During the last 2 weeks almost all officers in the co-located CMS, AEWA, ASCOBANS and EUROBATS have been taking part in key training courses organized to meet our needs at the CMS Headquarters building in Bonn. First we were tutored by a team of trainers from the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON) in the new, computerized Integrated Management Information Service (IMIS), which is being introduced across most UN offices. IMIS enables all financial transactions, including travel planning and contracts, to be carried out from start to finish on line. A key by-product of IMIS is that it automatically keeps details of the total budget, including all-important “bottom lines” for the Executive Secretary and other managers. Like all new IT systems, it takes a bit of getting used to, and involves some change of responsibilities in our office. Yet we hope that within a few weeks, “CMS-IMIS” will be fully operational, and delivering efficiency benefits to the Convention and our co-located Agreements.

On 6-7 June we were joined by the Executive Secretary of ACCOBAMS (Marie-Christine van Klaveren) and the Coordinator of IOSEA and Senior CMS Adviser for Asia (Douglas Hykle), for the second in the series of “CMS Family Brainstorm” Events, where we generated a frank and creative exchange between all the officers engaged in implementation of CMS or its Agreements, in order to share lessons, improve teamwork and foster mutual co-operation.

The brainstorm included several plenary sessions, and 8 break out groups covering topics such as marine mammals, protected areas, our forthcoming move to new premises in Bonn, working with partners and sponsors, outreach work, linking the new CMS Strategic Plan to the Agreements, and how to make the most of our COPs and MOPs. Several new ideas emerged such as producing a CMS Family Illustrated “Coffee Table” book on Migratory Species as a possible commercial venture, developing a new logo or banner for Family efforts towards the 2010 biodiversity targets, strengthening knowledge of 2010 subtargets and convening a special preparatory briefing session for NGO and other Partners prior to COPs and MOPs. The Brainstorm also helped us to prepare inputs to forthcoming meetings including the IWC Meeting in Korea and the CBD Meeting in Italy on Protected Areas, which are both being held this month.