This year's GGBS general assembly took place at  the Restaurant Kreuz at Nidau on Tuesday May 27 and it was well attended.  We were happy to welcome  at the assembly Andreas Kohlschütter, the president of our national roof organisation Gemeinden Gemeinsam Schweiz (GGS).  As was communicated in advance, the main question of the evening was if and how the activities of our regional committee could and should continue.

GGBS president Ursula Weiss informed the assembly that, due to her age, she will resign from the GGBS board and doing so also terminate her active project work within the scope of our partnership.  After several retirements of board members in the past years and with the now announced demission of our president, GGBS has now reached a point in which there is just not enough ``critical mass'' left for allowing us to continue operating our regional committee, and with it our partnership with the macedonian region of Kruševo.   Since all our efforts to attract new active board members were in vain, the board's only choice was to propose to the present members to liquidate the association by the end of 2008.  If, until then, the situation will not have radically changed from what it is now,  the board shall convene an extraordinary general assembly for December, at which the termination of our association shall be officially concluded.  The announcement of the upcoming liquidation of GGBS was taken notice of by the audience with great regret and sorrow.  The attending president of GGS, Andreas Kohlschütter, reminded the assembly emphatically that, instead of liquidating it, one should try to keep the association (the "container" as he referred to it) formally alive, all be it in a minimalistic format and without any concrete project work, since this would allow to reanimate it quickly at any time in the future if required.

Even if the end of our activities now seem to become inevitable, GGBS won't just quietly slip into a state of inactivity.  On the contrary, in the little time left, we will strive to accomplish a big and important project, which is to help the fire department of Kruševo to obtain a replacement for the outdated an no longer reliable fire truck.  Board member Heinz Spiess presented the fire truck project to the audience.  As the association does not have all the needed money to finance this project,  GGBS will try to find the missing money with a fund raising campaign .  The assembly embraced the proposed firetruck project and approved the presented budget for the year 2008, in which the fire truck project represents by far the biggest expenditure.