Live from Copenhagen: SGAC European Summit. Day 0 Arrival and planning

Dear Space Generation,

"Space advocates needed to travel to Europe and discuss issues that matter to them - food and shelter provided. Bring bags of ideas and a sleeping bag" - in a gist, this was how the European RC Jesper Jorgensen announced the idea of the SGAC European Summit that takes place in Copenhagen from 28-30 March 2008.

Day 0 - 28 March 2008. This is the day of Arrival and welcome. We have so far 8 people have arrived, we are counting on a few more appearing. During the day we have taken some video footage so that we will post on our website so that you can get to know who we are and what we would love to be involved in.

As most of the delegates have just arrived, we have had some dinner over which we discussed agenda and points of discussion for Day 1.
We start the analysis by carrying out a SWOT analysis on our organisation (SGAC). SWOT stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats - is a known technique used to analyse organisations and their activities/operations to see if they match stake holder expectations.

So, look at SGAC from a SWOT view:

Strengths:
- Observer status at the UN
- Internationally
- Good demographic representation
- Independent
- Passion driven generations
- Largest space umbrella organization for youth
- Made up of youth that are visionary and not institutionalized
- Motivated to make a change

Weaknesses:
- something applicatants/advocates need firm direction
- Communication = both levels: international higher visibility organizations as well as strengthening our grass roots reach and connections. We need to work more on how to connect society to understand space is a part of our lives and inspire youth
- struggle for funding for new initiatives or continuing established projects
- Sometimes we play down our profile
- lack of orientation tools and clarifying roles and organisation
- lack of definition - rules of volunteer management, credo, etc
- need more tools of motivation
- low level of outreach/ branding - need more visibility and awareness in space interested youth too - how come we don't have 20000 applications for SGC!?
- lack of rewards and awards
- lack of visibility and ties with partners such as other student organisations, SEDS, Mars society chapters, planetary society chapters, etc

Opportunities:
- improvement of communication
- dialogue be an international levels
- increasing role and involvement of women in space science
- can improve the global image
- reinstate some 'clarke-ism'
- need to tackle better branding with merchandise
- Rewarding volunteer titles - to create incentives and recognition for new motivation
- improved visibility of accountability.

Threats:
- Strong dependance on funding
- Misinterpretation by organisations or misrepresentation by members who are not well-informed
- too few people doing a low of work