For more than 25 years, the Staff Association, taking advantage of the presence at CERN of delegations to the Council and the Finance Committee, has organised a cocktail party twice a year, in March and in September after the Finance Committee meeting. It brings together delegates from Member States and Associate Member States with the nationals of their country, chosen by the Staff Association among the Organisation's personnel to be "ambassadors" of the Association and the personnel. For the first time in its history, the traditional "cocktail party" of the Association's Ambassadors had to be interrupted, throughout the year 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Association did not give up and resumed this practice in March 2021, in a brand new form via Zoom, while adapting to the current health context.

2021 CERN Eco-Actions Club Environmental Hackathon!

The Staff Association would first like to thank the employed and associated members of personnel who participated in large numbers during the public meeting of June 7.

This year the OGA will be held on Friday, 25 June 2021 at 11 am.

Take advantage of the BCGE offer and earn up to 2% extra interest on your savings account. Members of the Staff Association also benefit from other advantages of the Business Partner offer.

We informed you in our ECHO No. 356 that the mandate of this working group was, as we expected for a long time, about to be finalised. It is now done! At the SCC meeting on 6 May, the mandate, whose objectives you will find below, was approved by the Management and the Staff Association. Three members of the management including HR Department representatives and three members of the SA will compose this working group. The kick-off meeting will take place on June 3.

Do you have any questions about the Five- Yearly Review of employment conditions 2021 (5YR 2021)? Would you like to know more about the Staff Association's program of work for 2021? Do you have any suggestions on this topic?

By becoming a Staff Delegate your job will be to represent the personnel, on the one hand by serving as a social link between the personnel (from your electoral college) and the Association, and on the other hand by defending the individual rights and social benefits of all CERN personnel. Through your active participation in the Association's activities, you work to improve the social conditions of all the members of personnel of the Organisation.

In the first semester of each year, the Staff Association (SA) invites its members to attend and participate in the Ordinary General Assembly (OGA). This year the OGA will be held on Friday, 25 June 2021 at 11 am.

Summer camp registrations 2021

Practical Geneva - Housing Information Session: Tuesday May 4th, 2021, 12:30 - 2:00 pm

The Staff Association, like all services of the Organisation, must comply with Operational Circular 11 (OC11), concerning the protection of personal data. Privacy Notices for activities within the Association have been finalised and published to ensure the proper handling of personal data.

Article S VII 1.01 of the Staff Regulations and Rules (S&RP) states that "[…] relations between the Director-General and the personnel shall be established either on an individual basis or on a collective basis with the Staff Association as intermediary". This important role of the Association's delegates, to be the spokespersons of all the Organization's personnel to the Director General and the Member States, is given concrete form by regular participation in the various joint committees defined in the S&RP.

ENGLISH BOOKS AT CERN will hold its 2021 AGM

At Le Jardin des Particules, we give our pupils the opportunity to broaden their interests and learn new skills. That is why, we offer various educational activities such as the English Workshop with a qualified English teacher.

The CAPA, or the Individual Cases Commission (Commission des Cas Particuliers), is responsible for assisting members of the Staff Association in their disputes with the Organization. A professional career is not always a bed of roses and, in certain situations, assistance is welcome.

During the past 18 months, the Staff Association (SA) had not organized any cocktail meeting with the Member States and Associate Member States of the Organization, due to the health situation and its wish to privilege a direct contact with the delegations.
That is now in the past!

Dear Colleagues,
The Staff Association would first and foremost like to thank the employed and associated members of personnel who participated in large numbers in the March 19 public meeting.

Lebanon is currently fighting off an unprecedented economic crisis, food shortage, the COVID-19 pandemic, and to top it all, the dreadful consequences of an explosion that caused damage to over half of Beirut with the likely cost above USD 15 billion. At this pivotal moment, every effort is being made to help Lebanon.

The CERN Cricket Club 2021 season begins at the end of April.

Do you have any questions about the Five- Yearly Review of employment conditions 2021 (5YR 2021)? Would you like to know the Staff Association's priorities for 2021? Do you have any suggestions on this topic?

