“Where the hell is AEGEE?” That is one of the questions floating on Facebook at the moment, and AEGEE-Toulouse is behind it. The AEGEEan interviewed the antenna from France about the idea behind their project and how it is going with the project so far.
The idea was proposed by an old member of AEGEE-Toulouse one year ago, but the antenna did not manage to make the project happen while she was still a member. This year people started talking in the antenna about the project again and this time the decision to begin was stronger.
It all started during a brainstorm session in a Local Training Course, where they thought about the video “Where the Hell is Matt”. With so many antennae in AEGEE they agreed that this kind of videos would be a great idea to show how wide AEGEE expands across Europe.
The idea is that every antenna makes a little movement to the song Move your feet in front of a building or place that represents its town. AEGEE-Toulouse will then make a mix with all the videos they receive. “This project would be a great occasion to improve the visibility of AEGEE and it can also be a part of our project Bridging Europe!” is what AEGEE-Toulouse wrote on the official Facebook page of their project.
In the description of the project they ask antennae to do the filming in front of a special place in their city. AEGEE-Toulouse’s members decided to film themselves dancing on the Square of Capitole. “We chose the Capitol because it represents Toulouse; every big event runs through this square. It is also a meeting point for Toulousians, so we can say this is the real symbol of our town”, Laura Kaddour (Public Relations) and Nolwënn Piqeuet (Human Resources) say in the interview with The AEGEEan.
The project has been received very well by the Network. In less than one week there are more than 100 AEGEE members following the project on Facebook which AEGEE-Toulouse is very pleased with. When interviewed by The AEGEEan AEGEE-Toulose had not received any contribution or responses to their survey yet. This is normal as it is a new project and supposedly people need to have meetings with their antennae to talk about the project, so AEGEE-Toulouse is sure that the number will go from zero to plenty very soon.
Actually, just the day after the interview, AEGEE-Toulouse received a contribution from AEGEE-København and their vice-president, Karlis Kazins, says to The AEGEEan: “I liked the Where the hell is AEGEE? idea right away when I read the description, partly because I like the original Matt’s videos, partly because I like to do this kind of activities. And so as I liked it, I suggested it to our board and we did it.” AEGEE-København decided to film in front of the Copenhagen Opera house. Actually this is not really a landmark that people associate with Copenhagen, but the beauty and the nice view in front of it are the reasoning behind the choice according to Karlis.
Being a small antenna the difficulty relied in getting people to join “We invited some people, but at the end there were only three people that showed up. But the good thing is that our Spanish HR responsible – Gonzalo Peréz – was there and he talked to a whole tourist group, who had just finished their tour, and another smaller group and we got five people to join us,” Karliz tells The AEGEEan about the experience. He also encourages other antennae to take part in the project for many reasons: “Because you will definitely have a good time, while making the video. And the final edited video with contributions from a lot of antennae all over Europe is going to be great, so you do not want to miss being a part of it.”
The next step in the process for AEGEE-Toulouse is to mix all the videos they will get into a final movie to be posted on YouTube and to be broadcasted as large as they can.
Besides the video, AEGEE-Toulouse is working on a European movie screening for Erasmus students and other students which they organize every month. “It is a brand new project and we are excited about it! We are also organizing a Summer University, which has four thematic colors, we hope it will be a success too,” Nolwëen & Laura agree and tell The AEGEEan. AEGEE-København is definitely busy too, focusing on the upcoming Network Meeting that will take part in the Danish capital next month and also working with the Summer University promotion, hoping the antenna will expand in amount of members.
It will be interesting to hear more in the future about what these antennae will do and of course to see the final product of the video itself. You can find more information on the Facebook page of the project here
Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Zaragoza