January sees the dawn of a new Local of the Month, and this time it’s AEGEE Valencia! After a month of celebrations in December, they decided to promote January as a month of health, having people tag AEGEE Valencia into their stories of a healthy lifestyle. We’d like to congratulate them for all the work they’re putting into AEGEE!
Congratulations on being awarded the Local of the Month! We’re to hear more about you!
Today we have more than 60 members but we have a big number of active (and great) members. For most of our activities in the past months, we have had about 20 or 25 people attending. Also Valencia is attracting Aegeans to come to live or visit and all of them are very welcome to participate in our activities, even if they are not members of our local because this makes us grow and be more diverse and helps us become a more attractive Antenna. Last year, we organised about 50 activities of many types because we were open to many proposals of our members, such us weekly meetings, trekking, cultural events, dinners. But overall, we had 3 big activities last year; an awesome LTC with 35 people, the Mental Health ES, and out Summer University. Our big success is that we grew our members (and multiplied by 4 in active membership) in the last 2 years as we are a big family and people that come to us can feel it and are more encouraged to get active and be a part of our group.
What are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your local?
Probably last Christmas dinner and last LTC, where 45 people attended!
What has been the key to your success. In which areas have you needed more help and development?
As we mentioned, we are a big family, and even more inside our Board. Last boards have been composed by people that overflow with real AEGEE spirit, happiness, responsibility, hard – and effective- work, and it always makes it easy to organize anything. Also, the long experience (maybe too much) of our organizers core team simplifies the hard things and all new and younger members learn everyday the skills that university doesn’t teach them. With us, organizing an event or activity or work in groups is a great experience and we transmit it to them. Also our success is to be open to all concerns so everybody feels part of this big and nice thing that AEGEE is.
Some words of wisdom to other locals?
Keep it simple and effective and don’t pretend to be what you are not or what you see on TV. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing here, it is because something is wrong, but it’s in your hands to change it. If you are happy working hard for AEGEE, organizing events and activities, if you are learning new things everyday and helping your people to discover other cultures and making Europe their home, congratulations, you have the spirit!
Any closing remarks?
This month we are collecting the efforts of many,many people that worked hard for AEGEE-Valencia in the last few years. Many boards consisting of people such as Javier, Clara, Juan or Consu, and all people that worked with them.
I have to thank them all and also Javi Lahuerta, Kike, David, Patri and again Clara for their amazing work this year and encourage our new members to break their borders and discover all what AEGEE offers to us. And remember, some call it Europe, we call it Home! And we would like to thank you again for this award!
