Marko Grdošić – President
July made Brussels quite calm, and the level of meetings went down. The last one happening was with the Coalition of Civil Society organizations on the Erasmus for All proposal. From the beginning of the year, we have been working a lot on lobbying for our space inside of the proposal, stronger youth inclusion, recognition of non-formal education. Finally, our work started showing results. After the European Council’s proposal for a separate chapter on youth, meeting with different Members of the European Parliament has shown that we have more and more supporters. In the following weeks, the Culture and Education Committee will present its report to the Parliament and that will be the key moment for the final look of the proposal.
I have addressed the Turkish Parliament, speaking in Istanbul at a conference on youth participation and political involvement. Talking about the latest arrestments, freedom of speech and democracy, I gave a youth’s opinion on current state, with recommendations for future actions.
Alma Mozgovaja – Secretary General
July was a very colourful month, with empowering a new AEGEE generation, getting to know more about the new internal platform for managing the membership within AEGEE, selecting assistants and setting a timeline for the Autumn Agora in Budapest, preparing a flawless knowledge transfer period for our successors and much more. It was a month with a glance into the future.
Even during the holidays I could not leave AEGEE, so I was combining the pleasant with the useful by co-organising the first IT Summer University, training new members and presenting different possibilities that AEGEE can offer. Finally, at the end of the month, the meeting with the European Youth Card Association took place. We tried to research what kind of options there are for getting AEGEE membership cards with an added value. Still, a lot remains to be done.
And now it is the time for change – our long, but extremely interesting trip called the Comité Directeur is coming to an end. It is time to give it over to new, energetic and enthusiastic CD elects.
Elena Antova – Financial Director
For me, July started with my daily work, related to reimbursements, payments and bookkeeping. Later during the month I took part in the Leadership Summer School in Budapest, which was organized by Zero Generation with the support of other student NGOs. I attended different and inspiring sessions about Communication, Group Dynamics, Facilitation, Knowledge Transfer etc. The gained knowledge will be really useful until the end of my term and especially during the Knowledge Transfer period.
After coming back, I continued doing my regular tasks and started to prepare the structure for the Knowledge Transfer, which will take place during August. Unfortunately, because of visa issues my successor, Anna, can’t be in Brussels at the beginning of the month and we had to find an alternative way of starting the knowledge transfer, by using on-line tools. I am more than optimistic that we will be able to work even with these difficulties. At the end of the month I had to prepare some additional documents for the reporting of the General Subvention 2011 and the Beyond Europe Project.
Jüri Kirpu – Internal Relations Director
July was the month when we, as the outgoing Comité Directeur, had our last month alone in the house, before our successors would be joining us here. For me, this period was filled with matters connected to the Key to Europe preparations, many meetings of the Mediation Commission and the Network Commission, and structuring the Knowledge Transfer period, so that I could prepare Beáta and Pavel for their duties from the 1st of September. For the Knowledge Transfer I also arranged a visit for the new Comité Directeur to Euractiv, so that they would be able to step into their new term with a wide knowledge about the Brussels media circle.
Besides these matters, I also dealt with mediating the process of accepting new Contacts and also managing documents for existing Contacts, who are planning to be upgraded during Agora Budapest. For the Agora, the period of submitting the members lists of Locals has started, since the site was opened, which is why I hope that also your Local will be one of the first in line to upload a file with the members.
Gizem Karslı – Vice President and Projects Director
July, the month of investments and preparations for the beginning of the end. Other than the week I visited my sunny and shiny hometown, I mainly focused on three topics. I have already given the hints of a successful project last month, The Euro-Arab Project! We have had quite an efficient development meeting, where we further developed our ideas. Soon, we will connect AEGEEans with the real leaders of the Arab Spring. In addition to the Euro-Arab Project, there were promising developments in AEGEE’s involvement in the ECI for Ecocide. In a meeting with the people involved, we have elaborated our role in the process. In August, Mathieu Soete will be representing AEGEE in the Ecocide meeting in London, where a number of activists will come together. Results will come in August, stay tuned! Moreover, I worked on the preparation of the planning evaluation meeting, where we will evaluate the work of ACT, the Action Agenda, and the EBM İzmir and prepare recommendations for the brand new planning year ahead of us.
Guillermo García Tabarés – Human Resources Director
Aiming for some days off around Europe, but still within the AEGEE atmosphere, this month started for me with visiting the SU in Barcelona, where I was helping the organising team and sharing my AEGEE perspective with the participants.
My main achievement this month was to ensure the Knowledge Transfer of the bodies I was working with, as the last step of the human resources cycle. Following this, the Working Groups had a closer follow up and the whole Network can benefit from the Working Groups Manual: “How to manage a Working Group easily”. The goal of this new manual is to ensure that next generations will be able to create a Working Group step by step and easily: knowing what to do before the Agora, who to contact for each step, what to include in their Activity Plan and how to create their Working Format following a template. I hope that this will lead to stronger thematic actions and possibly new fields developed in the shape of Working Groups.
The rest of the month went by planning for our last month here and the KT period with the next generation of the Comité Directeur.
Luis Alvarado Martínez – External Relations Director
The month of July was a bit more quiet than the rest. Regarding my tasks as the External Relations Director, I worked on fundraising for our Annual Publication (Key to Europe) and on promoting it to partners. It is a very attractive promotion tool for externals, so we will be seeing a few adverts inside the publication.
I also continued with the preparations for the Study Fair in AGORA Budapest, contacting different Universities, platforms and institutions which can be interesting for our members.
Toguether with Alma, I have also been working on the concept of AEGEE-Europe membership cards, having meetings with EYCA (European Youth Card Association), as well as ISIC (International Student Identity Card) to try and arrange partnerships.
Appart from the fundraising tasks, I also attended the Board meeting of the European Civic Forum (where AEGEE-Europe is part of the Board) in Paris, to discuss the evolution of the European Year of Citizens 2013 project, where we will also be participating.
Waiting for the new CD to arrive and start the new cycle in my life.