Many people might know that the Comité Directeur, the executive Board of AEGEE-Europe (who is elected by the Agora) is based in Brussels near the European Commission, in a house that can be recognised mostly by the plaquette on the door. But how many of you have seen how the daily life goes for all the CD members? What do we do during our everyday work? Read on to find out!

As we are elected by the Agora, the Comité Directeur’s main task is to work for the members and locals of AEGEE-Europe. This is highlighted especially in my position as the Network Director, as almost all of my tasks revolve around supporting the locals and the Network. I have 5 main “tracks” in my portfolio: Network management (which is the biggest) together with the Network Commission; Strategic Plan and Action Agenda fulfillment together with the Action Agenda Coordination Committee – which also includes the drafting part of the European Planning Meeting; Visual Identity together with the Public Relations Committee; taking care of the topic of Entrepreneurship, including the management of the external MY-WAY project as CD responsible (together with Pablo Hernández as the project responsible); and I am also CD Observer for the the Juridical Commission.

Since my position includes a lot of administrative tasks, I can usually be found either in the office, in the meeting room (as I generally have quite a lot of Skype meetings due to being CD responsible for many bodies) or in the archives digging up documents, but I also do some external representation (as all of us in the CD). In general, I start my day by reading my e-mails (even sometimes in bed [she smiles, ed.]) and trying to get awake as I am not really a morning person. Then, the day continues with either doing my regular tasks (which often include some ad-hoc requests from locals) or having morning meetings with the rest of the CD about important topics such as EPM preparations, etc. Then, after our lunch break (when I try to cook something nice) I return to my office computer and keep on working until the evening when my Skype meetings are usually scheduled – then I move to the meeting room and finish my day officially after the Skype meetings. Of course, my schedule is different when I travel– in that case I do a lot of on-the-spot tasks and the e-mails/administratives are put a bit behind. I do enjoy travelling, getting to know new places and people no matter the type of the event (internal AEGEE-events or external representation), nonetheless work is first for these kind of travels.

On paper, my position might not look super exciting, but as I am working a lot with the Network there is never a day that is the same: sometimes people ask for information or help with some tasks, other days you get interested people asking how to found a new contact – sometimes I might see that I am a lot on Facebook and other social media, but I get approached in many platforms, so I will just adapt to whichever is more comfortable for the locals or for my teams. One thing that I really enjoyed until now is the CD on Track because I have had the opportunity to meet and get to know the locals better in their own cities and see how they manage in their everyday environment – hopefully, I can help and support them in case they need it.

Written by Tekla Hajdu, Network Director of AEGEE-Europe

Katarzyna Sokołowska (just Kasia for friends) has been a board member of AEGEE-Krakow, responsible for fundraising. The experience that she gained from her antenna and her internship at the Council of Europe motivated her to dedicate one year to the association in the AEGEE house. Here are the questions The AEGEEan had for the current Interim Secretary General who is running for the same position. 

The AEGEEan: Why did you decide to run for Secretary General and why you didn’t do during Agora Bergamo?
Katarzyna: I did not consider to candidate during Agora Bergamo because I was not present there and I also had an internship at the Council of Europe. This experience was very valuable for me and during that time, I found out what I exactly want to do in my life and what I want to focus on. It is not an easy decision to move to the AEGEE house and spend one year of your life there.

What makes you the best candidate for the position you chose?
I think that my experience, which I mainly gained in various organisations, gave me the skills to manage AEGEE with the other CD members. Thanks to that, I also know how the world of NGOs works and what we, as a network of young people, can do to spread our voice throughout Europe.

Can you tell us something more about your previous internship in Council of Europe? Which skills did you earn from that work experience?
My internship was mostly focused on No Hate Speech Movement. I was based in the European Youth Center – the place where young people are most important. I had a chance to experience how the Council of Europe organises seminars, study sessions or preparations meetings before their projects. I also saw how the European Youth Foundation works and supports NGOs.

How could you improve AEGEE with your experience from others NGOs?
Thanks to the experience gained in different NGOs, I can contribute to make our work more smooth and productive. As a professional employee, I also developed knowledge about staff management which is obviously present in the AEGEE office too.

