Present: Henri Braakenburg, Bertie Linschoten, Johan Riemersma, Maria Storsbergen, Isabel Terpstra, Coen van Baggum, Ridie Vos, Lenie Nebbeling.

Not present: Gerbert Rebel.

1.Opening

Isabel opens the meeting. Henri has made an update of the list of participants and an instruction how to add text to the Futeurope website. He will also mail these documents

2.Report 3^rd meeting.

Bertie explains the GALM project: its aim was to get seniors actively acquainted with different types of sports. The project originated from the city of Groningen and was then copied by other cities, including Amersfoort. It was very succesful but had no follow up, which is regrettable.

No further questions or remarks.

3. Incoming mail, webreports partner countries.

Mail: no mail was received. On the website a report of Hungary is posted recently. They state some questions, we have to discuss and answer. Further, they propose dates for the upcoming visit to Hungary, Debrecan: 8-11, or 15-18 october this year. Possible participants from our group are Coen, Johan, Gerben(?) and with some reservation Bertie. They prefer 8-11 october. Henri will notify the receiving organisation of this preference.

Inquiries will also be made about the programme in Finland (Lenie, Henri).

4. Announcements and questions

We welcome as guest Mrs Margreet van Hensbergen, member of the city council of Amersfoort for the socialist party. She explains developments in the area of social welfare and the role of the city. It is a very wide area. On the national level, guidelines have been formulated but the city has some freedom to adapt the implementation to the local situation. About the proposed policy the city has informed all citizens in meetings and by way of a leaflet distributed in the whole city. Younger citizens and citizens with roots abroad have hardly been reached however. An advisory board has been installed. They can give advice to the city council. The board is chaired by Ben de Snoo. They try to communicate about the recently formulated policy and to gauge the feelings of the population. In the policy, certain restrictions have been taken (f.i. psychiatric care is left out) for the time being.

A main objective is participation in a wide sense. For the elderly people this can be translated in the objective to facilitate living in their own house and neighbourhood as long as possible. Problem is that there is a shortage of lifetime durable houses and that care facilities are not always easily reached. The new policy experiments with care facility areas of a limited size. In such an area all different care facilities have to be present.

5. Next meeting.

Next meeting 7^th of May in the communal room of the residential complex for 55+ Bloemendaalse Buitenkade 11. Chair: Johan. Subjects for discussion: visit to Finland, questions from Hungary, lifetime durable housing including domotics.

6. Future meeting dates

4th of June, chair Maria.

Flavia Darkice, co-ordinator of the Romanian Futeurope study circle group in Oradea, informed us that they failed in obtaining financial support in order to participate in the Finland meeting in June. The group will now try to meet up with the other groups in Debrecen during the autumn meeting set for October this year.

Present:  Henri Braakenburg, Bertie Linschoten, Johan Riemersma, Maria Storsbergen, Isabel Terpstra, Coen van Baggum, Ridie Vos, Lenie Nebbeling.
Not present (with notification): Gerbert Rebel.
1. Coen van Baggum introduces himself. He is a businessman, was a member of the city council and has a lot experience in European affairs.

2. Henri will put the reports of our meetings on the website. He will also make an update of the list of participants.

3.  Mail: no mail was received. The participants of the visit to Finland did sent a letter to the hosts in Finland.

4.  Announcements and questions:
Logo: a decision was made about the logo of Futeurope. It can be found on the website.
Dates for the forthcoming visit to Hungary have to be decided upon.
The group in England has been reorganized.  There are seemingly problems. Henri has not heard anything recently. Also he did not have any contact with the Rumenian group. In Lithuanian a change in leadership of the participating centre has taken place. On this moment only Hungary, Finland and the Netherlands seem to be active. Henri will contact the other countries again.
Visit to Finland: Isabel wants to know the program et cetera of the visit in order to prepare contributions to the meeting. We discuss extensively possible subjects to present and/or to discuss. Isabel wants to present something about housing communities. Other subjects mentioned are housing with care facilities, domotica (use of ICT to support independent living of the elderly), innovative housing complexes for the elderly embedded in normal neighbourhoods.  Henri stresses the importance of facilities as postal and banking services at walking distance. Also health care, care at home, the GALM project (?), fitness programs are possible subjects.
Since members of the other study groups also will be present at the meeting, a round of emails is needed to clarify this further.
Website: on our website, at this moment only the webmaster and Henri are able to place content on it.  The other members can only make comments to the published reports.  (And of course send emails to each other).
Henri had a lightning strike his electricity system and his computer. When the damage is repaired, he will further instruct us how to put content on the website. In a later stage, each country will have a virtual meeting room for themselves and a general meeting room for all countries together. We will be informed when this application is ready.

