It is time for The AEGEEan’s Choice Awards again! From the 10th of March until the 31st you can let us know who your favourites are in categories like Best Video, Most Active Working Group, Most Impressive Roll Call and Most Original Mascot. For this last category, The AEGEEan has found five nominees, namely: Orestios Mesemvrios (AEGEE-Kastoria), Gorm Jr. (AEGEE-København), Morcillote (AEGEE-Burgos), Zvezdun Grigor’evich (AEGEE-Moskva) and the AEGEE-Aachen bear. In this article we will tell you all you need to know about these mascots and why they should win according to their home locals.

Orestios Mesemvrios  (AEGEE-Kastoria)

AEGEEan: What was your (and your mascot’s) reaction when you heard you were nominated?

AEGEE-Kastoria: We are very happy and proud for our little beaver, Orestios. We are so excited because of the nomination and the fact that The AEGEEan team nominated him made us grateful for our choice.

Orestios: I’m very proud to represent this gorgeous antenna, and your nomination made me very happy for the fact that AEGEE-Kastoria found me that summer evening in Nesebar. They love me and now, with this nomination, I see that more people love me and I’m sure that my cuteness will encourage you to vote for me.

AEGEEan: When and why was this mascot picked to represent your local?

AEGEE-Kastoria: Our host city is named Kastoria. The most common explanation of the name is “The city of beavers”, so we thought that a beaver would be our perfect mascot. From the moment we were founded, May 2012, we thought that we should have a beaver for our mascot. We searched in a lot of different cities of Greece, but we couldn’t find Orestios there. Then in the summer of 2013 one of our members travelled to Nesebar, Bulgaria, and found him at a souvenir store.

Orestios: Also I have to mention that my name comes from the local tradition. Orestiada is the name of the big, wonderful lake of Kastoria, so they named me Orestios after the lake and Mesemvrios because the city Nesebar, Bulgaria, is the ancient Greek city Mesemvrios.

AEGEEan: In which ways does this mascot represent your local?

AEGEE-Kastoria: Except for the fact that he’s directly connected with our city, he’s always with us in our events, local Agorae, board meetings and social meeting. He’s very lovely too, just like our antenna. He has everything that our antenna has: he is cute, wonderful, active and lovely wherever he goes.

AEGEEan: Why should your mascot win the Most Original Mascot award?

AEGEE-Kastoria: Because he is a beaver in the city of beavers! If he doesn’t win, who else could?

Orestios: I have to win, because I live in Kastoria and I am a beaver. You have to vote for me, because I am cute and AEGEE-Kastoria is great!

You can find Orestios Mesemvrios on Facebook here.

Gorm Jr. (AEGEE-København)

AEGEEan: What was your (and your mascot’s) reaction when you heard you were nominated?

AEGEE-København: Really pleased to see Gorm from our small antenna  nominated for The AEGEEans Choice Awards. We are busy working on the upcoming Network Meeting København, so in the middle of many tasks and a huge pile of things on the to-do-list it was great to receive this news, it put a huge smile on our faces. And, of course, Gorm was very happy too.

AEGEEan: When and why was this mascot picked to represent your local?

AEGEE-København: Gorm Jr. actually has his birthday around the same time of the Network Meeting København. On the 17th of March he will turn four years old, as he was bought back in 2010 during one of the weekly meetings in the student house by the president, back then Eszter Virag and Madli Pindmaa. The goal was to have something typically Danish to represent our antenna and Gorm looks very Danish in his cute uniform. Gorm is also a very traditional Danish name for a king, and he also has some Viking looks. Once he was bought he lived with Eszter for a few months and when she left the city he moved into the apartment of Nino Burini, who was the next president of AEGEE-København, and later on Patricia Anthony (former President of AEGEE-København) had him in her apartment with Vice-President Mathilde Nielsen. He started travelling already as a baby and he was captured for the first time in April, during the “Mamma Mia… Here we go to Scandinavia” event in 2010.

AEGEEan: In which ways does this mascot represent your local?

AEGEE-København: He has the colours of Denmark and he is cute as many other mascots are as well. He wears a traditional king’s guard outfit and is also very royal himself with the name Gorm. In Copenhagen you can see a lot of castles and experience Denmark in many ways, so I suppose that what really shines through in him is the values of Copenhagen and our antenna.

AEGEEan: Why should your mascot win the Most Original Mascot award?

