The President’s letter
Dear Association Member,
Our Annual General Meeting at John Morris’ home on Nov. 24 was a convivial and productive evening. We discussed a number of topics including: our healthy finances, a recap of the many varied guests we received and events which were organized during the past year, our membership tally, and our ever-evolving website. And, of course, we voted for our officers who will serve in the coming year.
I was asked to serve as president for another year, was nominated and elected.
Below is the list of other officers who were unanimously elected:
Co-Vice Presidents: Anne-Elisabeth Moutet and John Keating
Treasurer: John Davidson
Secretary General: Axel Krause
Syndic: David Pearson
Committee: Eleanor Beardsley, Celestine Bohlen, Bill Diem, Gerry Dryansky, Steve Erlanger, Rony Koven, Ann Morrison, Vaiju Naravane
I am very excited about working with our new committee of seasoned journalists, most of whom have lived in Paris for many years. It is thanks to the creativity and hard work of our members and committee of 2010 that we had such a successful year and I know that 2011 will be equally dynamic.
Our new website has been one of the most important developments this year. It is a colorful and informative showcase for our events, accessible to members and non-members alike. It also serves as a billboard for our members’ awards and most recent publications. It is especially useful for showing potential guests or new members what we do, and is an easy way for our members to get a brief summary of an event they may have missed.
AAPA treasurer John Davidson gave a detailed report about our healthy financial situation. His report is also attached. We continue to rely on member dues to pay for our fixed costs and are grateful for your continuing dedication and support.
It is an honor to serve as president of a group of such talented and energetic journalists. I thank you for that privilege and I am confident that 2011 we be another excellent year for our Association.
SG's report
Treasurer's report
J-D Levitte, off the record again
Nearly 30 members of the AAPA met Feb. 11 with Jean-David Levitte, conseilleur diplomatique to President Sarkozy, in a sumptuous room near the Elysée. The meeting was off the record, in the American style. We have met with him five times.
A Letter From The President
Dear Friends and Members of the Anglo-American Press Association,
It is a both an honor and a challenge to have been chosen to serve as president of this association, with its long and rich history, its dynamic present and promising future.
The life of a foreign correspondent is never easy…and never boring. It is challenging for many reasons, but every journalist I have met in my 20 years abroad pursues his or her work with passion. In recent years, we have seen huge changes in the journalism industry. Newspapers and magazines are downsizing and changing the way they work, while online news services, websites and multimedia are proliferating. Foreign bureaus of many major news organizations are either closing or being made smaller, and yet we are still here, providing news from Europe and elsewhere, to English-language publications and electronic media.
With some 125 active and associate members, the AAPA has begun its second century with stabilized finances and a solid management team committed to seeing the Association prosper and grow while making it increasingly relevant to the Membership.
We will, of course, be pursuing our core activity of organizing events to allow members to get up close to politicians and businessmen and women as well as personalities in the arts and entertainment. We will also work at reaching out to members who don’t always manage to attend meetings.
This new website that has risen from the ashes of the old one is part of that commitment. It will report – with photos – past events and alerts of upcoming ones, news of what members are up to, as well as give you a peek behind the scenes to see what our Association’s committee is working on. Eventually, it will provide a blog space for members to air their views and news. It will be a work in progress, and will adapt to the needs and desires of the membership, so feel free to offer suggestions.
I will work at ensuring that the coming year is a busy and event-filled one for the AAPA, and trust that you’ll find that our Association is increasingly relevant to us and our profession.
-Virginia Power
The press gang: what our members are up to
David Wingeate Pike's new book /Mauthausen: L'Enfer Nazi en Autriche/ (Toulouse: Editions Privat), with a preface by the survivor Pierre Daix, is out in the bookshops.
Georgina Oliver's husband, Felix Rozen's latest exhibition (left) is at the Musée des Année 30 in Boulogne Billancourt. Barry James' son Sebastian (www.sebjames.com) has just completed a monumental mural painting on the Crédit Lyonnais fire (below) for the fire-station in the 18th arrondissement, to be inaugurated January 7.
And finally: The newsletter wishes all AAPA members and their families very happy holidays and we look forward to being with you again next year.
Members discuss wine crisis, worst in 35 years
As Joe Ray wrote recently about a subject dear to many of our hearts, they say it's the worst wine crisis in France in 35 years. In Bordeaux, they say that it's the worst in 150 years.
The problem? The numbers are down. Wine consumption within the country is beginning to lose out to beer and responsibility behind the wheel, while beyond French borders the rest of the world's winemakers are catching up to, and even surpassing French quality standards.
Indeed, 2003 was the year the ''New World'' wines collectively dethroned France in terms of the number of bottles exported. On top of that, the French themselves now consume only about half as much wine as they did 35 years ago.
To help explain the problem, Joe enlisted the help of movie-maker Jonathan Nossiter, whose film about the world wine trade was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on December 10.
Nossiter discussed the situation with members at , Idéa Vino, a gourmet wine merchant in the 11th arrondissement.
It was an example of the informal but informative events the committee is trying to organize in addition to our regular lunches, breakfasts and cocktails with news-makers. If you have
Simply British!
At the onset of the Christmas shopping period, Lady Holmes, wife of our honorary co-president, the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir John Holmes, greeted a group of AAPA members and guests, upstairs in the "inner enclave" of the Embassy Residence, before lunging into a show and-tell presentation of her successful cookbook, dubbed "Simply British!"
During this informal champagne reception, munchies based on recipes included in the book – compiled in association with a friend, Susan Mallet, in aid of breast cancer research, both in France and Britain – were served at round tables, congenially dotted around the room.
The idea behind "Simply British!" is to introduce French readers to popular English dishes, such as steak & kidney pie, as well as 'nursery classics' along the lines of scones and summer pudding. The event also featured a cheese tasting by Jason Hinds a cool British cheese maker from Neal's Yard Dairy.
Jean-Pierre Jouyet, State Secretary for European Affairs
Jean-Pierre Jouyet, President Sarkozy’s key adviser on Europe and guide to France’s current presidency of the 27-nation European Union,
spoke to the Association at a breakfast meeting on 23 October at Bloomberg News.
Flying visit to superjumbo
When a flock of AAPA members and some guests flew down to Toulouse to meet senior executives at Europe's commercial aircraft company, Airbus, little did they know they were creating history: it was the first time your association had taken to the air for a field trip. At a time when Airbus and its parent company EADS were making front-page news, the timing couldn't have been better, and the event created news - lots of it - as well as history. The day started with a presentation of Airbus's double-decker A380 superjumbo (below) that will make its maiden flight early next year. To give us a taste of what travel on a 555-seater aircraft will be like, we were walked through an A380 cabin mock-up (left).
Chief marketing officer John Leahy gave us an overview of Airbus's markets and products. Over lunch, Airbus's planetalking chief executive, Noel Forgeard (right), talked about the company's position in its spat with Boeing over program launch aid, gave his views on an eventual link-up between EADS and Thales, and hinted that he wouldn't mind being asked to take a top management position at EADS. Some members were treated to a tour of the Airbus manufacturing facility, while others raced to file stories to their newsrooms. The French and international press coverage next day was testimony that this had indeed been a newspacked event.
David Pearson