5 Next meeting: 9 april in the Bergchurch, we will discuss the new social laws (WMO) and the way our city should be prepared for accomodating a larger group of senior people. Henri will invite speakers on these subjects. Isabel prepares the agenda and will chair the meeting.

6. Bertie asks who sponsors the Futeurope project. Henri answers that the European Commission is the sponsor. The subsidy is Euro 16000, mainly meant for the exchange program. Henri is administrator for the money..

7. Future meeting dates: 7th  May, meeting facility Isabel, chair Johan  -  4th June, chair Maria.

Topic: Healthy LifestyleThe group had its second meeting on February 20 (on Thursday) at Életfa Association’s office at 2 pm. 8 people gathered at the meeting, together with the president of Életfa Association and the project manager.

At the previous meeting 4 seniors undertook to make a presentation in theme of healthy lifestyle.

1. Mária and László (lung therapeuists)
László features the stages of a person’s life: childhood, youth, adulthood, elderly age. Ageing is accompanied by all kinds of difficulties, for example: defencelessness, distrust, fear of  unbeknown things, decrease of ability, and the different kind of illnesses.

Our body’s ageing
- wrong/ unsuitable feeding
- overfeeding
- lack of exercise
- smoking, alcohol-and coffee drink

It’s very important to eat fibre rich food.

Milk and dairy products have to be the basis of our daily eating: we should drink 0,5 litre milk a day. By 35 years ends the development of the bone structure.
You have to beware of using too much salt and sugar. 2mg salt a day is healthy. (in Hungary the average intake is 6-8 mg a day). It can cause problems for example: dyspepsia, vaso-constriction.
- Use honey instead of sugar and sweetener.
- Drink 1,5-2 liter water a day.
- From that on the formation of cells slows down and disintegrates, so the aging form 45-50 years is continuous, that’s why the reading, sleeping, guessing a riddle, regular exercises, for example: ridding a bike, walking, swimming are so important activities.
- Eating: it would be healthy to eat five times a day, and the last eating should be at 6 p.m. and something which is not heavy food.
- All life long we have to pay attention to calcium and D vitamin (sunlight) input. Coffee and tea is flushing out from our body the calcium, so we should drink our second coffee with milk.
- Men get ill less than women, but they die sooner. Our life depends 40 % on nutrition, 20-25% on genetics, 20-25% on our environment.
- 
2. presentation: Éva (teacher)

- Lot of people confuse aging with sickness. We have to accept the aging: the tiredness, slowness, forgetfulness.
- We should receive the offered helping of the youth, we have to get used to it.
- We can eat everything, but soberly.
- It would be better to hold a fruit day a week.
- It is healthy to eat apple, honey, nut, garlic.
- Live your life with dignity, and we have to be satisfied with ourselves.
- Taking an air-bath.

3. presentation: Gyuri (teacher)

Gyuri had a question for the group: who is a healthy person? Who can be designated as a healthy person? It’s very important that the healthy lifestyle has to sustain continually.

The four presenters made remarkable proposals for ameliorating the changed life situation.
We have an arrangement that at each study circle the team leader will be the person who makes a presentation.
We would be very happy to get to know the other study circles’ questions about our topics.
On the third study circle we showed the Futeurope homepage for the seniors.
The seniors make a proposal for the Hungarian meeting in Debrecen:
October 8-11., 2008.
October 15-18. 2008
October is the month of seniors, the visitor can visit several interesting programs in Debrecen.

The fourth study circle will be on 20 March 2008 at 2 pm. Topic: Relationship between generations. Zsuzsa will make a small presentation on the theme and she will be the team leader.
The report of the 2nd   study circle written by Gyuri.