THE JAPAN-NORWAY SOCIETY Org. No. 989 513 850 Contact address: post@j-ns.no
Annual Report The Japan-Norway Society for 2021 The Japan-Norway Society is a membership based volunteer organization established in November 1977. The purpose is to promote friendly relations, mutual understanding and cultural interchange between the peoples of Japan and Norway. 2021 has been a second difficult year for the Japan-Norway Society, as for most voluntary organizations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our activities have been very limited. We were ready to start up with normal events when restrictions opened up last fall, and organized a tea event and as well as an author talk with the University of Oslo in November. However, we sadly had to cancel our planned Bonenkai when restrictions were imposed again in December. However, we have tried to keep the activity level up with outdoor and online events. We have firmly established the tradition of Mushroom hunt, which again was fully subscribed with more than 50 people. We also had some popular forest walks both in spring and in October. On the digital side we have cooperated with the Norway-Japan Society on some events, which gathered a young new crowd. Communication tools In 2021 we used the following communication tools: Facebook: We continued using our Facebook group as the main channel for communication about events and we now have more than 3000 members. The number of members is increasing almost daily. Facebook is also a good tool for sharing JapanNorway related information between members and for members to make direct contact with each other. J-NS Web: Our web-page is the source of more lasting information about our society. Information is available about who we are, our articles of association, our grants and also relevant web-links. We also have a web calendar for our own events. The web page had 4,200 pageviews by 2,000 unique visitors. E-mail: We sent e-mail newsletter about our events as well as other important information about our society. Our recipient list includes about 200 e-mail addresses.
including paying J-NS members as well as other friends of our society. We have noted that some members reported they did not receive the newsletters. We have made a thorough review of our members list to make sure all paying members are included. We also recommend checking junk mail. Google forms: Organizing events is the most time-consuming part of our work and in 2021 we have continued the use of google forms to manage our events. By having participants fill out the registration form, we can control the number of participants more easily. Events Regrettably, we ended up with a limited number of events this year: - 9 March: Digital Annual General Meeting - 13 June: Forest Walk at Bygdøy - 05 September: Mushroom harvesting with a Mushroom expert at Rustadsaga, lectured by Morton Jødal - 26 September: Digital Benkyoukai with Lærdal Medical Japan - 24 October: Sunday Walking tour to Kobberhaughytta - 3 November: Author talk with Ina Strøm at UiO (supported by JNS) - 11 November: Flavors of Japan Japanese tea and sweets tasting We continued the same practice as before and made most of our events open for participation by non-members. The exceptions have been free events organized for paying J-NS members only. The principle is to have each event break-even and a participation fee was charged to cover the respective costs. The Mushroom tour was free for members last year. Cooperation with N-JS Modalities to cooperate with the Tokyo based N-JS has been discussed, and events etc are shared. We have co-organized digital events. Members are free to join respective events at member price. J-NS Grants Because of limited income, grants were not awarded this year. Members We have seen less paying members last year, which was quite natural considering the low activity level due to COVID-19. By year-end we had 66 memberships (61 in 2020, 84 in 2019). 30 single members, 29 family members, 1 youth member, 1 honorary member and 5 corporate members. Financials
Our income in 2021 has been 18 550 NOK from memberships and 19 495 NOK from the various events. The funds have mainly been used to cover costs of the various events, grants, gifts and administration. Due to our offer to our loyal members for one or two or more years, of reducing or exempting the membership fee for this year, the amount of income from memberships have been reduced. The financial result in 2021 is nevertheless 6 738 NOK. Please see the financial report for 2021 for details. Key figures and notable numbers ● Decrease in both income and expenses from 2021, but the reduction of expenses is far greater than the reduction in income, thus resulting in a result of 6 738 NOK. Main expenditure is the grant for the University of Oslo from 2020 (10 000 NOK), followed by the Flavors of Japan event (8 743 NOK) and Board Dinner (3 300 NOK) ● Due to the COVID-19 situation, the Bonenkai event was first postponed and later canceled with refunds given in Jan 2022 ● Still good solidity with only a small amount (4%) increase in total equity. ● We see small deficits in some events due to subsidizing events from the Society etc. These can be covered with the current income from membership fees. Board of Directors In 2021, the following 10 members have served as board directors: Per Bardalen Wiggen (President) Kaori Ishii Yasuko Oki Eirik Johannessen Christoffer Kvernvold Anders Håan Ingrid Fjeldsenden Tadahisa Matsuda Hajime Matsumura Futoshi Tsuneyama The board met (mostly digitally) 10 times during 2021. Oslo, 10 February, 2022 Per Bardalen Wiggen President