A couple of weeks ago people from Spain, France and Portugal went to a network meeting in Oporto and took their network to a new level. The atmosphere there was something that is hard to explain with words, but I will try. First of all, what was amazing was the huge participation from the three countries. Young people from Lyon, Paris, León, Madrid, Oporto, Las Palmas, Oviedo and more places all joined forces in order to create better network and to have fun together at the same time. Being a bit of an outsider, since I am Danish but part of AEGEE-Madrid, I am really fascinated by the hard work the Netcom and the different antennae put into AEGEE. What was noted as a huge achievement in the event was that it was a network meeting were English was the most spoken language and indeed you would see groups mixed of nationalities socializing together all the time.
Working together is 
something the three antennae do all the time, also when they are apart. A Google group better known as “la nave” has been created in order to inform about future events and start initiatives for different projects. It amuses me a lot that ones part of “la nave” was so eager and e-mailing each other all the time that a Facebook group had to be created for spamming each other. The group was a Spanish initiative and for this reason the “official language” started out being Spanish, but because of the international success in Porto the “official language” changed to English immediately afterwards, and now people get corrected each time they write something in their own language, but in a nice way of course.
In the end lots of success is thanks to AEGEE-Oporto who, even though they are small antenna of less than ten persons, chose to host a Network Meeting because “after a SU that went pretty well we thought: “Why not?” It turns out that it was not hard at all thanks to all amazing trainers and participants we had. When I hear experienced members saying that it was one of the best NWMs they were in, I think it was all worth it,” Vice president João Monteiro comments. They indeed kicked ass, because they showed the eager to work hard for AEGEE in Portugal. Hopefully, we will see more AEGEE activity in Portugal in the nearest future; we for sure know that the Netcom and especially their new Twin antenna AEGEE-Burgos will do everything to help.
Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København & AEGEE-Madrid