In the questionnaire sent to all employed members of personnel (MEPs) at the end of 2019, the personnel expressed a clear expectation that the career development aspects, which have undergone major changes in the 2015 five-yearly review, would be improved.

This measure, decided at the end of the last five-yearly review in 2015, although in view of the Staff Association it is still flawed (we will come back to this point below), already makes it possible to help you in certain extremely difficult situations that you may encounter.

A privileged place for your child's learning at the heart of CERN (new building, access to some scientific laboratories.) Le Jardin de Particules offers a cocoon and family environment that encourages the development of each child's personality, particularly by respecting his or her individuality within a group.

For more than 60 year’s, each January, the Organization's standard practice, has been to pay, into the Association's bank account the total amount of individual membership fees calculated on the basis of the annual basic salary of each member.

Saying thank you is completely natural when a very active member of the Association decides to take a well-deserved retirement,

Today, it is Dominique Denuzière's turn.

This new victory concerns CERN pensioners who also receive a compulsory French pension and are therefore automatically affiliated to the social security system.

Enrolments for the School year 2021/2022

Mr. Raphael Bello, Director of Finance and Human Resources and new President of the SCC, and Mr. Manfred Krammer, Head of the EP Department, joined the management delegation at this first meeting of the year.

The CERN Finance Committee and Council took place from 9 to 11 December 2020. The subjects dealt with were particularly important, with numerous and dense debates.

The Staff Association particularly noted the following decisions affecting the financial and social conditions of the personnel, which were recommended by the Finance Committee and approved by the Council:

The Staff Association's website had to migrate to Drupal 8, as did all of the Organization's websites.

We therefore decided to take this opportunity to review not only the content but also to improve the structure and design to make it easier for you to find information but also to make you want to consult it!

At the beginning of this New Year and the first issue of ECHO in 2021, the Staff Association would like to express its best wishes for happiness, success and, how could we fail to underline it, for health to you and all your loved ones!

We can only hope, despite the still worrying health situation, that the year 2021 will allow us to put human contact in person back at the center of our family, friendly and professional lives!

Every year in September, on the courts of the Tennis Club International in Geneva, a tennis challenge between the main international organizations (UN, ILO, WTO, WHO, ..) takes place. This event, called GIOG (Geneva Inter-Organization Games), is also attended by a representative of the host club and CERN.

Since its creation, the crowds we usually see, on a daily basis, in our three restaurants and around ten satellite cafeterias located throughout the Meyrin and Prévessin sites, have crystallized CERN’s every-day social life.

In the 2018 issue of Echo N°284, the Association published an interview, largely devoted to concertation at CERN, with Mr Bernard Dormy, the outgoing French delegate to the Finance Committee at this time, who was successively Vice-President and President of the TREF (Tripartite Employment Conditions Forum) from 2011 to 2017.

Fast and complete contact tracing is a recognized means of breaking the chains of contamination of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this tracing has been done manually by the medical service based on the memories we may have of our movements and the people we met.

Above all, at the end of the year 2020, which will undoubtedly remain engraved in our memories, the time has come to look back on these long months spent under the threat of the Covid-19.

Help those most in need by participating in the Long-Term Collections!
Since 1971, the Long-Term Collections (CLT) have supported 77 humanitarian projects throughout the world, thanks to donations from CERN personnel.

The traditional "Cernois" Christmas party was first held in 1954, the year CERN was founded, and has been a must-see event for CERN's "little ones" ever since. The Staff Association took over the organization of this event in 1955 and continues to this day.

The CERN Welcome Club is glad to inform you about its brand-new Share & Support Space!

Each year, in autumn, the CSAIO (Conference of Staff Associations of International Organizations) conference is usually held for two days; this conference is reserved for Staff Associations of International Organisations, mainly based in Europe, and for European Agencies.
This year, due to the health situation, the conference was held via teleconference on a single day

The Staff Association (SA) would like to begin by thanking the employed and associated members of personnel who participated in the November 5, 2020 public meeting.

The CSG-CRDS saga, after five years, a first positive milestone for international civil servants and retirees of international organizations.