Last year, when the Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar was announced, it was also announced that the Agora would take place at a castle. Some might have been under the impression that would be the location for the 500 sleeping bags coming to Mannheim from all over Europe the next week, but this is not the case.
It was not planned to have people lodged in the castle and it was not announced like that. However, the participants will visit the castle of Mannheim – which is the university – as it is where the plenaries will take place. So where will the participants be sleeping? The answer to that question takes us back to school. Literally. Because the initial plan about using seven different gyms could not be provided by the city, Agora participants will be spending the nights in a big part of a school building. The participants will sleep in classrooms. Will that bring the inner child out of some people?
During EBM Valletta participants were split in two places in terms of lodging. One part was in a hotel named Alexandra and the other part in hostel 20-30 minutes from Alexandra. The AEGEE saying that lodging is only used for sleeping and that there are not many hours spent there is always applicable, but still quite a few members stated that they missed the feeling of sleeping in a gym. It might be a difficult thing to explain to non-AEGEE people, as it is the so hard-to-explain ‘AEGEE spirit’ that causes a large amount of (experienced) AEGEE members to prefer sleeping in a gym.
People singing, people laughing, people creating nice memories, all this happens in a greater extent in the gyms where we are all together. The AEGEEan has before published reasons for choosing a gym and several AEGEE events time and time again confirm the difference it makes to have all the participants under roof.
During Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar we will have one roof all together and it will be interesting to see what happens when AEGEE goes back to school…
Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København