EMC Lab and Annual Meeting 2022

**Please note, this was an event for EMC members only**

The EMC Lab took place on 10 June 2022 in Brussels.

The EMC Annual Meeting took place on 11 June 2022 in Brussels.

The EMC Lab and AM coincided with the New European Bauhaus Festival, taking place during the same days in Brussels.

On Friday, 10 June 2022, we hosted our first EMC Lab to discuss, exchange and share the work of the EMC and its members. Throughout the day, we discussed a wide range of topics and want to share some of the outcomes with all of you.

EMC Lab

Music sector and Ukraine
EMC members shared a wide range of projects and initiatives that help refugees and music activities from Ukraine. These will be shared on the EMC website, and we invite you all to continue to keep us posted on your activities around the topic in order to keep this page up to date and share what you are doing with the rest of our members.
Environmental Sustainability
We offered a workshop for EMC members to look at the SHIFT eco-guidelines from different points of view:

an introduction for newcomers
how can the eco-guidelines serve as a model to build your own eco-policy
how can the eco-guidelines be useful for members of members
what are the obstacles for implementing eco-guidelines.

The EMC also developed its own EMC eco policy and you can find it here.

The workshop demonstrated the need to continue the exchange - so please watch out for up-coming EMC online events on the topic.

EMC Fellowship Programme
During our time in Brussels, we had the opportunity to get to know the newest EMC Fellows and catch up with the "outgoing" participants of the EMC Fellowship Programme 2020 - 2022.

We wish our new Fellows the best with their next steps within the EMC community and wish our “outgoing” Fellows all the very best for their future endeavours and look forward to staying connected beyond their official affiliation with the EMC.

You can find out more about our Fellows here!

EMC mentorship programme for EMC members
As a follow-up to the EMC staff exchange programme, which was highly valued by the EMC membership for its concept to exchange among members and to learn from each other, the EMC invited its members to discuss how this idea of peer-to-peer learning could be further developed, especially as the staff exchange idea of "work shadowing" turned out to be too time consuming for most of the EMC members. The EMC will start to develop a first concept and invites you all to share further ideas: What would you like to exchange with members? How could this be done best? How could the EMC help? We will send out a survey soon – please watch out and contribute.
Music Moves Europe initiative
The exchange with the EMC members revealed that in general the initiative is perceived as positive and should be seen as a process that EMC will continue to monitor. The EMC will look at how to extend the dialogue with the EU institutions. Another element that is important to follow are the new principles of EU funding tools, esp. cascading grants in the new Creative Europe programme. The EMC will keep its members posted and offer online workshops/sessions when applicable.

EMC Annual Meeting

During the Annual Meeting of members, the membership took some important decisions and started discussions on future topics. If you have not yet done so, please have a look at the agenda and what was discussed here.
The EMC received an invitation by David Zsoldos, Hungarian Music Council, to hold the next edition of the European Forum on Music in Hungary. The location will most likely be a combination of Budapest and Veszprem - EU Capital of Culture 2023. Please save the 2nd week and following weekend in June 2023. Exact dates will follow very soon!
Decision on the membership of the Russian Musical Union - as already shared with all of you, the EMC Board decided to freeze the membership of the RMU until the EMC AM, during which the EMC members were asked to decide on the membership status. The members took the following decision:
- The membership of the Russian Musical Union is frozen, "freezing the membership" means:
  - RMU will not be able to participate directly in EMC events (e.g. Annual Meeting, membership lounges, etc.)
  - RMU will not have voting rights
  - RMU will be listed as member on the EMC website with the addition “membership temporarily frozen”
  - RMU will continue to receive EMC membership news
  - Informal communication channels between EMC and RMU will continue to be open
Since the AM 2021, the EMC welcomed five new members:
- Acadèmia Catalana de la Música (National Specialised category)
- Centre for Music Ecosystems (National Specialised category)
- European Folk Network (European Music Organisation category)
- Museart Association (National Specialised category)
- Social Impact of Making Music (SIMM) (National Specialised category)

More information on the new members is available here.

The EMC welcomed two new team members, Andrea Murzi from Italy as new Project Officer and Miceál Mullen from Ireland as new Communications Officer.
Statutes: A discussion on a change of the EMC statutes started, especially with regards to the election of the EMC Board and the EMC President. First ideas were exchanged, and an EMC membership lounge will be offered on the topic. If the consultation with the EMC members will result in the wish to change the statutes, the EMC will hold an extraordinary online Annual Meeting to decide upon the changes of statutes. The reasoning behind this is that in 2023 there will be new elections to the EMC Board, so that the changes can already be applied during the next EMC Annual Meeting and elections.
All reporting (financial and content) was adopted, and we invite you, if you have not yet done so, to have a look at the documents again.

The first EMC Lab in combination with the Annual Meeting of members allowed us to discuss more amongst ourselves and to have an active EMC membership participation. We sincerely hope that we can keep-up this active exchange, also online, until we will meet again in person.

Programme

EMC Lab, 10 June 2022

Belgian Comic Strip Center - Rue des Sables 20, 1000 Brussels

The EMC Lab is a new interactive format that allows EMC members to exchange on their own activities, learn more about the EMC and prepare decisions for the Annual Meeting. Discussions in small groups were initiated throughout the programme.

Friday, 10 June 2022, Brussels

9.30 Networking and Registration

10.00 Welcome and introduction of the day

10.15 Activities supporting refugees or artists suffering from the war in the Ukraine

11.45 Coffee break

12.15 Workshop on Climate Action (part 1) (follow up from webinar on SHIFT eco-guidelines)

13.15 Lunch break, visit of the museum, networking

14.45 Workshop on Climate Action (part 2)

16.15 Coffee break

16.45 Preparation of AM & members' benefits of the Sustain Music Project (EU network project)

17.30 End of work sessions

18:00 onwards: Dinner reception with music at the Belgian Comic Strip Center's Brasserie Horta