Five years ago, four brave guys from Bilbao, namely Guillermo García, Txaber Tavera, Sara Ortega and Zulema Rebollo formed a team and all together took a step forward by creating AEGEE-Bilbao, in March 2009. It wasn’t easy, and doubts and difficulties were appearing all along the way, but thanks to the enthusiasm of so many people in the past five years they have been able to achieve what AEGEE-Bilbao is now.
Txaber Tavera, one of the founders of the antenna, former Vice-President and Secretary, is proud to see how the antenna has grown in the past years: “It’s good news that AEGEE-Bilbao is a reality five years later, thanks to the time and enthusiasm dedicated to the project. The key, and also the luck, has been to boards continuity between boards and between people who decided it’s time to give new members the chance to replace them. And that’s not easy. Now, I can see there’s a group of people who enjoy, get excited and live new experiences around AEGEE. That’s the most important thing! But I also have to say that there’s a long way to ride yet: AEGEE-Bilbao is not perfect, and it has to get better step by step. It’s true that we can improve, but we will never try to be perfect in any aspect; the important thing is that we can keep AEGEE principles. There will be strong boards and weak ones, less active moments and great projects to come… But the point is to always try to keep the wick on.”
The small antenna currently has 60 members, with 15 of them being active. In the past two years they managed to achieve several goals, like a Travel Summer University (together with AEGEE-Santander and AEGEE-Oviedo) and a RTC. The last event was the celebration of the locals 5th anniversary, which took place in april and was open to all AEGEEans. More than 50 participants from Spain and Europe came to Bilbao to give the local their best wishes.
Amaya de Arcos, currently president of AEGEE-Bilbao is very happy and satisfied with the event: “The fifth anniversary of AEGEE-Bilbao was a really important event for the antenna and also for me personally. Watching so many members working together to make the best event we could made me feel really proud of my antenna and I think that we will be able to do bigger things in the future. I would like to thank all the people involved in the anniversary – participants, helpers, and organizers – as they were all essential for making this event unforgettable. I hope everybody had as much fun as I did”.
The event consisted of a weekend full of culture, activities and parties to celebrate the first five years of the local, while – of course – hoping for at least another five years to come. All the members of the antenna agreed that when things are done by an enthusiastic team they are much easier.
After the celebration, it is time to continue working hard, while trying to reach more goals in AEGEE. For that, AEGEE-Bilbao is lucky to have “La Nave” (the name for the Spanish-, French- and Portuguese-speaking locals ed.) in the region as an example of unity, dedication, motivation and good work, with so many incredibly active antennae: Burgos, which is organizing dozens of events with only five years of experience (like AEGEE-Bilbao), Oviedo, Zaragoza, Alicante… and a long etcetera that gives us some models to learn from.
Written by Nerea Gutiérrez, AEGEE-Bilbao