Hello to all members of the International Study Circle,

Estonian study circle sends you many greetings from cold and snowy Estonia.

We were successful to complete the first meeting of our new study-circle in Southern-part of Estonia. All participants are from Tartu, which is considered to be the capital of south, the second biggest town in Estonia. Two most famous universities are located in Tartu, one of them being Academy of Agriculture and the other one is Tartu University.

Southern-part of Estonia has very little industry, the only area of major activities is wood-processing industry and agriculture. Therefore the representatives of trade unions participating in the meeting were concerned about the issues of wood-processing industry, which is an important industry in terms of local development. Light industries, like making textiles, are also taking off to better development of production. On the other hand, Southern part of Estonia is famous for its beautiful nature and scenery, we think it will become to be an important area of tourism in the future, as it is already today.

Our first meeting had 9 attendants (5 women and 4 men) from different trade unions.

Trade Union of Estonian Forest Industry Workers represented by three men:

• Arno Arukask, the Vice-chairman of the branch union;
• Eino Lupp, the Shopsteward in company Tarmeko;
• Matti Timmermann, the Member of the union and full-time worker in Association of Estonian Trade Unions (EKL) as a Manager of the regional branch union.

Trade Union of Servise and Production represented by two women:

• Sirje Kaur, the Chairwoman of the union branch, also working as a specialist in the area of land privatisation of South-Estonian Department of the Estonian Privatisation Agency;
• Maie Raidar, the Shopsteward in metal company Valumehaanika.
• Anne Voltri, a representative of Estonian Union of Servising and Commercial Employees. She is the Coordinator of the union branch.
• Ellen Kavald, a representative of Estonian Cultural Workers Union. She is the Member of the Board of Union. Also she is working in the area of language education at company Studium.
• Valeri Štšerbakov, a representative of Estonian Light Industry TU. He is a shopsteward in textile company Sangar.
• Tiia Kask, a representative of Open Education Association - NGO. She is the leader of the study circle. Tiia is the only one coming from Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, but she was born in Tartu.

It is always important to have a clear understanding about relationships within the group as it will give a better opportunity to participants to inter-relate to each other. So, we tried to find some features and understandings common to everyone in the group. We would like to give you a message about our group-personality and views.

• We are glad about communicating to nice people; excited about success; enjoying nice weather; and, of course, increasing the number of members of trade union.
• We are angry for the passive and careless attitude of people; foolishness and creed; and swinish behaviour of employers.

We wish you a good start with study circle activities, and success in your deeds!