AEGEE-København: Gorm should win this amazing award, since he is the Great Original Right Mascot for this award. His name almost spells out the category and he is indeed original as a lots of thought has been put into him. He has travelled a lot, but still not enough, so it would be great for him to have a fantastic memory from Agora Patra to celebrate in Copenhagen, just in time for another triumph: the Eurovision Song Contest being celebrated in the Danish capital, just a few days after the big statutory event in Greece.

You can find Gorm Jr. on Facebook here.

Morcillote (AEGEE-Burgos)

AEGEEan: What was your (and your mascot’s) reaction when you heard you were nominated?

AEGEE-Burgos: OINK… OINK… Haha, just kidding! He was crazy and started running and jumping around! So, he suited up and he went partying to celebrate together. It was an unforgettable night. Just being nominated was worth it! He is delighted about all this, and he only wants one thing: TO WIN!

AEGEEan: When and why was this mascot picked to represent your local?

AEGEE-Burgos: It’s a really funny story.. Just after creating AEGEE-Burgos we were looking for a mascot who could be the ambassador of our antenna. One day we were walking around the city when we saw a pig trying to escape from some crazy people. REALLY! They were trying to capture Morcillote to eat him. Can you believe it?! So, we helped him to hide and we were able to save him. Morcillote was so grateful that he decided to stay with us forever (except when AEGEE-Zaragoza, Madrid, León, Barcelona and Santander stole him. That was how he started to travel all around Europe and meet other mascots).

AEGEEan: In which ways does this mascot represent your local?

AEGEE-Burgos: The pig is the example of our city’s gourmet culture. I’m sure many of you know jamón, chorizo, lomo, and of course Burgos morcilla. Deliciousssss, so there can’t be any better Burgos ambassador in AEGEE world than the wonderful Morcillote!

AEGEEan: Why should your mascot win the Most Original Mascot award?

AEGEE-Burgos: Do we really have to answer this question? We have a thousand reasons why Morcillote should be the most original mascot. Just take a look at the pictures! Morcillote represents the AEGEE Spirit. Every year we celebrate his birthday like he is a big rockstar and people from all over AEGEE attend. Morcillote, only you know how to organize a great party! Besides, everyone who has pressed his soft little belly and listened to his sweet OINK, OINK won’t have any doubt as to why Morcillote is the most original mascot. Morcillote, we love you!

You can find Morcillote on Facebook here.

Zvezdun Grigor’evich (AEGEE-Moskva)

AEGEEan: What was your (and your mascot’s) reaction when you heard you were nominated?

AEGEE-Moskva: Proud of our boy! He seemed like he was in shock, but he is acting too good.

AEGEEan: When and why was this mascot picked to represent your local?

AEGEE-Moskva: For a long time AEGEE-Moskva had no mascot. In 2013 we were discussing possible PR-actions to promote our antenna on Agora’s, Network Meetings (NWM) and the EBM. The story of his appearance is interesting, because it wasn’t simply from store shelf to AEGEE-antenna. In March 2013 I (Ksenia Lupanova) bought my first AEGEE-Moskva t-shirt. This t-shirt saw both Agoras in 2012, a great Summer University in Greece and went to Baikal Lake with the Transsiberian Dream vol. 4. It survived a lot of flights, European Nights, paintings, AEGEE-Moskva’s crazy 21th birthday party and the NWM in Mosvka. Unfortunately this t-shirt was broken by the sloppy owner, but it definitely had absorbed AEGEE spirit and the energy of great memories and events, so I suggested to make a handmade mascot from this t-shirt, because there can’t be any better material, so I sewed him. It was April 1st 2013 and we sent him directly to Agora Rhein-Neckar, where we had a lot of fights about the name so finally we decided that it would appear naturally after the Agora. And then we got it: Zvezdun Grigor’evich. It’s quite hard to explain the process of the name-appearing, because it came from Russian language and slang. Zvezdun stands for the short name of Starguy in Russian and his second name, Grigor’evich, is the name of my godfather and one of the founding members of AEGEE-Moskva: Grigoriy Frolov.

AEGEEan: In which ways does this mascot represent your local?

AEGEE-Moskva: Well, Zvezdun is very representative of AEGEE-Moskva’s identity and image. As you can see in our promotional materials, he appears almost everywhere! His star shape reminds us of Moscow’s Kremlin stars and the star in the AEGEE-logo. Red has been the colour of AEGEE-Moskva since it’s founding in 1991. In our new t-shirt he is hiding inside the star of the letter A, and in the Transsiberian Dream logo he starred in an unexpected devil role. He was also starred in AEGEE-Mosvka’s flashmob, shooting in our 2014 calendar and was with us in a lot of events already. Unfortunately he was stolen during Agora Zaragoza by superfast AEGEE-León, but he succesfully came back to us during New Years’s Event Noviy God po-russki.

AEGEEan: Why should your mascot win the Most Original Mascot award?

AEGEE-Moskva: Because he already got a lot of fans, is well-known in the Network and represents the spirit of AEGEE-Moskva: a bit wild, creative and full of AEGEE-spirit. He is a real gentleman and, as all Russians, never gives up!

You can find Zvezdun Grigor’evich on Facebook here.

AEGEE-Aachen bear

AEGEEan: What was your (and your mascot’s) reaction when you heard you were nominated?

AEGEE-Aachen: AEGEE-Aachen bear was like: “Oh my god, am I nominated for this awesome award?! I didn’t even know it existed, but I absolutely want to win it!” And so were we.

AEGEEan: When and why was this mascot picked to represent your local?

Legends say that when we organized the Agora Aachen in 2008 we needed a mascot. For some reason it became a brown bear, but as everybody wanted to dress up like the bear, we needed more costumes. And well, the polar bears were just cheaper ;).

AEGEEan: In which ways does this mascot represent your local?

AEGEE-Aachen: We are strong, unique, independent and everybody loves us. Totally like polar bears.

AEGEEan: Why should your mascot win the Most Original Mascot award?

AEGEE-Aachen: In Agora Rhein-Neckar we didn’t take enough care of our lovely bears, so they got stolen. The condition to get it back was to wake up the people at Agora Zaragoza one morning. Usually all the people hate waking up and the people who wake them up, but in this case all the participants woke up because of five polar bears going around, hugging and petting them one by one. When we win, the bear says we will do it again!

You can find AEGEE-Aachen bear on Facebook here.

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen

“Where the hell is AEGEE?” That is one of the questions floating on Facebook at the moment, and AEGEE-Toulouse is behind it. The AEGEEan interviewed the antenna from France about the idea behind their project and how it is going with the project so far.

The idea was proposed by an old member of AEGEE-Toulouse one year ago, but the antenna did not manage to make the project happen while she was still a member. This year people started talking in the antenna about the project again and this time the decision to begin was stronger.

It all started during a brainstorm session in a Local Training Course, where they thought about the video “Where the Hell is Matt”. With so many antennae in AEGEE they agreed that this kind of videos would be a great idea to show how wide AEGEE expands across Europe.

The idea is that every antenna makes a little movement to the song Move your feet in front of a building or place that represents its town. AEGEE-Toulouse will then make a mix with all the videos they receive. “This project would be a great occasion to improve the visibility of AEGEE and it can also be a part of our project Bridging Europe!” is what AEGEE-Toulouse wrote on the official Facebook page of their project.

In the description of the project they ask antennae to do the filming in front of a special place in their city. AEGEE-Toulouse’s members decided to film themselves dancing on the Square of Capitole. “We chose the Capitol because it represents Toulouse; every big event runs through this square. It is also a meeting point for Toulousians, so we can say this is the real symbol of our town”, Laura Kaddour (Public Relations) and Nolwënn Piqeuet (Human Resources) say in the interview with The AEGEEan.

The project has been received very well by the Network. In less than one week there are more than 100 AEGEE members following the project on Facebook which AEGEE-Toulouse is very pleased with. When interviewed by The AEGEEan AEGEE-Toulose had not received any contribution or responses to their survey yet. This is normal as it is a new project and supposedly people need to have meetings with their antennae to talk about the project, so AEGEE-Toulouse is sure that the number will go from zero to plenty very soon.

Actually, just the day after the interview, AEGEE-Toulouse received a contribution from AEGEE-København and their vice-president, Karlis Kazins, says to The AEGEEan: “I liked the Where the hell is AEGEE? idea right away when I read the description, partly because I like the original Matt’s videos, partly because I like to do this kind of activities. And so as I liked it, I suggested it to our board and we did it.” AEGEE-København decided to film in front of the Copenhagen Opera house. Actually this is not really a landmark that people associate with Copenhagen, but the beauty and the nice view in front of it are the reasoning behind the choice according to Karlis.