Do you have some plans for the Working Groups, especially Youth Mobility and Youth Employment?
Youth Mobility and Youth Employment are the two Working Groups that are closest to my interests. I would like to support them with their work, share my knowledge with them and also give them a space (opportunities for training or conferences) to develop in their fields. I hope that my cooperation with coordinators and members of those WGs will be very fruitful.

Why would you like to cooperate with Interest Groups about gender equality and LGBTQ+?
I would like to cooperate with these two Interest Groups because I am simply interested in those topics. I had a chance to participate in a few events about it and since then I see the need to focus on these topics more. I think that nowadays, more and more young people want to fight for their rights and want to feel respect. In my opinion it is very important to live in an equal world where everyone feels comfortable.

You entered in office two months ago, what did you achieve in the past months of your term?
The beginning of the term is not easy. Firstly you need to get to know each other, on both fields: not only how we want to work together, but also how we will be living together in one house. After that difficult time, all of us went to León where we drafted the new Strategic Plan. I think that in the beginning, it is hard to achieve your personal goals – it is rather the question what we achieved as the team that we created since then.

What are your plans for fundraising?
I am responsible for institutional fundraising. I would like to support European Bodies as much as I can. Moreover, I would like to make an overview of all locals which applied and received institutional grants. I hope that the cooperation with our motivated network will let us apply for lots of grants this year.

What do your parents and your friends think about your dedication to AEGEE in the famous AEGEE house with the CD for one year?
People who are close to me support my decision. Sometimes they still do not understand what I am doing exactly, but if I am happy, they will see the sense in what I do.

Do you really feel ready to cover the position of Secretary General for the rest of the term?
I think that I am ready. You never can be sure that you know what is coming, so I would say that there will still be a lot of things which will surprise me during the year, but I am aware of it and prepared for it [she smiles, ed].

You can read the full candidature here.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari.

The AEGEE House, located in Brussels, is not just a place to stay for AEGEE members, but also functions as the home and office of the Comité Directeur. To be exact, half of the first floor is devoted to the working environment of the members of the Comité Directeur, and two employees. Although a big part of the house functions as an office, it does not mean it is boring! Find out some fun facts about the house you may not know yet.

(Dis)appearing items
No one knows exactly why, but it is a common known fact that things disappear and appear again in the house at any given time. Most notably, and also most curiously, one of these items is a great number of forks from the kitchen pantry, leading to many jokes about the ‘fork shortage’ and creative ways to eat dinner. Forks are not the only thing disappearing though – it also happened before that clothes disappeared over night and were found back in another room – or even another floor – of the house.  Besides objects disappearing, there are also some that suddenly appear, sometimes more randomly than otherwise. Objects found during this year, for example, were a bell with a print of Queen Elizabeth and a toy horse. Although both of them are used every now and then by guests, it is not clear how, when or why they showed up in the house in the first place.  

Behold, the Basement

Aside from items, people also disappear inside the house. For some, so far, unexplained reason people suddenly vanish, only to turn up in the building’s basement. Not much is known of the cause for, or the reason behind, this inexplicable journey to the dark, private, cosy and secluded subterranean chamber of the house. It might be to discover more of the archives, which are also located in the basement and full of interesting materials, varying from old posters (all the way back to the founding period of AEGEE) to funny pictures of past Comité Directeurs or folders full of old letters sent across the Network. This is not the only attraction in the basement though, because those who are curious will also encounter an oil tank with 2000 litres of oil in it to provide everyone with heating. There is a small room under the stairs in Harry Potter style full of cables, computers and other IT tools, and behind the archives you can find a small, mysterious room that can only be entered through a little hall behind the archives, which is actually located right underneath the garden.

Curious Cuneiform
Embedded in the garden wall of the house, there is a large stone with inscriptions in cuneiform. None of the CD members know who put it there or why, or even so much what the cuneiform tablet means. Could it be an inscription of one of the ancient kings of Assyria, Babylon or Persia; Ashurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzar II or Cyrus the Great? Perhaps it could be part of the epic of Gilgamesh or the codex of Hammurabi. We don’t know, just like we don’t know the origin of a series of round tablets with Roman faces embedded in the wall next to the cuneiform tablet.

