>AEGEE Network Meeting Madrid, Spain
Network Commission & AEGEE-Madrid
15th – 17th October, 2010
If you consider an AEGEE Network Meeting to be a social event (which you should), then you could call the recent NWM Madrid a resounding success. Spanish people have a remarkable talent for social inclusion, and no matter whether you are young or old, newby or veteran, boy or girl or something in between, it is just a question of minutes until you are caught in the first spontaneous group activity, swinging your hips to the rhythm of melodious Spanish fruits. ¡Plaaaatanitos por aquí! Combined with a cold, but sunny autumn weather and ripe pears in a huge orchard some 60 kilometers outside Madrid, the perfect conditions were given to guarantee a great networking event.
The NWM Madrid had nearly 80 people present, half of them new members, most of them being Spanish, and all of them speaking Spanish, with the exception of three valiant Sicilians that relied on the similarities between their languages. Consequently, nearly the entire programme was held in Spanish, which had some very notable advantages. For example that the AEGEE introduction by Juan Hernández was not a boring presentation, but an inspired and at times hilarious speech of more than one hour that was appreciated with a thunderous applause. Or that the explanation of statutory processes in AEGEE by Juan Sordo with the example of the upcoming SU proposals was met with great interest and actively discussed even by new members. Under these circumstances, my own presentation (in English) of projects and working groups in AEGEE was followed with great concentration and interest as well. If you consider an AEGEE Network Meeting to be an informative event for new members, then you could call the NWM Madrid an even more resounding success!
Special thanks go to Sara Vierna of the Network Commission and her team, and of course to Rosario Sanguino and AEGEE-Madrid, who were numerously present and took their job as organisers more than seriously – including the obligation to clean up after the party and be the first to wake up all the rest the next morning with devilish methods. And herewith I officially pardon them for ditching me at the airport, since they collectively joined me one day later on the occasion of my 25th birthday to make it one of the most cheerful of my life. Gracias chicos, ¡sois de la p*** m****!