership and the many tools Skål International needs to enhance and improve our member’s Skål International experience.

Your Council has identified some significant projects that we can take forward. Below is a sample:

• The Councillors from the USA, Thailand, Mexico, and New Zealand have formed a committee to review all the current membership categories. The purpose of this is to ensure Skål International is embracing all of the various industry sectors. Our industry is changing in these challenging times, and we need to ensure we reflect that change. This is an important project, and if you would like to recommend some input, please advise your Councillor, and they will advise information to the Committee.

• We also discussed website training for Councillors, and we will hold two sessions of Skål International website training. We agreed to keep them in the Southern and Northern Hemisphere to assist with the time zones. This will ensure that all Councillors have a high level of knowledge on the website.

• Being a global organisation, it was agreed that sharing 'Best Practice' between countries is essential. Canada, the USA, and Mexico have done some incredible work together obtaining membership data, information, and Best Practice. This work, with the assistance of North America, will be conducted in all regions. It will then be shared globally. This is an inspiring project!

Many other projects will be rolled out throughout the year. This article gives you a sample of the work being undertaken currently.

Your Council is here to represent all clubs and consider good ideas and recommendations, discuss and then, if plausible, pass those ideas to the Executive Board to decide if it will be turned into policy – so we need as much input as possible.

We will be providing you with more information monthly.

Please stay safe.

Yours in Skål

Denise Scrafton 

President International Skål Council