Soon upon my arrival from Passau to Heidelberg, I was welcomed by Viola (from Your Vision For Europe) and Mareike (from the Network Commission). They showed me the beautiful city of Heidelberg, and after having lunch with them, we joined an evening meeting with the members of AEGEE-Heidelberg.
All members that were present at the meeting shared their experiences and impression about AEGEE. They also offered me an insight in the work of AEGEE-Heidelberg. They have around 50 members and they are structured in teams. Their board members are mainly new members in general, but motivated to work in management of the local. Their main work is focused on European events and the work that they do with Erasmus students is their biggest recruitment tool. Also a few of their members are active in European Bodies of AEGEE. They have several planned exchanges (e.g. with AEGEE-Cagliari, their Twin Antenna AEGEE-Budapest and with AEGEE-Kyïv) too.
My last stop on this journey was AEGEE-Düsseldorf. I met Maja and Jonathan, both board members, and during a very interesting city tour, we managed to discuss the situation in their local.
AEGEE-Düsseldorf is a small antenna, but an active one. Currently they have around 15 members, of which half is active. In the last year they managed to organise more activities and they even organised an RTC a few weeks ago, which gave them the insight in event management and gave them ideas for new projects. What is beneficial for this local is that near them, there are several bigger locals that they can cooperate with.
The local is facing some issues with recruitment, which is pretty normal when there is lack of a proper knowledge transfer. Another big problem for this local is the change of generations, which is a problem for all locals, but is mostly visible in the smaller ones. My chat with Maja and Jonathan generated useful food for thought.
My trip ended with AEGEE-Düsseldorf after more than three weeks on track. Thank you all for your hospitality.
Written by Zvonimir Canjuga, Financial Director of AEGEE-Europe