Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

The European Shakuhachi Society finally exists – for real!


The seeds of the creation of the European Shakuhachi Society began germinating more than 2 years ago. At the first general meeting at the London Shakuhachi Summer School 06, it was decided to go ahead with the creation of the society. It took a long time – somewhat longer than we had hoped – but finally, the European Shakuhachi Society has cleared all the bureaucratic hurdles, and now has officially come into being as a registered charity organisation!

For some time, there was considerable communication going on in the background between the ESS Trustees (the committee that was voted back in at the Munster Summer School 07) and the UK Charities Commission. The UKCC wanted us to make our objectives clearer, especially in the sense of making it completely unambiguous that the primary aim of the ESS is education of the general public (as well as those who are already shakuhachi players or enthusiasts) about shakuhachi. This involved some rewriting of the Articles of Association. The new Articles were presented (and approved) at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the ESS in London in January 2008, together with the opportunity for all members to vote on acceptance of the new Articles by proxy – an option of which many members took advantage (many thanks to those who did!).

On the basis of the revised Articles, the UKCC has agreed to register the ESS as a charity, effective from 04.03.08. So that is the birthday of ESS! There is still one minor issue to be dealt with: the UKCC wants us to move one clause from one place on the Articles to another, without changing the wording or meaning – simply bureaucratic housekeeping to maintain the correct form for the Articles. The Commission has agreed to register us on the undertaking (which we have given) that this final modification be ratified at a meeting during 2008. We are currently examining options for how, when and where a meeting may be held. Details of the modification will be sent to members in due course.

So basically, we’ve arrived! Now we (all of us) can begin on the important task of creating (or deepening) a networked and supportive shakuhachi community in Europe.
One of the reasons for creating ESS is to ensure that the shakuhachi environment in Europe remains inclusive and non-sectarian. The committee members are aware that so far, during these 1 1/2 years since the London Shakuhachi Summer School where we decided to go ahead with the plans for ESS, most work has taken place behind the scenes. This has mainly been due to the fact that the work to date has been primarily writing the Articles of Association and communicating with the UKCC. From now on, we hope all the different European shakuhachi organisations and individual players will play a role to make Europe a good environment with respect for all schools, genres and styles of shakuhachi. ESS seeks only to be an umbrella organisation under which other organisations can thrive. The website under creation will hopefully be the place to look up other members if visiting a European country, and to keep an eye with forthcoming concerts, workshops and summer schools: simply a space for all shakuhachi players in Europe to use.

We have been asked why we felt it was necessary to create the ESS. Here we would like to present a few important points:

•  As the ESS is now registered as a charity, this is a clear signal that it is not a place for one or few players to promote themselves and earn money. And since committee members will change regularly, it has been created to avoid allowing a few people to attain major influence on the European shakuhachi scene.
•  The ESS hopes, as a charity organisation, to be able to apply for funding for our bigger events such as the yearly summer schools and other workshops – or even to host a World Shakuhachi Festival in Europe in the future.
•  The ESS hopes to ensure that all schools – no matter how small they are – will have a platform for representation. The shakuhachi world has a history of being very sectarian. We hope to change this in Europe.
•  As the ESS is an umbrella organisation, we will ensure that it is possible for other shakuhachi players and organisations to know about already existing shakuhachi organisations. Simply put, communication and networking are important.


We hope you will all participate as much as you wish in ESS. We look forward to your ongoing support!

ESS committee

Jim Franklin              Chairperson
Véronique Piron         Secretary
Michael Coxall           Treasurer
Kiku Day                   Media and Communication Officer
Stephanie Hiller         Publication Officer

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Below is a brief report from the ESS Extraordinary General Meeting held to vote for the changes in the Articles of Association requested by the UK Charity Commission.

ESS Extraordinary General Meeting 9th January 2008 - brief report.

On 9th January 2008, an extraordinary general meeting of the ESS was held at SOAS, University of London, in order to vote on changes to the Articles of Association required by the UK Charities Commission. There were 13 members present (10 were required for the meeting to be quorate), so the meeting was able to proceed with the intended voting. In addition, 16 members had sent proxy votes for the meeting.

After general discussion of the aims of the ESS, a vote was taken on three points:
1) A simplification of the statement of aims of the ESS, to make the educational role of ESS clear.
2) This involved moving some text from one place in the document to another.
3) An addition to one point in the document to make it clear that the Trustees of the ESS (basically the committee) will not usually receive remuneration for their work. (The Charities Commission required this to ensure that funds are not misused by being steered to the Committee.)

All members present and all proxy voters voted unanimously for the changes. (Subsequent to the meeting, Kiku Day reported this outcome to the UK Charity Commission, leading to the registration of the ESS as a charity.)

The meeting concluded with discussion of possible activities of the ESS, with particular focus on activities in the UK.

The full minutes of the meeting will be available for download soon at

www.shakuhachisociety.eu

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The European Shakuhachi Society is a registered charity. Registered charity no. 1123060.