Honorary members
Honorary Members
Honorary Members are people who are no longer representing a member institution or organisation but are still willing to cooperate within the Platform Network to fulfil its objectives.
Honorary Membership
Honorary Membership may be offered to any person who has given outstanding performance to the Platform Network over a number of years and is no longer in employment, or has moved from employment, which entitled them to representative membership. They may be proposed by any member to the Secretary and voted on by members at General Assembly. If the Honorary Member does not attend a general assembly for five years she or he should be contacted to ascertain their wish to remain as an Honorary Member.
Erik Haggman (Western Finland)
first attendance: 1991
honorary members since: 2003
The first declaration of Platform Network has been created by Mr Guyla Jilk, Mr Erik Häggman (FI) and Mr Franz Muller(LU).
Liz Heaney (England, Kent)
first attendance: 1986
honorary members since:
Guyla Jilk (Hajdú Bihar)
first attendance: 1991
honorary members since: 2000
Mr Guyla Jilk was head of the Youth work in Hadju Bihar county, Hungary. Hungary , Hadju Bihar, has been member of Platform Network 1991- 2010.
Mr Guyla Jilk was a very active member who was creating Platform Network organization and corporation.
The first declaration of Platform Network has been created by Mr Guyla Jilk, Mr Erik Häggman (FI) and Mr Franz Muller(LU).
Roland Marent (Austria, Vorarlberg)
Margaret Medland (England, Kent)
first attendance: 1986
honorary members since:
Franz Muller (Luxembourg, SNJ)
first attendance: 1986
honorary members since: 1996
Mr Franz Muller was one of the founders of Platform Network.
The first declaration of Platform Network has been created by Mr Guyla Jilk, Mr Erik Häggman (FI) and Mr Franz Muller(LU).
Claudine Neven (Luxembourg)
first attendance: 1996
honorary members since: 2010
Mrs. Claudine Neven was representing the Service National de la Jeunesse in the Platform Network for more than 15 years.
Always very open minded and reviewing youth policies developement in Europe critically she became an role-model for many other participants in the Platform Network.
Claudine Neven had her last attendance in the general meeting in 2011 in Vercelli in Italy.
Göran Nilsson (Sweden, Umea)
first attendance: 1994
honorary members since: 2000
Göran started in the Platform Network as director of the department of Leisure, Youth and Sports of the City of Umeå (Norrbotten , Sweden) in 1994. Umeå organized the GA of the Platform Network in 1996 and he became a honorable member in 2000 in Slovenia , when he stopped working in Sweden and came to live in Belgium (he met Katrien van Belle in the meeting of 1997 and married her in 2010). He worked in Brussels for a year in the North-Sweden office . He was very active in the Troika since 1995 until 2005. He now is assessor for Erasmus+/YIA and retired. He has 4 grandchildren and 1 plus- grandchild.
Heinz Rhomberg (Austria, Vorarlberg)
first attendance: 1992
honorary members since: 2007
Ritva Saarikettu (Finland)
first attendance: 1996
honorary members since: 2008
Ritva Saarikettu is a concept ‘an sich’ in the Platform Network. She has been a member of the Platform Network since 1993. She became honorable member in Lublin in 2008 and that was well deserved. Ritva has been since the beginning the most active person in the network and she participated in the Troika since 1993. She organized the Platform Network general meeting in Villa Elba in 1993, 2002 and 2013 and will have her last one in Kokkola hopefully in 2023.
She is the personification of an ‘intercultural’ person with the quality to listen, to try to understand, to find compromises, to be open to other opinions and cultural differences. As such she has been able to motivate a lot of young people to take part in a youth exchange or in an intercultural experience. She has contacts all over the world: Villa Elba and Kokkola are known by a lot of youth centres and youth organisations and it has a very good reputation: working with Ritva is always a pleasure: to the point and very efficient. I have a lot of respect for her and furthermore she is and will always be a very dear friend to both Göran and me.
by Katrien van Belle
Katrien van Belle (Belgium Flanders)
first attendance: 1997
honorary members since: 2003
Martin Zehren (Germany, EVEA)
first attendance: 1991 (until 2003)
honorary members since: 2002
Martin Zehren (born 1927) was a teacher, he lead a primary school for several years and worked for many years voluntary in the field of youth work beginning in the 1950's. He was involved to establish the cross-national youth work after the second world war in the boarder region of Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France for the EVEA.
He lead, organized and supported dozens of youth exchanges, projects and activities in between the 1960s and 1990s.
Hi first attendance as representative for the EVEA at the Platform Network was in 1991. He was coorganizing the 1996 General Meeting at Kyllburg, Germany. He became an honorary member in 2002.
Martin Zehren passed away on Octobre, 18th 2018.
by Franz Bittner, Ralf Ollinger