>Be ON in León

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Last weekend I was the First member of the Comité Directeur going to a Network meeting to represent our European board in one of the corners of our network. Luckily, I was awarded a very nice corner, being the Iberian peninsula. I went their to participate in the Fall Network Meeting “Be ON in León”, organised by the network commissioner of that area, Oscar, and very enthusiastic members of AEGEE-León.

To be sure to also have some time to see the city (what I unfortunately sometimes don’t manage to do during an Agora L), I booked a flight two days before the start of the event. I arrived in León on Wednesday night and immediately was made familiar with Spanish tapas. In León there are a lot of bars in the centre where you can get a small beer together with some very tasty food for only 1 €.

On Thursday the event was not starting yet, so I had the day for myself. In the morning I could use the AEGEE office at the university to answer email (Work as a CD-member never stops) and in the afternoon I walked around the city. In the evening there were already quite some people arriving as there was a small pre-event in León. Again beer+tapas and afterwards enjoying nightlife in the city.

The next morning there was of course a city tour, during which AEGEE-León was telling about the history of all the nice buildings. Unfortunately for me, this was done in Spanish, since almost all participants were either Spanish or doing an Erasmus in Spain and speaking the language. After the city tour the whole group (in total growing to about 150) went to the location of the NWM. This was in a small village in the mountains north of León. The location was some kind of youth hostel on a camping site. The location was quite suited for a NWM, as there were no neighbours around that could complain about parties being too loud or too late. For the first night there was a sangría party planned ;-).

After a short night of sleeping, the next morning the serious part of the NWM started early. The first session was about the state of the network in the area. All locals presented one strong and one weak point about AEGEE in their city, interrupted by nice event presentations. After a good lunch the second session was held in thee groups, split according to experience in AEGEE. In the first and second group it was my task to explain to the total beginners in AEGEE and the group that already knew a bit about it, what the Comité Directeur is, what we’re doing in Brussels and how our life in the CD house is. My part was the only thing that was done in English during this NWM and I could see that for quite some participants it was just as hard to follow this language, as it was for me to understand the parts in Spanish.

After a full day of fruitful work the European night was planned. Although almost all drinks were coming from Spain or Portugal (with Finland, Poland and Belgium as exceptions), the variety of alcohol was still very interesting, and the atmosphere was growing as bottles turned empty.

Sunday morning again the serious part, although this time a bit later then the day before. The group was again split in three to learn more about exchanges, public relations or ???(I forgot the third one ;)). After lunch the NWM was coming to an end and it was time for me to leave towards the airport. It was a very nice experience to get to know this part of Europe, where I hadn’t been before. I have seen that AEGEE is strong is this area and that there are a lot of very enthusiastic members. The only weak point I could spot is their tendency to speak only Spanish, a language that gave no problem during this NWM, but it’s not enough to be active on Agorae and European events.

A big thank you to Oscar and AEGEE-León for this very nice NWM.

Nico