UmbrellaPlus and ASSITEJ PairUp
After the World Congress in Cuba 2024, the Executive Committee (EC) created the Membership Working Group that is dedicated to communication and support of the National Centres, Professional Networks, and ASSITEJ Affiliates. The Group consists of five EC members from different regions: Carole from Rwanda, Julia from Germany, Seok-Hong from South Korea, Theis from Norway, and Stavros from Cyprus. Our group has a strong focus on supporting both existing and emerging members, developing internal communication structures, and encouraging active participation and cooperation across the globe. In the last year, we had the pleasure of welcoming eight new National Centres and had interesting digital exchanges with our colleagues from established National Centres.
A highlight for our group so far has been the personal meeting with representatives of 38 ASSITEJ National Centres and Professional Networks during the Artistic Gathering in Marseille, 2025. This session allowed us and the participants to get to know each other and collect topics, questions, and issues the different National Centres and Professional Networks are dealing with and would like to exchange about.
Following these impulses, we hosted two online Umbrella Sessions in November and January, dedicated to collaboration between National Centres and between National Centres and Professional Networks, the role of Regional Networks and the administration and finances of National Centres.
We would like to share two results of these Umbrella Sessions with you: The discussion about the complex challenges of running a National Centre led to the creation of a new format exclusively for members of ASSITEJ International. We are launching UmbrellaPlus, a new pilot series of expert-led, tool-oriented online events. Designed to strengthen the administrative and financial ‘backbone’ of National Centres and Professional Networks, these recurring sessions will provide high-level organisational management tools for administrative leads, board members, and employees. Every UmbrellaPlus session follows a “Tool-First” structure, ensuring practical takeaways like templates and guides to systematically expand the National Centre Toolkit.
As a second important outcome of the exchange between members on cooperation we would as well like to invite our ASSITEJ members to apply for the ASSITEJ PairUp, a new pilot programme designed to strengthen collaboration, exchange, and mutual support across our global network. The PairUp Programme connects ASSITEJ Centres and Networks through a pairing process, enabling them to collaborate over a defined period of time. Participants will work together to share knowledge and experience, build organisational capacity and explore new international partnerships.
