During the recent conflict in Gaza a group of Israeli and Palestinian women’s organisations were campaigning for peace in their countries. They were also asking for the inclusion of women in any peace negotiations which take place.
Andante sent them a message of support: “We, members of ANDANTE, European Alliance of Catholic Women's Organisations, wish to congratulate you on your statement which calls for peace. Women and children are the main victims of the violence which has been taking place. Women must and should be included in any peace negotiations which will take place.”

To the message of the Israeli and Palestinian women.

The Andante Co-ordinating Committee met on 8^th and 9^th November 2008 in Paris, where it was the first group to use the newly designed conference room of the Action Catholique des Femmes (ACF).
An important item on the agenda was an exchange of information on the Summer School due to take place in July 2009. As a member of the ‘Hardware Group’, Freda Lambert (UK) reported on the preparations so far. As the liaison person between the Co-ordinating Committee and the ‘Software Group’, Maria Raucinova (Slovakia) gave information on the proposed programme and on expert speakers who have shown an interest so far. The Co-ordinating Committee agreed to entrust the Summer School to the expert direction of Jim McDonnell (SIGNIS) and to assign persons to guide the workshops for the various languages. After completion of the curriculum at the Summer School, participants will be provided with a document/certificate specifying its content. Subsequently, they should take upon themselves the role of ‘cascaders’ within their own organisations. Invitations to participate in the Summer School will be sent by the end of November to the Andante member organisations as well as to interested individuals. Once again, the Co-ordinating Committee requests all member organisations most urgently to join in for the fundraising efforts for making the Summer School possible.

At Andante's General Assembly, 17^th-20^th April 2008 in Sion, Switzerland, the delegates of the various member organisations suggested to create a section 'Spirituality' on the Andante website. Such a new section could be used for publishing the liturgy, songs and homelies of specific Andante (Eucharist) celebrations and would make it easier to share the ‘favourite’ prayers of each organisation.
As a first item, you can find the liturgy booklet and the homily of the Study Conference on 'Strangers or friends? – intercultural dialogue in Andante', 25^th – 28^th October 2007 in Vught, the Netherlands.

From 5^th to 7^th July 2008, the members of the andante Co-ordinating Committee (CoCoA) elected at the General Assembly, April 2008 in Sion, met for their first session in Bratislava. Place and date came not by chance but suggested themselves as this year’s European Forum of National Laity Committees to which three CoCoA members were invited took also place in Bratislava (see Section "Activities"). The main points of discussion of this CoCoA meeting: Recommendations of Sion, Working groups, Summer School on media training, Expert-database, Statutes and bye-laws, the andante website and Newsletter.