THE BRITISH COMMUNITY COMMITTEE

The British Community Committee (BCC) is a Loi 1901 Association of many years' standing, which has the role of representing the British Community. The Committee has two categories of members :

- Associations with a British link, whether charitable, educational, religious, social, sporting, professional, etc.

- 15 Individual Members of the British Community who are interested in active participation in the coordination of British Community activities.

Up until the last Annual General Meeting, held at the Embassy Chancery in Paris in March 2004, the Rules of the BCC limited membership to Associations and Individual Members who lived within a radius of 80 kilometers around Paris. The rule dated back to times when it was not practical to expect anyone from further away to want to be a member. However, with faster transport we considered this was no longer pertinent and so, as part of an overhaul of the Rules of the BCC, geographical coverage has been extended to the whole of France.

The BCC is, to all intents and purposes, the Association of British Associations in France. We do not in any way substitute ourselves for our Members in organising events. Our goal is simply to publicise the existence of our Members so that British citizens in France, or Anglophiles where our Members do not limit membership to Britons, know who to contact to join. We also collect information on events being organised by our Members, with the aim of giving a warning if there appears to be a clash between similar events and also to communicate the list of events to Members.

Additionally, in years where there are major British or Franco-British events - such as the Entente Cordiale in 2004 or the Jubilee in 2002 - the BCC will promote these amongst our Members and, when appropriate, assist in the organisation of a keystone event for the benefit of the whole British Community.

In order to carry out our objectives, we have the following means at our disposal :

- Each year we publish the Directory of British and Franco-British Clubs, Societies and Institutions which lists all of our Members including a description of activities and contact details so that the existence of the different Member Associations is made known and hopefully brings more membership to our Members. This Directory is unique and can be published only by the generous support of the advertisers and contributors to whom we express our grateful thanks. The Directory is available at the Consulate, the BCWA and the churches.

- We also have a Diary Calendar Secretary who collects information on events being organised by Members and sends out a quarterly summary so that Member Associations know what the others are doing and so can inform their membership of those events that are of interest.

- We have a web site, http://www.britishinfrance.com which provides contact details for all Member Associations and extracts from the Diary in the form of an Events Calendar.

-We hold Quarterly Meetings attended by a representative from each Member Association and the Individual Members.

Any Association with a British link can apply to join the BCC with admission being granted to successful applicants following a presentation at a Quarterly Meeting. Our 2006-2007 subscription is 20 Euros.

If your Association is interested in joining the BCC please contact any one of the Officers of the BCC listed below.