In February, despite the cold weather, the Comité Directeur was full of energy and passion. We felt some relief since the biggest and hardest part of the moving has ended during the first weekend, but there was still a lot of work on the house to do to make it feel like our new home. During this short month, we were engaged in many events: press conferences in the European Parliament, meeting with the Azeri Government, UN conference in Kenya, conference in Strasbourg, meeting in Vienna, endless preparation for the amazing EBM, countless Skype meetings, even more e-mail threads… But while we are looking back, when we wait for the spring impatiently, we can see: the whole month was worth it.
This month we are going back to the original format of presenting you our February in a written way. Besides, as soon as we get more questions, we will post a video in every Telegram where we will answer the questions you can ask from us here, in the Questions and Suggestions form. Now, you can read Anna Gots’ answer for the question she got in the end of the Telegram.
Luis Alvarado Martinez (President)
February started with a very busy moving of the head office, but finally it is over.
After this, Miguel Gallardo Albajar and I travelled to Baku to have a meeting with the Azeri Government regarding the conflict resolution strategy which AEGEE-Europe is carrying out in the Caucasus Region. We met with one of the Ministries, with the Azeri Youth Council and the Azeri Youth Foundation regarding our next steps and projects on peace building with young people in the area.
Directly after Baku, with very few hours in between in Brussels I travelled to Nairobi, Kenya to the United Nation Headquarters in Africa to represent AEGEE-Europe in the TUNZA International Youth Conference on Sustainable Development organized by UNEP (United Nations Environment Program). During the event, we had the opportunity to work with youth leaders from all over the world in order to draft a common document with concrete recommendations for the Member States of United Nations regarding environmental and sustainable development topics. Check the final declaration here.
One day after coming back, we had a Press Conference in the European Parliament which I coordinated together with several Members of the European Parliament to launch officially and publicly our new project Health4Youth. During these days, I was also working on the application of a peace building training course for AEGEE members from the Caucasus Region which we applied to be hosted in the next University on Youth and Development organized by the Spanish Youth Council, European Youth Forum and North South Center of the Council of Europe in Mollina, Malaga (CEULAJ Center).
Finally, I was coordinating the last communication with the Cabinet of Commissioner Vassiliou (Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Multilingualism) who accepted to send us a video message for our members at EBM.
To end February, I was also present at the wonderful EBM, helping out the content team, facilitating sessions and helping out with recommendations drafted by participants which will be used for policy and advocacy of the Comite Directeur and our Policy Officers.
Lucille Rieux (Secretary General)
February started with a big change and a long weekend of work and of moving out! We have finally moved, and it took several days of putting everything into boxes and carrying everything from one home to a new one! Once settled, I dedicated almost all my time to the preparation of the European Board Meeting. While I was working with AEGEE-Valletta in the preparation of the meeting, I was already checking logistic needs. At the same time, together with Miguel Gallardo Albajar and Lucia Sobekova, we were preparing the content, finalising the EBM booklet, defining the key issues which we wanted to tackle and the final method we wanted to use. I was also in touch with the external guests, also making sure they had a complete picture of what to expect during this EBM. Few days before the EBM, I attended a conference in Strasbourg on the topic of the impact of the crisis on young people, which gave me many ideas for the EBM itself, and where I also represented AEGEE on a panel discussion regarding solutions concerning the impact of the crisis on young people’s citizenship.
EBM finally arrived, and it has been four days of very intense work, but in the end, it definitely payed off, as we have noticed a lot of motivated members, and were happy to hear about our members’ ideas and propositions.
At the same time, in February, together with the Chair, we started to work on the preparation of the Agora. The day before the start of the EBM, the complete Chair team met, and together, we drafted the Agenda for the upcoming Agora.
Anna Gots (Financial Director)
February started with the intense moving weekend, followed by several weeks of further arrangements of both working and living space in the house.
Beata Matuszka (Network and Human Resources Director)
Would it surprise anyone if I started my report for February by that we were moving? I guess no, but I would like to emphasise once again that even though I am happy that the worst part is over with lifting things, that was one of the best team buildings ever. February was really colourful, I could work on many projects related to both HR and Network. As 1st of February was a Youth in Action deadline, we could finally submit a project on Euroskepticism with Armenak Minasyants and with the hardworking Contact in London, we will see whether we can get the grant in the end. The month also passed with the preparation for the EBM and Agora: for the first one, I prepared with two topics (entrepreneurship and euroskepticism) for the facilitation, for the latter one, I had a bit more work to do which mainly concerned the members’ lists submission, the membership fees and the participants statuses, since due to the special characters in different languages, a lot of manual work needs to be done. Besides, the preparation for the European level meeting has already started.
I could also work with some new possible Contacts in the Network, I really hope that I can give you some great news in the near future. We did not forget the current locals either and with my beloved Network Commission team we tried to work on their continuous support.
Since it is the beginning of a new term and new year, the slightly new concept of training support has been born: the Comite Directeur is financially supporting the Regional Trainings Courses, and I was working on the open call, the selection and communication among the related bodies (locals, NetCom, Academy and CD).
With the Human Resources Committee, we are still working on the kick-off of many projects, and the month was full of Committee meetings and work on the next HRES (many thanks again to the dedicated manager team, Burak, Elena and Eleni, who are doing a great job).