Being a small antenna the difficulty relied in getting people to join “We invited some people, but at the end there were only three people that showed up. But the good thing is that our Spanish HR responsible – Gonzalo Peréz – was there and he talked to a whole tourist group, who had just finished their tour, and another smaller group and we got five people to join us,” Karliz tells The AEGEEan about the experience. He also encourages other antennae to take part in the project for many reasons: “Because you will definitely have a good time, while making the video. And the final edited video with contributions from a lot of antennae all over Europe is going to be great, so you do not want to miss being a part of it.”

The next step in the process for AEGEE-Toulouse is to mix all the videos they will get into a final movie to be posted on YouTube and to be broadcasted as large as they can.

Besides the video, AEGEE-Toulouse is working on a European movie screening for Erasmus students and other students which they organize every month. “It is a brand new project and we are excited about it! We are also organizing a Summer University, which has four thematic colors, we hope it will be a success too,” Nolwëen & Laura agree and tell The AEGEEan. AEGEE-København is definitely busy too, focusing on the upcoming Network Meeting that will take part in the Danish capital next month and also working with the Summer University promotion, hoping the antenna will expand in amount of members.

It will be interesting to hear more in the future about what these antennae will do and of course to see the final product of the video itself. You can find more information on the Facebook page of the project here

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Zaragoza 

The Member of the Month of November is Alin-Florin Calin.  He is an AEGEE member that was born in Western Romania and grew up in Eastern Austria, currently studying international law and history in Vienna. He got involved with AEGEE through local board activities in Vienna, the first experience that awoke his passion for AEGEE, followed by his first Agora in Alicante and the involvement in Juridical Commission – all this within one year.

He knew from the very beginning that the European level of AEGEE was the perfect place for him. He explains that the path became clearer when he got a better insight of the full structure of AEGEE. That made him aware of the fact that he wants to focus on the external relations body of AEGEE, the Liaison Office (LO), and deal more with international relations. He has just finished his term representing our Network in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and at the same time joined the team which represents AEGEE in the United Nations (UN). Since the last activities were very close to international relations, he also decided to join the International Politics Working Group (IPWG) board while doing his UN-related work.

Alin joined AEGEE because of his desire to be involved in an international environment and the possibility to join the Summer University Transsiberian Dream Volume 3 of AEGEE-Moskva . This was an old adventure dream of his – going mostly by train and bus from Saint Petersburg all the way through Asia to Dubai in seven weeks. The reason why he became more and more involved in AEGEE was an event in his first active months where he had a lot of fun and met the first interesting friends in AEGEE. What followed was the first AEGEE love affair, the first Agora, the first European level task and now he is interviewed as Member of the Month, having been chosen from among 13.000 members.

Before starting the interview one of the questions asked to Alin was what has been his favorite task so far and he jokes with a smile saying that by far the funniest part has been counting ballots while being part of the Juridical Commission (JC).  Joke aside, his favorite experience is not so far from counting ballots, since Alin really enjoys what he is dealing with now: observing the counting procedure. “I think it is what I am doing now, dealing with international relations, especially in conferences. But in general, there is satisfaction when you see the results of your efforts.”

The AEGEEan: You are very active on the European Level of AEGEE, what motivates you to take part in so many different projects?

It is a way of working that is totally different from local activities. You are working in international teams on international politics. I love the chance to have an impact on AEGEE’s way which is related to my interests and abilities. This gives me the feeling that I do something relevant for the Network, and for me in terms of developing new skills. I try to achieve all my aims in a short term, which is very demanding but I do need the challenge.

You take part in many conferences in general, how do you find time for it?

It is all about time management – which I still need to improve. Often I simply take the time to attend the events because I just enjoy this experience. It is a very good way to learn a lot in many ways like thematic, cultural and social. But quite frankly, it is a lot of fun!

You have recently joined the IPWG board, what made you interested in joining that WG and what will you focus on there?

What made me do this is my interest for international politics, the potential to establish with my IPWG board new projects and to have an impact on these topics in AEGEE. Moreover I will keep a close eye on making some changes because I do see the need to reform a few things. Our Action Agenda is not finished yet.

You have also launched a new project related to election observation. What is that about?

