This November AEGEE-Leiden is organising the Network Meeting (NWM) ”Lexit: Break away from your regular life”. Saramijn Luyken, European Affairs Officer, took the time to explain why this NWM will surely be a memorable one.
Could you tell us a bit about the history AEGEE-Leiden has with NWM?
Saramijn: This is the third NWM we will be hosting in five years. It’s not a tradition within AEGEE-Leiden, but our former board was very excited to host a NWM and managed to pull it off! The core team is made up of experienced members that were involved in the organisation of the European Planning Meeting Leiden this year.
What is the difference of this year’s NWM compared to the ones before?
None of our current core team members were there during the last NWM in Leiden, so we will be mostly doing new things. Although we obviously still want the participants to learn about AEGEE, learn new skills and get to know the city of Leiden. So in that sense this NWM will probably be similar to the last NWM.
You are telling the future participants about possibly finding the ‘Kim to their Kanye’ or the ‘Tom to their Jerry’, sounds good! Did a lot of flings arose during previous events in Leiden?
Not that we know of, but we’ll definitely encourage the interaction between participants and hope everyone gets to know each other. Like Robert ten Brink [red: a Dutch host of a TV show helping people find love] we just want to spread the love! It doesn’t matter if it’s love for the city, love for AEGEE or love for each other… Hopefully all three!
If you could invite any person to join this NWM, who would it be?
Robert ten Brink, as he is our mascot and was part of our inspiration with this event. We do agree with his message: all you need is love [red: the name of his TV-show].
With which feelings would you like the participants to go home with at the end of this NWM?
A warm fuzzy feeling of newly found friends, fond memories, some newly acquired skills and stories for their future grandchildren.
What will make this NWM amazing?
Leiden will be the place to be this autumn. We are preparing a very exciting programme in which participants will need to take an active stance, as some of the workshops will take place outside. We also have ‘Dudley and Steven’, the dynamic duo of AEGEE-Leiden, taking care of the social program. They are preparing an overarching competition for the participants, an awesome European Night and to top it all off…a pool party! So, our NWM has to a lot to offer our participants, including a very enthusiastic organising team who are looking forward to receiving all of you.
Is there anything you’d like to add?
We are hosting a one-of-a-kind, amazing, indoor (because, you know, it’s in November), POOL PARTY! And we’re very excited about it!
Written by Susan Nijsten, AEGEE-Groningen