Newsletter of the working group Non-Kin-State 2022/2

Dear NKS member organisations, dear friends,

The year 2022 will soon be over and 2023 is just around the corner. In the last days before Christmas, you will receive a newsletter from our NKS working group. In this newsletter, we look back on the events of the autumn and ahead to the year 2023. Enjoy reading!

1. Working Group meeting at the congress
This year's FUEN Congress was held in Berlin from 29 September - 02 October. During the three-day event, there was time for a short meeting of the working groups, including the Non-Kin-State working group. The present members of the working group looked back on the annual meeting in Velingrad and said goodbye to Pier Bergsma, Ried fan de Fryske Beweging, who is now retiring.

Read more about the meeting at the following link:
https://nks.fuen.org/en/article/meeting-of-the-non-kin-state-working-group-at-the-fuen-congress-in-berlin

2. Bahne Bahnsen elected as FUEN Vice-President for another term 2022-2025
After Bahne Bahnsen was re-elected as speaker at the annual meeting of the Non-Kin-State WG in Bulgaria, elections also took place at the FUEN Congress in Berlin. With the elections at the 2022 Congress, the term of office of the FUEN Presidium 2019-2022 ended. Bahne Bahnsen ran for another term and was successfully elected. We congratulate Bahne Bahnsen on his re-election and wish him every success for another term as both FUEN Vice President and AG Spokesperson. 

Information about the new presidium and the press release can be found here:
https://fuen.org/en/article/Lorant-Vincze-re-elected-as-FUEN-President

3. New coordinator of the AG NKS
As of mid-October 2022, Thea Bargum Petersen has taken over the coordination of the NKS working group. The FUEN thanks Arvid Martens for his good work in the last years! 
If you have any questions or matters concerning the NKS, you can contact thea.bargum@fuen.org at any time in the future. Likewise, the WG NKS coordinator would be pleased if information about events, happenings and other matters from your minority groups are still being sent to us. 

4. Website of the AG NKS now also in German
One of the goals for the NKS in 2022 was to translate the homepage into another language. As of December this year, you can now read press releases and other information in German. On the homepage you can also see pictures from previous annual meetings. The aim with our NKS homepage is to make the minorities without a mother state more visible and thus spread the knowledge about them and the working group. If you have feedback, ideas and input for the content, we would be very happy to receive it. 

5. First steps taken for the annual meeting 2023
At the Presidium meeting in Brussels in November, Bahne Bahnsen and the rest of the Presidium decided that the annual meeting of our working group should take place in 2023 in the Spreewald, Germany. We are looking forward to the cooperation, organisation and planning with the Sorbs in Germany and will inform you as soon as possible.

6. EUROPEADA 2022 and EUROPEADA 2024
Looking back, one of the FUEN highlights in 2022 was the EUROPEADA, which took place in Koroška/Carinthia. Among the women's and men's teams, seven non-kin-state minorities were represented, the Aromanians, Ladins, Roma, Sorbs, Rhaeto-Romans, Pomaks and the Cimbri (not a FUEN member). Planning for EUROPEADA 2024, which will take place in the far north in the German-Danish border region, is slowly beginning. The hosts are the Danish minority in Germany, the Frisians, the Sinti and Roma and the German minority in Denmark. We hope that the players will keep warm and that the NKS minorities will also be so well represented at EUROPEADA 2024. 

The first press release on this is already online:
https://fuen.org/en/article/EUROPEADA-2024-Four-minorities-in-the-German-Danish-borderland-set-sail-for-football-event-Between-the-Seas

We would like to thank you for the good cooperation in 2022 and we are looking forward to 2023 with the Working Group of Non-Kin-State Minorities. Merry Christmas and only the best for the New Year!

With best regards
Thea Bargum Petersen
AG NKS Coordinator