If you need someone who will take good care of your members, look no further than Alejandra Piot Pérez-Abadín of AEGEE-A Coruña. In her previous functions, she has frequently been regarded as someone who puts effort into listening to people and who remains patient and takes all the time required in order to help members with their problems.
The AEGEEan: To all those who don’t know you yet, Alejandra, who are you?
Alejandra: I’m Alejandra, a member of AEGEE-A Coruña since September 2013, and president during the term 2015/2016. I’m an active and hard working girl, with a lot of compromise with what I’m doing and always with a smile. Also, I’m finishing my degree in audiovisual communication and I work as a waitress. As you can see, I’m multifunctional!
Do you already have similar experience that would make you an ideal member of the Network Commission?
Not at that level, but during my term as president I had some functions such as taking care of the members of my antenna, help them with every problem or anything they needed. Also, I tried to talk to almost all the new members when they joined our antenna to motivate them to be more involved with us. I love taking care of people and help everyone with everything I can. Also, the ones who know me better said that I’m very patient and understanding with everyone.
Why, specifically, are you running for Member of the Network Commission?
Because during this term I realized that what I like the most is to help and take care of everyone who needs it. And this is the aim of the Network Commission, to take care of the Network. I see that this is an interesting and productive task and I think I will learn a lot from this experience. I will be in touch with different antennae, helping and also learning from them, because we are always learning!
Can you already share some of your policy ideas with us?
I want the antennae to organise more activities and events related to the Action Agenda. For this, it will be so helpful to have a subcommie who is also involved in ACT and for sure to be in touch with the ACTie of the Network. Also, I want a more personal contact, so, besides the monthly reports, I want to have monthly skype meetings with the antennae, to get more information and help them with anything they need. I even want to encourage every member that is motivated enough to get involved not just at a local level, also at the European level.
How do you want to implement these policies?
As I said, about the Action Agenda activities, the idea is to use the ACTie of the Network to show everyone that it’s not so complicated as it seems, to talk about that in Network Meetings and to be in touch with the antennae, suggesting them kinds of activities they can do… These are some of the ways to improve this. About the monthly skype meetings, I know that at first it could be complicated, but I believe it will be so useful for the antennae and for us, to get more information besides the monthly report. Speaking of being involved at the European level, I think that introducing people from the Network who is involved and to have them show what they do and how they feel doing it could be so motivating. Also, doing sessions as AEGEE Inspire at the Network Meetings could be very useful too.
What qualities do you possess that make you an excellent member of the NetCom?
As I said before, I really love to take care and help everyone with anything. I’m a patient girl and I will answer questions almost 24/7. I know how to be objective in different situations if there is any problem. I have enough experience in AEGEE to know how to solve almost any doubt. During this year I needed to look out for help for my antenna because the board (including me) were almost new, and it was successful, so I learned how to solve every problem even if at first I don’t know what to do.
How do you resolve tricky issues, such as opposing views or a lack of motivation of members, and can you provide an example of when you tackled this flawlessly?
About opposing views, I will try to be objective with the situation. For example, if in one antenna there is a problem about the behaviour of one member, I would try to get the middle point, no one is 100% guilty of something, both parts always have a part of the blame, so based on this, talking with both parts, I would try to solve the problem, without harming anyone.
About the lack of motivation, for me the best thing that I can do it’s to convince this person to talk to someone who had the same problem in any moment. Sometimes all of us had some lack of motivation because of different reasons, but normally, we go to an event or we talk with someone and we regain this motivation. Also, I will talk to other members of the same antennae to organise activities to motivate this member again. If we talk about new members who need to take the first step, it is important to encourage them to go to different events in their local and also organised by another antennae. Meet people out of their city and discover how big AEGEE is.
You can read her full candidature here.
Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen