Dear CEL members,

Thank you to everyone that attended our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday evening. Two new board members were elected and one board member was re-elected.

We would like to welcome Candice Covington as Volunteer Coordinator and Adina Bienst-Ventz, who will transition to Treasurer over the next year. Liz Weiser was re-elected for her third term and will continue as Chairman.

Michele Löschner stepped down after serving four years on the board. Thank you, Michele, for all of your hard work, time, and dedication to the library. We will miss having you on the board.

At every AGM, there is a review of our finances. The CEL has not fully recovered from the financial impact of the pandemic and the expense of our move in January 2021 to our current location. We will need to increase our membership numbers as well as increase our fundraising efforts in order to secure the longevity of the library. The current board has several ideas such as applying for grants and starting a Friends of the Library program. We also have several fundraisers already on the calendar for this year.

We will need the support and help from our current members to be successful.

Ways you can already help:

• Promote CEL and encourage you friends and acquaintances to join.
• Maintain your membership even if your children are now too old to use CEL (and many thanks to those of you who are already doing this)
• If you are still paying the reduced 50€ a year “old members” fee, request this be raised to the current 70€ fee. To do this email info@celstuttgart.de

The Children’s English Library is a special place as well as a community for English speaking families. The Board of Directors takes it’s role as caretakers of the library and it’s future very seriously and we hope that our members will support us in our efforts.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Best wishes,
The CEL board