Election observations in AEGEE were inspired by my involvement in OSCE activities and my previous terms in JC. After attending the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of OSCE this October as a part of AEGEE delegation, we decided to create internal election observations in AEGEE because the Network is the right place to train young persons to support democracy and peace. Our vision is to establish observations in various elections on European and local level, as well as in and outside of AEGEE in the long term, hopefully.

Were there many people interested in it at the Agora in Zaragoza?

We had on the spot a team of 20 members and we are now developing the project in order to have our first activities in 2014. Interested members are always welcome, people who are ready to take initiative and to put their ideas into practice. I am a person who likes to have things done but cannot do everything by myself – so I do appreciate team work and own initiatives a lot. I am extremely glad to have Thomas Leszke on board because he is a very experienced person. We have already a strong team but are still looking for more members to join us.

You took part in the second best Summer University (SU) this past summer: “Scandinavian Dream”. What do you think about the SU? What made you apply to go there?

What made me apply is the concept of Travelling Summer Universities, the cities we visited and all the party people I know from Copenhagen and Helsinki. I just wanted to spend my summer in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries with those friends. It ended with three Summer Universities – as participant, helper and visitor. I had one of the best summers I can imagine. The Scandinavian Dream team did an extremely good job and if the main organizer of the best-ranked SU (Catania) was not a participant and inspired by our time together beforehand in the second-ranked SU Scandinavian Dream, they would not have made it as the best SU, for sure. So it was team work again.

In terms of the future Alin is very mysterious. His goal is to simply keeping up permanent involvement, and a trip to Greece; and he tells The AEGEEan that he might event submit a candidature for Comité Directeur. AEGEE has been the ignition for many paths he has beaten. Only time will tell what the future holds for this very active Member of the Month. Congratulations! 

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Last summer the Scandinavian locals, AEGEE-København and AEGEE-Helsinki, organized the Summer University ‘Scandinavian Dream’ that turned out to be the most popular Summer University in 2013, having 242 applications. This is a good reason to get to know these locals in the north of Europe and find out how they managed to have such a successful Summer University, but also to broaden our horizon and learn more about other locals of AEGEE-Europe. Patricia Anthony, president of AEGEE-København, member of the Network Commossion and Incoming Responsible for the Summer University, and Seppo Hälikä, PR-Responsible at AEGEE-Helsinki, let us in on the details about their locals.   

Seppo (AEGEE-Helsinki)

The most important question here would be: how do you gather 242 applications for your Summer University? Good cooperation and a lot of original promotion without turning it into spam are the main reasons according to Patricia. Next to that, the fact that this SU was the cheapest option to visit big cities in the north of Europe (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Nurmijärvi and Tallin) had an important role too. Seppo says it was an unique chance that turned out to be appreciated by AEGEE members. A good new start for the organizing locals, because a Summer University in Sweden or Denmark had not been organized in years. Nevertheless both Seppo and Patricia agreed that they expected their Summer University to be a popular one, having 200 to 250 applications. Mission accomplished!

Just like the Summer University, the cooperation between the two organizing locals turned out to be a success too, even with a 800 km distance between the two cities. Locals in the north of Europe aren’t close to each other and spread over quite a big area, which doesn’t make cooperation easy, but AEGEE-København and AEGEE–Helsinki made it work. The successful example, of their collaboration, will hopefully be followed by other locals in the future, so that there will be more cooperation between our Scandinavian locals.

Patricia (AEGEE-København)

It looks like ‘Scandinavian Dream’ became so popular because of a good cooperation between the two locals, a fantastic program and original ways of promoting it to members. This way, Patricia and Niklas Vaalgamaa (AEGEE-Helsinki) turned the dream they had, while studying in Madrid, a reality in the world of AEGEE. All this was possible even without having a local in Stockholm to make the program, Copenhagen having only a small amount of members and having to deal with a distance of 800 km between both cities. AEGEE clearly made the impossible possible.

Next to making cooperation happen, Summer Universities are also a good chance to travel and meet other people from all over Europe. A fact that members of both locals knew about. AEGEE-København had ten members going on Summer University, whereas AEGEE-Helsinki saw fourtythree of their members travelling around Europe. Both Patricia and Seppo didn’t go on a Summer University, but did explore Europe by doing an internship in Valladolid, Spain (Patricia) or working in Ibiza (Seppo).