Beware the Oak
The AEGEE House lies on the ‘Notelaarstraat’ in Brussels. A ‘notelaar’, in Dutch, is a kind of oak tree, of which, like all other oak trees, one should be wary. Ancient tales warn a man or woman about sleeping underneath an oak tree, for in the best case they will have a prophetic dream, but in the worst they will never wake up again or will be visited by the devil. Part of this myth probably originated from the fact that the soil around many oak trees seems to become barren. This is because oak leaves are great at blocking out sunlight and their large roots out-compete other plants, like grasses, for water and nutrients. It is not known if the members of the Comité Directeur have prophetic dreams, although we can confirm that they do wake up in the morning.

Royal Living

While the decoration in the garden can best be explained as ‘curious’, the most suitable word for the decoration inside the house would probably be ‘royal’ or simply ‘beautiful’. The house is not only big, even though you would not say so from the outside, it is also heavily decorated, having chandeliers in many rooms and even Roman pillars in the entrance hall, probably indicating other ways the house was used in the past.

Don’t Lock the Doors
Do not try to lock any of the doors behind you in the house, for you cannot. The only door with a working key is the downstairs toilet. All other doors, including those of toilets and bathrooms, are closed in the good fate that they will not be opened.  Any open door you may enter, while a closed one is forbidden from being opened without permission. After all, once you open a door, you can never un-see the image that has touched your eye. So please, next time you visit the house… knock.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen, and Svenja van der Tol, Comité Directeur

Somewhere in Brussels, near the European Commission, you can find a house that looks just like most other houses in the city from the outside, but contains a lot of rooms, people and ideas on the inside. What house am I talking about? The AEGEE house, which the new Comité Directeur has been calling their home since the 1st of August, when we moved in to start our work. “What is that work about?”, you may wonder, and probably other members wonder too. Read on to find out!

In a (cheesy, but true) nutshell: the Comité Directeur works for you, the members of AEGEE-Europe. The exact ways we use to do so depend on our function and tasks, but we all share the aim of making sure that we do what is best for AEGEE-Europe [ endofcheesiness, an.]. As the Secretary General, quite some of my tasks are rather administrative, including staff management, but I also work on the preparation of our beloved statutory events, the European Planning Meeting (EPM) and Agorae, in cooperation with the Chair Team.

With the next EPM upcoming in Leiden, a lot of my days (and sometimes nights) are spent with the Strategic Plan and Action Agenda, which I am starting to consider as new close friends looking at how much I know about them by now. While Anna [Gumbau, Communication Director, an.] works on the content part of the EPM together with the Content Managers, I am responsible for the part of the event when we will draft the Action Agenda for 2016 – 2017, which means I have been drafting the program together with the Chair Team, translated the Focus Areas into hashtags – stay tuned for the EPM booklet – and sent and received many, many e-mails. Luckily, I will get to work with my friends after the EPM too, because I am the responsible for the Action Agenda Coordination Committee (ACT) too.

Another body I am responsible for is The AEGEEan, for which my tasks aren’t limited to writing this article, but I am also checking the articles in the Comité Directeur section, make sure there are enough contributions and follow the work of the online magazine in general. At the end of the year, I will also be working with another reporting team; the Key to Europe to create our annual year report of 2015 – 2016.

Last but not least, besides the internal bodies of AEGEE, I am responsible for one of our external projects, which is the Lifestyle in Mobility project – a research project on the effects of studying abroad on your lifestyle. And let’s not forget about the tasks that show up on a random basis, like the sudden need to call a company because you are the only one with knowledge of Dutch, the feedback sessions for our new Intranet, translations from German to English or the other way around or spontaneous archives digging for members.

The working days are long, sometimes going on until the next morning, and the to do list never seems to end, but this is easily compensated by the people I meet, places I discover and things I learn. After all, who needs sleep if you can AEGEE? As Secretary General, sometimes all you need is an office full of people ready to work, some loud reggaeton music and lots of e-mails from and to members. To be continued …

Written by Svenja van der Tol, Secretary General 2015 – 2016 

PS: Besides all these tasks, sometimes you also just have to be a pirate.