Participants in the Second National Meeting of Environmental NGOs were asked to answer the following questions

1. What were your expectations about the meeting?

2. What do you think of the meeting at this point in time?

The following important positions have surfaced:

1. Decisions as regards the most significant environmental problems such as Kresna and the Gorna Arda River, etc. need to be taken at this meeting. People want to work and they are ready for action (Ms. Zlata Doneva, Student Environmental Protection Club);

2. Many contacts have been established and action plans developed; new information was offered, specific action has been envisaged in order to promote the status of Bulgarian NGOs (Ms. Daniela Yovkova, Ecomission Club, Blagoevgrad);

3. My expectations are for a joint declaration to be signed together with supplementing documents to provide support to organisations who came here to seek support for a certain problem. I believe organisations gain increasing experience of ensuring support. It is a pity not all of the organisations I know in our field are here today. I've achieved my initial objectives. A piece of criticism: some participants have sporadic attendance (Mr. Toma Belev, Green Balkans, Plovdiv);

4. Cooperation is absolutely essential and we do not need wish lists but action (Ms. Yulia Yordanova, Green Balkans , Sofia);

5. I expected less work to be done at the meeting. I was skeptical about it all. We managed to identify the major problems and to elaborate a general plan of action. However, this morning things went a bit wrong with the programme. When we had Ms. Maneva, a whole day simply turned into a press conference. My expectations now will be to get a joint declaration signed and prepare a common position (Ms. Tsvetana Arnaudova, Demetra);

6. I expected to find here lots of people from different organisaitns, primarily young people. My expectations were for problems of individual organisations to be discussed, especially specific projects and ways to work in collaboration. Indeed, many people attended but things are considered from a theoretical point of view and I don't quite see what sort of follow-up will come after this meeting at all. At least we met and exchanged coordinates (Ms. Boryana Vitcheva, Ecomission Youth Environmental Club, Varna);

7. I didn't have any overly high expectations about the meeting and the result surpassed my expectations. New contacts have been established, old ones were consolidated, people demonstrate readiness to come up with initiatives, get themselves organised and unite their interests. I expect that a procedure for electing representatives be elaborated The objective of the next meeting to come should be how our decisions are reflected in the media. More official representatives need to be invited so as to add some weight to the meeting (Mr. Raitchin Ratchev, 21st Century Future Foundation);

8. It looks as though this meeting is not organised well enough, compared to the previous one. Topics are too much watered down. Too much funding is spent on hotel accommodation while it could have been used more efficiently. In the beginning there was a problem of deciding on the programme. No continuity with the previous meeting and the effect is somewhat lost. No control on the part of organisers (Mr. Borislav Vilarov, Green Alternative National Union);

9. Such meetings are very useful and this one is well organised. However, I noticed that people were divided respectively in groups of "weak" and "strong". It is true that organisations win their own popularity but certainly there is some sort of aggressiveness here which is noticeable. My recommendation is to provide opportunities for smaller organisations in smaller towns to show their worth. I have a few suggestions for the next meeting of this sort: to elaborate a moral code for environmental NGOs; municipal and state offices to authorise NGOs to issue violation statements; NGOs to be entitled to provide paid services exempt from taxes (Ms. Maria Semerdzhieva, Expert Union on Park and Landform Structure in Bulgaria);

10. I think that such a meeting should make joint decisions which have some weight to them. Stable structures need to be set up that will continue functioning even after the meeting. The mass media should take an interest in what sort of decisions have been reached so that they make sure these will be implemented. Organisations should unite and become more and more powerful. This is my idea of an annual meeting. (Mr. Doitchin Kurshovski, Black Sea Centre for Environental Information and Training).

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