Luckily local members who don’t go on a Summer University have enough opportunities to meet new people and have fun in their own town. AEGEE-Helsinki organizes “Masterchef” events on a regular basis, having two teams compete with each other. Next to that they will participate in the Restaurant Day project in November and open a temporary AEGEE-Helsinki restaurant. Also the local organizes social drinks and travels to Stockholm, Tallinn and other cities. Because the local has around forty active members, there are enough people to set up these activities and promote the local. Seppo even sees the possibility to organize a second EBM in a few years.

Board Members of AEGEE-København

AEGEE-København is a far smaller local, having less than ten active members, but that doesn’t mean they are inactive. On a regular basis there are language cafes organized, just as other activities to get to know each other. Next to that the local has plans to organize activities with the Enviromental Working Group (EnWG), because Copenhagen will be the green capital of Europe in 2014. A theme that the local would like to work with. Even though there are already activities organized, Patricia would like to see AEGEE-København have more active members, so they will do their best to promote AEGEE in Copenhagen and the rest of Denmark. The chance that the local will organize an Agora or EBM is still very small though, because it’s hard to find a sleeping place in Copenhagen and it’s forbidden to sleep in gyms (thé place to sleep at Agorae.)

Although both locals organize other activities next to their popular Summer University, the question remains what makes them unique within AEGEE-Europe, an organization spread over more than 150 cities? Seppo says AEGEE-Helsinki is unique because it’s the only local in Finland and they are crazy enough to survive, while AEGEE–København is unique not only because it’s the only local in Denmark, but also because of the many international members they have. Members from AEGEE-København come from Estonia, Italy, Latvia and even China, so the local tries to put a focus on the importance of cultural exchange that AEGEE-Europe stands for.

Both locals and their members are clearly different when it comes to the place of origin, amount of members and activities, but got (and will be) connected by a united goal of promoting AEGEE in their countries and showing other members more of Scandinavian countries. Both Patricia and Seppo also want to see more of Europe, whether it is the Balkan region (Patricia) or London, Portugal, Greece, Czech Republic, Belgium or Malta (Seppo). AEGEE-Europe clearly unites, no matter where you are from or where you are going.

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen

A small group of AEGEE members gathered in the capital of Finland for a Network Meeting (NWM) with the theme of strengthening the cooperation between the antennae who have Karolina Mazetyte as their Network Commissioner.

AEGEE-Sankt-Petersburg and AEGEE-Helsinki could say ‘present’ with capital P in NWM Helsinki, which evolved into a NWM strengthening the cooperation between those two antennae. Besides the two antennae who had many members in the NWM there was also one Turkish Exchange student from AEGEE-Tallinn, a girl from AEGEE-Bilbao and ACT subcommissioner Patricia Anthony who was in charge of the NWM organisation together with Comité Directeur representative Anna Gots.

Questions like “What is a NWM?” “What is the Comité Directeur?” “What is the Action Agenda?” “What do you do at EBM and Agora?” proved to both girls that there is a need for more exchanges and regional training courses in this Network area. Most of the questions were answered through presentations by Patricia on the current Action Agenda, which was followed by drafting activities for the Action Agenda produced in EBM Valletta. Anna’s presentations about the European level of AEGEE and the many proposals that are going to be discussed in Agora Rhein-Neckar answered most of the remaining questions.

Throughout the NWM the participants were actively participating, especially in the workshops with the topic of European identity and immigration/migration provided by International Politics Working Groups representative Anastasia Petrushkova. In the end it appeared that the participants returned with both more information about our organisation, as well as motivation to create great events and activities. AEGEE-Helsinki might even be able to pass on the torch to AEGEE-Sankt-Peterburg who is considering hosting the next Network Meeting in the near future.

Patricia returned to Copenhagen from the Network Meeting with a lot of food for thought and creative ideas for activities like creating local Action Agenda Working Groups in antennae; organising a European Day of Minorities; sharing stories about members from minority groups online; and more activities that can be used not only in the Northern part but in the whole Network.

As for the social program, the participants got a very big surprise on European Night in the form of a visit from Santa Claus himself. In that way the European Night in Helsinki became a bit cultural. Maybe Santa should consider applying for other events around Europe contributing to the Cultural European Night of more events?…

It was impressive to see how much food, sweets and drinks that AEGEE-Helsinki had gotten sponsored for the NWM. Seppo Hälikkä from AEGEE-Helsinki seemed to be using “dirty tricks” in the run for “best organiser” because he was one of the organisers that was using a lot of effort on cooking high class meals, and ensuring that the participants were never hungry. In general all the organisers did an excellent job and it is certain that participants left the ice cold snowy Helsinki with the desire to return soon!

