The English-Speaking Union (ESU) is currently developing in Malta. A steering committee is in the process of being formed and an inaugural meeting is planned for next month.

The chairman designate is Martin Scicluna who needs no introduction. The ESU in Malta was started as a collaboration between Michael Refalo, the Maltese High Commissioner to the Court of St James, Professor Alan Lee Williams OBE, former director-general of ESU, Roger Pyne, past chairman of ESU Portsmouth and a frequent visitor to your beautiful island, as well as myself as director-general of the English-Speaking Union.

We are giving our full support to the establishment and development of ESU Malta and its steering committee. I look forward to visiting Malta in February 2009 when I hope to meet Education Minister Dolores Cristina who since day one has actively supported this initiative I will also give a presentation on the work of the ESU to the Malta steering committee and its members.

The ESU is committed to creating international understanding through English at a time when English has become the working language of the global village. This unprecedented expansion in the use of English has happened because of the political changes throughout the world, the arrival of the global economy and the spread of the internet. These and other factors have combined to make English indispensable to the world.

The main objectives of the English-Speaking Union are to:-

• Provide a forum for international friendship and understanding through our support of the worldwide network of ESUs and the provision of secretariat facilities for the international council at our headquarters at Dartmouth House, London;

• Facilitate and assist the establishment and recognition of ESU’s worldwide;

• Focus on key current affairs issues through regular international conferences, seminars and meetings;

• Promote English in international public speaking and debate for the support of worldwide communications and dialogue;

• Encourage the enjoyment and constructive use of English through educational programmes;

• Initiate and administer international youth exchange and work experience schemes;

• Provide and create cultural activities;

• Ensure the coordination and coherence of our activities through the skill and dedication of our staff and voluntary helpers;

• Work in close and innovative partnership with our corporate members and sponsors.

I hope that the answer to some questions I have put to myself are a helpful introduction to the ethos and advantages of English-Speaking Union membership and will encourage you to join ESU Malta.

How can you help?

By becoming a member, joining ESU Malta, enjoying its social, educational and cultural programme, coming to ESU events round the world, meeting the young people for whom we open new horizons and visiting Dartmouth House to benefit from its facilities. In joining the ESU, you become part of one of the most propitious, beneficial and worthwhile organisations available.

How is the ESU run?

The ESU is a membership organisation. The ESU’s patron is Her Majesty The Queen and its president His Royal Highness Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh KG KT. The board of governors is elected at the annual general meeting.

The honorary officers are chairman, deputy chairmen, treasurer and secretary and the administration is headed by the directory-general. With over 50 countries now belonging to the ESU, its International council meets annually in different parts of the world. Every four years there is a world members conference.

What does membership

entitle you to?

• Participation in all international ESU events;

• Participation in ESU national events;

• Receipt of ESU News;

• Receipt of the annual report and a vote at the national AGMs;

• Use of the Page Memorial Library and the reading room at Dartmouth House;

• Dining facilities provided by Leiths in the restaurant, bar and courtyard at Dartmouth House;

• Advance notice of all national and international events;

• Access to the ESU shops providing scarves, ties, brooches, engraved decanters and glasses and other items;

• Special accommodation arrangements for eight hotels and clubs in the UK.

At the heart of the ESU’s response is the role of English in public-speaking, discussion and debate. International understanding is created by the exchange of ideas and experience through the medium of a common spoken language. Hence the ESU’s Centre for Speech and Debate at Dartmouth House, our international headquarters in London, our international and national debating and public speaking competitions involving hundreds of universities and thousands of schools worldwide, the innovation of Internet Debating and the vast range of individual scholarships, internships and exchanges organised by Dartmouth House. All this is reinforced by international conferences and vigorous current and cultural affairs programmes in London including the prestigious Churchill Lecture.

The ESU in London works in partnership with ESU’s worldwide. Founded in 1918 to help bind together the English speaking peoples of the United States and the Commonwealth, the English-Speaking Union has spread to more than 50 countries including most recently Asia, many nations in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America. In the UK and USA the ESU has many membership branches supporting and participating in its international work. The ESU is a membership organisation and an educational charity.

Its contribution in the Twenty-first Century is acknowledged from that of its founder Sir Evelyn Wrench and of Winston Churchill, one of its first chairmen, to its recent expansion. Its opportunity and obligation to this century is to open up the prospects of human achievement through English to as many people as possible.

Valerie Mitchell, OBE, is the director-general of the English Speaking Union