The Staff Association Ambassadors' cocktail meeting: adapting to the new reality of COVID-19!

For more than 25 years, the Staff Association, taking advantage of the presence at CERN of delegations to the Council and the Finance Committee, has organised a cocktail party twice a year, in March and in September after the Finance Committee meeting. It brings together delegates from Member States and Associate Member States with the nationals of their country, chosen by the Staff Association among the Organisation's personnel to be "ambassadors" of the Association and the personnel.

For the first time in its history, the traditional "cocktail party" of the Association's Ambassadors had to be interrupted, throughout the year 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the Association did not give up and resumed this practice in March 2021, in a brand new form via Zoom, while adapting to the current health context.

During this meeting, a certain number of delegations expressed their wish to meet again in June in order to have a more regular follow-up of the evolution of ongoing affairs.

In response to this request, the Association organised an additional session on 9 June which brought together around twenty delegations with more than fifty "Ambassadors" of the Association. Discussions focused mainly on the following three topics:

  • 5-Yearly Review 2021 of the employment conditions;
  • Graduate programme review; and
  • Situation around Users.

During this meeting, informal exchanges in the national language of each State allowed the Staff Association to discuss these current important topics, at the same time, to gather the concerns, ideas and views of each delegation.

The Staff Association would like to warmly thank all the participants of this meeting of delegates and “ambassadors” and looks forward to meeting again in September!

 

by Staff Association