What else? Regions, proposals, gaining new skills in making subtitles for MEP videos, still working on online training… It was a busy month indeed, I hope the next months won’t be different at all.
Miguel Gallardo (Projects Director)
February has been so far the craziest month of my stay in Brussels. It started with the moving of the house and ended with the EBM Valletta, one of my best experiences in AEGEE: Moving the house was also a great experience for me, as it was a great team work of the people in the CD and those few ones who came to help us in Brussels.
Just after moving, Luis and I travelled to Baku where we spent some days working on conflict resolution in course of meetings with the institutions from Azerbaijan and participating in the Conflict Resolution event that AEGEE-Bakı organised. It was a really interesting event with youth workers who had been involved in several conflicts in different parts of the world.
The upcoming weekend, we had the first Project Team meeting in the new house. Health4Youth came for a hard working weekend full of meetings, these guys are not only healthy but also very energetic. I wonder if carrots are the new RedBull, or it was just pure passion and motivation.
The rest of the month was spent with many snowstorms, which prevented me from going to training for several weeks, which is not a bad thing as I am still recovering from a broken finger which I have got last December.
Finally the EBM arrived, and I can just say that it was a great success for me, thanks to the work of everyone. The Content Team which prepared interesting topics, our guest speakers who inspired all of us, the whole AEGEE-Valletta team who did wonders to make us feel better than at home, the people who dared to contribute to the first EBM Inspire, all the people who helped with facilitating the sessions, and the whole network which got so engaged in the discussions as never before, preparing objectives and activities for the Action Agenda, and drafting recommendations on several relevant issues. Just a big big thank you!
Kathrin Renner (Vice President and External Relations Director)
February passed in a breath. After an exhausting weekend of moving the house (thank you once again to the amazing helpers, especially Reka Salamon, Guillermo Tabarés, Manos Valasis and Marko Grdosic), Luis, Miguel and Pavel left us girls alone for a week. While we were still arranging the house, I was also dealing with the Study and Career Fair at Agora Rhein-Neckar: Sending Emails, following up answers etc. I also attended the European Voice Studies Fair to network with universities, where we received quite a number of contacts.
I spent time fundraising for the Summer University Project, contacting different companies for sponsorship. I followed up the partnership with InterRail and negotiated with Ryanair and Education First. Also, I managed to sell some spots in the newsletter and on Facebook, which improved our budget with around 2000 Euros.
Quite some of my time went in the new membership cards: Together with PRC, we developed a new design, decided on the amount and the way of distribution, and finally ordered them from a company in Latvia so that they could be ready for distribution at Agora Rhein-Neckar. Special thanks go to Vahagn Keshisyan for the design and the endless readjustments, Manos Valasis for the barcodes, and Alma Mozgoaja for dealing with the company.
Together with the board of Academy, we worked on the proposal of reforming it, which will be presented at Agora, hopefully, finally clarifying its status between Working Groups and Committees, as well as a new charter of Academy, updating the current one to fit better its reality.
Not to forget it, I spent a weekend in the middle of February in Passau.
At the end of February, we all departed for Malta, where I was responsible for taking care of the speakers on the spot, making sure that everything was arranged for them.
Pavel Zbornik (European Institutions and Communications Director)
If I look back on February, it seems like it was half a year ago, not last month. Many things happened, many important ones. The moving weekend in the beginning of the month was just the start of this intensive month. During that weekend, I had to leave the rest of the team arranging the new house, because I went to the European Youth Foundation (EYF) event in Strasbourg where we were working for four days with EYF team on improving funding guidelines and in general, work on EYF. During my stay in Strasbourg, I had the chance to visit the Council of Europe and the European Parliament as well, where I met AEGEE-Europe’s president for lunch.
Right after the Strasbourg event, I had to set up the office infrastructure so that the rest of the CD could work at least in temporary conditions, I spent all weekends in February with laying cables all around the house and connect them in the server room. This job is still not finished, I still have to place 600 meters of cables in the next months, in order to complete it.
Press Conference of H4Y took place in the Parliament and I was preparing a video and a Press Release which are available via our communication channels. Besides, I was helping them with setting up their new website. In the Parliament, I also had a meeting with Dot.Kids Foundation from Hong-Kong. At this meeting, we were talking about a possible cooperation and the involvement of the youth in Internet Governance.
Internet Governance was connected with my short visit to Vienna, right before the EBM. Together with Young European Federalists (JEF), Youth for Exchange and Understanding (YEU), Federation of Young European Greens (FYGE) and European Youth Forum (YFJ), we were planning a series of events which will take place this spring and it will include a training course in Vienna and a conference in Lisboa. During this meeting, we created the name of our cooperation, Network of EuRopean Digital Youth (NERDY).
Last three days of February were connected to EBM preparation and trip to Malta.
Questions to the Comite Directeur
Dear CD, the house is much bigger than the previous one.
Have you already calculated its impact on the budget ?
Will it be updated for the AGORA ?
We anticipated that the rent of the new house would be more expensive than the previous one, therefore during Agora Budapest we already had both the progress meeting on moving the house and the finances, and presentations at the plenary where all the changes were summarised and displayed. As a result, the approval of the raise of the rent up to 2500 EUR was given by the Agora.
Of course the updated budgets will be presented again in two weeks already at Agora Rhein-Neckar, with numbers corresponding to the actual rent.