The AEGEEan receives a lot of nominations for the Member of the Month and even if certain people are not chosen, they still deserve to be mentioned for their inspiring actions. The AEGEEan met one of those exceptional members, Consuelo Ródenas (AEGEE-Valencia), who told us all the secrets of a successful Antenna. Check this out!
The AEGEEan: Hi Consuelo! Thank you for your time. Can you tell our readers, who still don’t know you, what’s your experience in AEGEE?
Consu: I joined AEGEE, as a lot of Spaniards, because I was attracted by the Summer University project. This was in April 2011, and after my SU I wanted to be more active and I became the secretary of AEGEE-Valencia. At the same time, I attended events like LTCs and NWMs in order to discover more about AEGEE, improved my work and learnt more things. Since then, I have participated in a lot of events and organized some of them, like our famous Fallas Event, and this summer I was one of the main organizers of the TSU with AEGEE-Tarragona. In my work in the local board, I organized local activities for the members (and also for the newbies), like social drinks, barbeques and paellas. I was the manager of the website and the Facebook account, I did the PR and HR work and I attended some Statutory events. By that time, I became president last November.
Describe yourself in three words.
Picking up only three words is very difficult. Let’s say responsible, hard-working and enthusiastic.
Your Network Commissioner, Carmen María, describes you as a very active and hard-working person since your very early months in AEGEE. What is your source of motivation and energy?
When I love doing something, I always work hard on it. My main source of motivation is the love for this association. AEGEE gave me a lot so I have the duty to give something back to it. Another thing is that I am a perfectionist, and when I say ‘I want to do something’, I don’t stop until it’s not perfect. Apart from that, my energy comes from the unfair things that were happening in this antenna before I arrived and during my almost two years as secretary. It was frustrating having a board that didn’t fight for having new members and improving the local’s activity. I don’t like injustice and I want everybody to enjoy the same as I did. But fighting is always difficult and you need a lot of moral support. And if it wasn’t because of the people who were supporting me, like very active people in Spain, the subcommies Pauline and Carmen María, I wouldn’t have found the strength sometimes. So thank you for telling me not to give up!
You’re one of the main organizers of the Summer University in Tarragona and Valencia and you made it successful. Which are the secrets of a great SU, in your opinion?
I think the best SU should be a mix of different things: a complete program, which makes the participants learn a lot about the topic while they are having fun. It should offer them interesting activities that make them take part in all of them instead of staying at the lodging sleeping or having a beer. But the most important thing of a successful SU is the team of organizers. If the organizers know each other well and are motivated and hardworking, everything goes well before, while and after the SU. When participants are leaded by a great group, they have the time of their lives.
The image of AEGEE-Valencia definitely improved thanks to your active role. How did you manage to reach this goal?
As we say in Spain, ‘it took me blood, sweat and tears’. But this would be non-sense without knowing the previous situation of the antenna, so here I go: When I joined my antenna, it was lost, with only 20 members and three old active members on the board who only wanted to organize events for themselves and take advantage of the local in many ways. So, first I did a very big SU promotion in order to get more new and motivated members. After the summer, the old members tried to kick out again all the people who tried to work and help in the antenna. Luckily we soon had elections and a team of new people with me as president started to work and ‘defeated’ the old board. With the help of all these amazing guys and around five or six hours per day of work, now AEGEE-Valencia has 15 active and motivated members and a great relationship with the University.
Your multitasking competencies from event organizer to PR are enriched by great HR management skills. How do you motivate the other members of your local?
I like to show them what we do in AEGEE-Valencia: the activities, the events, and at the same time, I ask them one by one which things they would like to do in the antenna and when we organize something, I give them small tasks related with their skills so they help us and at the same time take part to the events.
We talked about your local work. What can you tell us about your European engagement in AEGEE?
As you can imagine, I didn’t have time to get more involved on the European level. Now that the antenna is strong, I would like to be more active. Right now I’m studying environmental pollution, so I would like to join the EnWG and do interesting things (and suggest one project) with them.
What does AEGEE mean to you?
AEGEE means friendship, experience, learning, development, and satisfaction. My best friends from all over Europe belong to this association. With AEGEE, you have the best experiences of your life, like visiting other places or doing things that you would never do in your everyday life. Working here teaches you how to work in a team (even with negative people), you learn other languages and understand how to work with institutions… things that you would have never thought you were going to learn. But the best part of AEGEE for me is satisfaction. The satisfaction you get after coming back from a SU for the first time when you were afraid of it. The satisfaction you get when you hang up a Skype call with a friend from Greece that you met two years ago. And the satisfaction you get when, after one year of hard work in a SU, the participants the last day come back home crying, saying thank you for your work and the time they spent there.
What are your plans for the future?
I don’t know yet, but my idea is to complete my studies and to find a job. So, depending on this, I will contribute more or less in AEGEE. But for sure, there are still a lot of things to do here and this is not the last year I am going to spend as an active member. Time will say what I will do.
Written by Larisa Smajlagic, AEGEE-Verona