Transnational meeting in Slovakia

Minutes of the meeting

21.6.2024 - Čadca

• Chief of local police greeted us and stayed at the meeting, much to the appreciate of partners
• Meeting was in person with additional attendance via Zoom
• Welcome from Marcela including video showing the beauty of Slovakia
• Gregorio expressed satisfaction with project to date.
• End of August sees end of project
• Further virtual meeting, perhaps end of June
• Partners express that it was successful working with resources
• Gregorio indicated that multiplier event outstanding. Opportunity to disseminate.
• This is repeating earlier multiplier efforts and partners agree that this is beneficial to reinforce the message as well as reach additional people.
• Gregorio mentions that the provision of refreshments at such events has, in his experience, been helpful to acknowledge the effort of attendees and attracting them to the event.
• Declan said that he will upload EurAV’s recent event materials (picture/signatures) to shared drive
• Gregorio spoke about the quality of the project and that it has a chance of recognition for its quality. When he spoke in Brussels the reaction was surprise that so much had been achieved in a small scale project.
• Marcela asked about budget accounting requirements. Lumpsum project so the national agency focus is on activities rather than spending. However, there is always the possibility of national agency checking in the future, so such things as boarding passes, sample small receipts, invoices and the like should be kept for five years. Gregorio will share a document that outlines what the national agency can ask for.
• Refer the activities and ensure that proofs are in place that all took place.

Dissemination activities:

• Marcela showed a presentation on dissemination as CPM are responsible for this area
• CPM has a healthy following on Facebook so disseminate a lot on that as it is in Slovakian, which is more appropriate than English for their target market
• Marcela explained that dissemination also happens with their local tv and newspapers etc.
• All partners have had public events as envisaged in the project proposal with just the final multiplier event to go and a workshop in North Macedonia which Vele says will take place in July.
• CPM held three workshops with over 150 senior citizens taking part. Each workshop was themed so that everything from trolls to disinformation. There was also outreach to senior groups in surrounding villages.
• Marcela outlined a vision for the further dissemination which centred on continuing to disseminate through the wide range of channels already being utilised.
• October is the month of European Cyber Security, so Marcela flagged it as a good opportunity for dissemination.
• Regarding sustainability CPM suggest developing a new project. CPM has an award winning project “Let’s protect each other” which could form a basis. The project was in 2016 and won the national Slovakian prize. It was a ‘prevention of crimes committed against seniors’ project. It is still very much in use. The project focussed on both active and passive seniors. It provides information about fraud etc. Active seniors volunteer to inform those seniors who are mobility challenged in a peer-to-peer model.
• New proposal would address fraud and the spread of disinformation. CPM have prepared a detailed proposal.
• Gregorio expressed that was impressed that CPM had developed this detailed proposal and had ideas on what funding channels would be appropriate.
• Gregorio pointed out that promoting DiSeRA in October is beyond the end of project, so demonstrates partner commitment to sustainability beyond the project lifetime.
• Partners will also look at the Erasmus Plus funding round in October to continue their networking.
• CPM spoke further about further outreach work that they have done with various organisations in the area of the DiSeRA project.
• Gregorio suggested that we could put further effort into gaining more Facebook followers, while acknowledging that much promotion is in each partner’s social media because of language differences. Marcela pointed out that the algorithm reacts better to ‘hearts’ and ‘comments’ rather than just ‘likes’.
• Marcela spoke about an earlier topic-related Erasmus Plus project, ‘Turn on the brain’ (turnbrain.eu) which aimed to ‘challenge confirmation bias’ and addressed the issue of ‘deep fake’ videos and photos.
• A further discussion was had on how to build upon the DiSeRA project to develop a larger scale project with the same partners and the addition of new ones. The partners agreed to consider possibilities and meet at a later date to agree on a direction and divide tasks.
• Partners discussed the preparation of the final report. Because it is for the Italian national agency, it will be in Italian. Gregorio, therefore, as lead partner, will be preparing the report.
• Declan showed the EurAV dissemination process which may help to inform a part of Gregorio’s work.
• Gregorio said that he will seek information or assistance as required from partners during the writing of the report and is confident that, given the strength of the project, he will be able to draft a good one.
• Meeting ended.