Letter from the CEO

As Dom said in his editorial, the war in Ukraine has deeply shocked and saddened us all. The board and team are working to figure out what best we can do to support the refugee crisis and our members across the region. Our thoughts and prayers are with their teams and families. Our thanks to Svitlana Mozharivska of Abea in Ukraine for her wise and heartfelt words on how to communicate with Ukrainian people “not to harm, but to support.” See page 6.

Our members in Russia have also been very impacted by the war. They cannot travel or assist clients or move money. This is a human tragedy the likes of which we haven’t seen in Europe in decades and our industry can help. David Gilmartin writes about the impact the war has had on expats in Russia in this edition.

As you know we are crowd funding to support the Red Cross and the UN Ukrainian Humanitarian fund and any contributions are fantastic. Go to

https://www.justgiving.com/ crowdfunding/eurafoundation

We are in the final stages of planning our Seville event and the excitement is building! As Dom said, it’s difficult to think of this as the celebration we were all planning after three years of being apart, but even against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, we will come together to exhibit friendship, kindness and collaboration, the very opposite of conflict, hatred and war. This is what we can do, we will come together and we will stand united against conflict as a family. At the moment members of our family are suffering and we will support them however we can.

I have written to our members across the region to express the support of EuRA and asking what we can do to help. We hope to be able to pool resources to help members be able to give out accurate updates to clients.

In the meantime we are working away as normal which makes us all feel a little better. The team and I are working towards our London joint event with the ARP in April. We have a great turn out from the UK and Europe and are really looking forward to seeing everyone.

It’ll be a good day and is being held at the Tower Hotel right next to Tower Bridge so easily accessible by underground from the stations that serve all the major airports; Liverpool Street for Stansted is just 2 stops away, Paddington for Heathrow about 30 minutes away and Victoria for Gatwick about the same.

The Seville Whova App is now live. All delegates are listed so you can start to plan your meetings around our really comprehensive programme. The conference will begin on Tuesday with three symposia; Corporate Housing, Immigration and Working with Direct Clients. These do need to be booked separately and Corporate Housing and Immigration are full from our lists of 2020. Briony will be sending reminders for you to book in for Direct Clients via the Whova App.

I have the privilege of meeting our brilliant Board in May just before the conference in an exciting location that may well be a conference destination. As many of you may be aware, we have had to change the make up of the Board due to the current wave of mergers and acquisitions and the fact that three Board Members now work for the same company. So with great sadness Susana Bourne and Pierre Jeronimo will be standing down before the end of their terms. They have both been superbly engaged Board Members who have given great contributions over the years, and who I am also proud to call friends. They will be sorely missed.

There are three brand new modules in the EuRA Academy; Sustainability in Mobility (and a session during the conference will focus on many of the topics and will include our lead trainer Paul Barnes), Anti-Money Laundering and a brand new comprehensive Introduction to the EuRA Global Quality Seal. Coming soon is Duty of Care which is being developed for us by Tracy Kautzmann and Lucy Foster of Impact Group.

For those of us who will be there, it will feel wonderful to be together in Spain.