From Agreement to Association

Inside IANEC's Founding Assembly — the meeting that made it official

Three weeks after the founding circle agreed on why IANEC should exist, six of us reconvened online to do something more concrete: make it real under the law. On Saturday, 11 July 2026, from 14:30 to 15:15 CEST, the Founding Assembly of IANEC — the International Association for Nature-based Early Childhood — formally adopted our Statute, elected our first officers, and resolved to establish the association, with its seat in Maribor, Slovenia.

Forty-five minutes, six resolutions

I chaired the meeting. Present and voting were Niki Buchan, Doug Fargher, Dušan Bartůněk, Midori Mitsuhashi, Monica Wiedel-Lubinski, and me — six of the founders who, weeks earlier, had helped shape the Purpose, Principles, and Goals you can read about in our last post. All six were present, which under the Slovenian Societies Act (ZDru-1) meant the assembly could validly proceed.

The main point of the meeting was the adoption of the Statute: forty-four articles, built on a federative design, with a transitional period before national Federation Members formally join, two independent representatives, and a Management Board of five to nine people. We had shared the full draft on Google Drive in advance, open for comment, and no one had raised an objection. So when I summarised the key provisions on the call, there was little left to debate — the real work had already happened in the weeks before, in the founders' meeting and in the quiet space of a shared document. The Statute was adopted: six votes in favour, none against, none abstaining.

Electing IANEC's first officers

Niki Buchan stood for President and shared her vision for the association; she was elected with five votes in favour, not voting on his own nomination. I stood for Vice-President — the role, based in Slovenia, that carries the registration and legal work — and was elected the same way, five in favour. Monica Wiedel-Lubinski was elected Secretary General, five in favour.

With the Statute adopted and our officers elected,the Resolution on the Establishment of the association was read out, tying the two together: it formally establishes IANEC — International Association for Nature-based Early Childhood — with its seat in Maribor, and authorises me, as Vice-President, to file the registration application with the Maribor Administrative Unit. It, too, passed unanimously, six in favour.

What “founding” actually means

It would be easy to read a list of votes and miss what actually happened here. An international association most often begins as an idea passed between a handful of people who already trust each other completely. Ours began with a founding circle spread across six continents, most of whom had never spoken before, agreeing first on values and only then on structure. By the time we reached the Founding Assembly, the hard part — agreeing what we were for — was already behind us. What remained was translating that agreement into a legal form robust enough to outlast any one of us: independent representatives so no single person can act unchecked, a Management Board sized to stay both functional and genuinely international, and a transitional period that gives national associations time to join as full Federation Members rather than being rushed into a structure they had no hand in shaping.

Not everyone in the wider founding circle could join us that Saturday. Elizabeth Henderson, Uroš Jelen and Pamela Martinez each sent word ahead of time — all were travelling, in places with little or no signal to hold a Zoom connection reliably, and asked to be excused. Under the Statute, that changes nothing about their status: they remain founders, and their signatures will complete the founders' list, alongside everyone else's.

None of this makes IANEC official quite yet. The Statute is adopted, the officers are elected, the resolution is signed. What remains is procedural but essential: the signed Founding Statement by each co-founder and my filing of the registration application with the Maribor Administrative Unit. Only once that is complete will IANEC hold legal personality — the ability to open an account, sign agreements, and act formally in its own name. The federation model we agreed on 20 June — connect and amplify, not regulate or replace — is the same idea now written into the Statute's structure: a Management Board built for geographic diversity, and a transitional period so national associations join as full Federation Members in their own time, not on anyone else's clock.

A small, human detail

The official part of the meeting closed at 15:15. What followed wasn't on the agenda: an informal gathering that ended, unexpectedly and rather beautifully, in a song, with Dušan Bartůněk on guitar. That detail doesn't belong in the minutes, but it belongs here — because it says something true about what we're building. An association is a legal form. A founding circle is something else.

Once registration is confirmed, our next task is inviting the national associations and organisations who have been waiting alongside us to sign on as partners. If that's you — or if you simply want to follow where this goes next — contact us and tell us where in the world you're building this work.

Written by: Klavdija Svet