The World Association of Abacus and Mental Arithmetic (WAAMA) held the 3rd meeting of the 4th executive council in Mercure Serpong Alarm Sutera Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia on June 5, 2017. The participators are: President Zhang Hongli; Vice Presidents Ronnie Chong; Secretary General Wang Chaocai; Executive members Alexsander K. Taslim and Wong Hoon WAN; Executive members Nip Tin Sing and Lisa Wang separately entrusted one person to present at the meeting. Mr. Kajikawa Masahide, President of League for Soroban Education of Japan. Inc. was absent meeting due to the busy work, but he sent an e-mail to the meeting expressing that he agreed with decision of meeting. Mr. Yeh, Tseng-Yi, Taiwan Chamber of Commerce, Taiwan, China was originally scheduled to attend the meeting. But he was unable to come because of the sudden discomfort of the body. He wrote to Secretariat of WAAMA expressing that he did not object to the meeting decision. The meeting should be attended by 12 executive members. There are 7 executive members attending to the meeting. 2 executive members sent letter to the Secretariat expressing their agreement to the decision of meeting. According to the provisions of the Constitution, the outcomes of meeting are effective. The topics of meeting include: I. Summarize the work since the 2nd meeting of the 4th council. II. Discuss related matters for the general election in the year of 2018. III. Discuss some issues on the arrangement of competition and the way of conducting the 7th competition of abacus and mental arithmetic. IV. Discuss how to carry out more diverse activities to expand the impact of WAAMA. Mr. Wang Chaocai presided over the meeting.
The meeting started with the report made by Mr. Wang Chaocai, Secretary General of WAAMA. The report covers content in three parts such as the key work review since 2nd council meeting, existing problems in the work and the work arrangement before a general election. He mentioned in particular that competition in Hong Kong was the first time for WAAMA to conduct competition outside the mainland of China. It is a successful attempt. In the future, we will seek to carry out abacus and mental arithmetic activities in more countries and regions. The upgrading website of WAAMA (http://www.waama.org.cn) is completed and the new website is online. We hope each member units pay more attention on the website and actively put forward suggestions. In October 2016, Chinese Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Association (hereinafter referred to as CAMAA) and National Institute of Education Sciences jointly held the seminar on teaching experimental of abacus and mental arithmetic education in Jiangsu province of China. The meeting made period summary on the experimental study for the abacus and mental arithmetic education in recent years. The participants of meeting are well-known experts in the circle of Chinese mathematics, educational psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The report also includes a brief introduction on the situation of development of abacus and mental arithmetic in some member units like Japan, Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong SAR, China and China.
Zhang Hongli, president of WAAMA proposed that with the inscription of Chinese Zhusuan in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in the year of 2013, the mental arithmetic based on Zhusuan attracts more concerns and favor in many countries and regions in the world. The development of mental arithmetic education is the best protection and heritance to Zhusuan culture and it is also the purpose of WAAMA. This target links us together. We are doing a career, not just a few activities. To realize protection and heritance to Zhusuan culture needs support from a variety of systems. In China, CAMAA actively cooperates with administration department for education to promote abacus and mental arithmetic class access to the school education. Through the combination of mental arithmetic and mathematics teaching to improve teaching efficiency, while achieving heritage and protection to Zhusuan culture. At present, there are 9 experimental zones and more than 70 experimental schools set up in the mainland of China. The new varies teaching method, teaching books and administration mode emerge. These experiences lay the foundation for the comprehensive education of abacus and mental arithmetic in the future. The development of mental arithmetic education needs another great support coming from civil power. This is social training system, which is in the outside of administrative education system. We must attach great importance to the member units to carry out the market-oriented education, which will play a very vital role in the heritage protection. He suggested executive council and council do not limit the idea that is one country can only have one organization. He proposed that we should encourage blossoming, break group restrictions, positively make exploration, accept the talented person broadly, absorb more members of the unit. Everyone has his own advantages. We also should actively enhance the attractiveness of WAAMA, give full play to its role, so as to let UNESCO to see our efforts on protecting and inheriting the intangible cultural heritage. He stressed that we would use the three keywords of "Open, Popularity and Energy" to guide our future work. "Open" means the opening of teaching methods and teaching experiences; "Popularity" refers to the wide spread in the world, trying to include mental arithmetic into "One Belt and One Road" cultural exchanges. In the abacus and mental arithmetic competition, we can not just focus on the elite and ignore the public; "Energy" refers to use various forms and methods to carry out activities to achieve the goal of Zhusuan cultural heritage protection.
Mr. Ronnie Chong, Vice President of WAAMA, Mr. Wong Hoon WAN, executive director, Mrs. Diana Cheng who is on behalf of Nip Tin Sing, executive director attended the meeting spoke at the meeting respectively. They thought that the work report was comprehensive and in detail. They also introduced their work on the promotion of abacus and mental arithmetic education with some experience and problems they met and made many good suggestions for the future work of WAAMA.
After a serious discussion by the delegates, the meeting formed the following resolution:
I. The meeting adopted the work report made by Mr. Wang Chaocai, the Secretary General.
II. The meeting decided to hold the 3rd Council Meeting and experience exchange meeting in November of this year. The venue is tentatively in Shanghai or Xiamen. The content of meeting: i. Discuss related matters on the general election, the way and method of the 7th competition of abacus and mental arithmetic. The Secretariat will submit specific plan of competition for discussion at that time. ii. Introduce the achievement of abacus and mental arithmetic study, exchange teaching experience and method.
III. The meeting decided to hold the General Assembly of WAAMA in July or August, 2018 in Indonesia, and the 7th Competition of Abacus and Mental Arithmetic will be conducted at the same time.
IV. The meeting reached preliminary opinion on competition in the future. The Secretariat drafts specific plan and submits to the council meeting which will be held in the November of this year. The preliminary opinion is that the competition will be conducted in two ways. The first is to continue to organize elite competitions by restricting participants and mainly taking the team contest. The second is to organize the competition which has no limitation on the number of players and the question is simple. The purpose is to expand the coverage of competition so as to attract more children who learn abacus and mental arithmetic to participate in the game. The rating appraisal will be organized at the same time. The corresponding level of identification certificate will be issued according to the results of game. The competition which has no limitation on the number of players can be conducted by WAAMA in a variety of forms, such as: member units lead launching invitational tournament or divisional competition and so on.
V. The website of the World Association of Abacus and Mental Arithmetic (www.waama.org.cn) has been updated and opened up. We hope each member unit actively pays attention on the website, timely supplies updated information and helps website to serve better for the member units and the majority of abacus and mental arithmetic enthusiasts.
In the end, all participants of meeting expressed their thanks to Mr. Alexsander K. Taslim, President of Sempoa SIP Indonesia and his wife for the great support to the meeting.
June 19, 2017
