The Sports Working Group (SWG) has been using this summer to find its grounds. Thus, being approved at the Agora Enschede, the SWG is well aware that there will always be members of our Network with the strong belief that sport has no place in AEGEE, however the SWG board members are together with the SWG members wearing yes-hats filled with arguments why the SWG is here to stay.
Building the foundation of SWG
The new SWG logo
Any working group needs a lot of base work to function. Luckily, the SWG has talented members both from the Juridical Commision (Diana Tupchiienko) as well as the Public Relations Committee (Vahagn Keshishyan). So you have probably read about Diana’s help with organising the SWG elections and in the month of July Vahagn helped the SWG with creating the logo. The logo election was set up so that all members of the SWG (as well as the rest of the network) could contribute with suggestions and then eventually the SWG members would vote on different logos in order to find the first SWG logo. Vahagn came up with a stylish suggestion for the SWG in four different versions. The final logo is not only stylish but also versatile since it comes in two different colours, perfect for online as well as offline use.
Sportive AEGEE people in the Summer University organised by AEGEE-Burgos
Promoting the Summer Universities
Not being completely ready to organise a sports event, the SWG chose to reach out the Summer University (SU) organisers as well as the Agora Budapest organisers in order to organise an Expo featuring the Summer Universities which this summer made the effort not only to participate in the most popular AEGEE project, but also use sportive activities to make sure that SU participants had a good time and connected in a greater way. So far AEGEE-Burgos, AEGEE-Oviedo, AEGEE-Maribor and AEGEE-Leiden have contributed with photos and the deadline of submitting pictures is not before September 1st, so the SWG is confident that this expo will work.
Moving it for AEGEE
But the SWG is not only working on the Agora. Approximately four weeks before the Agora sets off in Budapest there will be a so-called MOVE week in progress. This initiative is organised by the Danish Association of International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) which strives to have physical active events all over Europe in the first week of October. The SWG sees the MOVE Week as perfect post-summer opportunity for AEGEE antennae to organise a get-together event with their members. What could this be? AEGEE-København is trying to organise a sports tournament between AEGEE, AIESEC, ESN and such in the Danish capital. People against the Sports Working Group could, and probably would, argue that such event is exactly why they opposed the SWG at the Agora, because sport clubs can organise football games.
However, Patricia Anthony from AEGEE-København explains why such tournament could help: “In AEGEE-København we do not have a lot of active members, and we are looking for opportunities to bring members closer to AEGEE. We believe that organising such thing with e.g. AIESEC can help strengthen the communication between these organisations. That way we hope to get more visibility, increasing the interest in AEGEE, and bringing the ones who are already members of AEGEE-København closer to each other. We can see that friendships and strong connections can be the base grounds of the organisation o great events and motivating people to become more active in AEGEE in countries like Spain, so we figured that we can try to do the same thing. This way we will help AEGEE, the SWG and AEGEE-København as well as supporting a great project as the MOVE Week initiated in Denmark, all at the same time.”
The SWG hopes that other antennae will join AEGEE-København and the Sports Working Group with moving it and/or organising an event in which some professors, sports people or sport event organisers can give their expertise on how sport can be implemented in non-formal education all over Europe in the first week of October.
Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København & Secretary of the Sports Working Group (SWG)