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

AEGEE is a voluntary organisation, you probably know that. What you probably also know is that the organisation is made up by different boards across Europe who have board meetings at many different locations.

Traditional

Some locals are so fortunate to be having offices in the university of their city.  For example AEGEE-León has a big office right next to the international office in their university, ensuring that many students, national and international pass by the office of AEGEE-León probably more than once in their time at the university. Another active antenna not so far from León, AEGEE-Zaragoza, has a smaller but probably likewise much visited office in the building that holds other student organisations from the Jamón loving city.

An office for every occasion

AEGEE-Beograd also has an office in their university, more specific in the Faculty of Mining and Geology and it is mostly used for board meetings and from time to time for meetings when the antenna works on some specific project. The office is small and for that reason AEGEE-Beograd has yet another office that they use for bigger meetings with the help of the Student Union of Serbia. As if that was not enough then they also have a third location which is a pub near their office where they have informal meetings and chill out with their members every Friday. They use it to get closer to the members and show the informal side of AEGEE as well.

A combination of both

The former Local of The Month AEGEE-Utrecht also has more places to gather the board and their members. The big antenna in Utrecht has two office rooms, one with five computers and one to have meetings. It is also in a university building where also other associations are situated. Another AEGEE-Utrecht place worth mentioning is “their” boat, because on Wednesdays AEGEE-Utrecht rent a boat from another association. It is a big boat for 200 people and it has a bar, dance floor and a kitchen. Here they have drinks, dinners (for 40-50 people) and presentations as well.

Less traditional

Staying in the less traditional area, we have AEGEE-København who unfortunately does not receive as much recognition from the university as they should. However, recognition they do get from “Studenterhuset” which is a place where students can study and meet during the day, and have parties at night, as well as a place conferences and so on and so forth. This is the place where AEGEE-København has their board meetings, discussing any matter affecting the antenna.

So there are for sure many different ways to have a board meeting, all depending on support from externals as well as active membership of internals. How does your antenna meet? Let us know in the comment below!

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

Welcome to Copenhagen! Did you arrive in the airport? Then the first thing to do is to take the train or the metro to the city center depending on where you are staying. Getting around in Copenhagen is a bit pricey – it is in the top five most expensive cities in the world – but there are ways to get around. For one, you can buy a “klippekort”. It provides you with ten trips in a different number of “zones” in Copenhagen. The price differs on the “klippekort” depending on how many zones you will use it. From the airport to Copenhagen you will go through zone 1,2, and 3, so it could be an idea to have a “klippekort” for either two or three zones, leading to a price of about 200 DKK for ten trips.

Now you are in Copenhagen and you need a place to drop off your things. For one you can

leave them at the central station if you pay, or you could go directly to the place where you will be spending the night. As a frequent traveler you might already know to use Hostelworld to find cheap prices for where to spend the night, but we do have a good advice regarding where to stay. “Sleep in heaven” sounds both lovely and a bit cheesy but it is a nice hostel, close to the city center and one with the best price. Another good hostel would be one of the Dancity hostels – there are a couple of them with a reasonable price. Last piece of advice would be to look into Omena hotels – an “apartment” hotel in the city center with reasonable price as well – if you travel with at least three other people because the rooms come with bed space for up to four persons.

Now that you are settled in, it is time to look around. Copenhagen and Denmark are famous for their bikes and if you did not choose the “klippekort” option from the airport then it could be an idea to look into bike rentals depending on the length of your stay, because there are plenty of possibilities to get around and experience some culture in the Danish capital. When you exit the central station in Copenhagen you will be “faced” with Tivoli – a nice place to have fun in roller coasters, take a stroll and enjoy life. Entering the Tivoli gardens is a particularly nice experience if you visit Denmark around Christmas. However, if you choose not to visit Tivoli then you can move on to the next nearby location, “Rådhuspladsen”, where the big city hall is located and which marks the beginning of “Strøget” – the central place to shop. Strolling along “Strøget” you will find cool shops, nice places to buy either an ice cream or a Belgian waffle – depending on the time of year. By the end of Strøget you will get to Kongens Nytorv which is a nice place to go ice skating during winter time, and during summer time you will see people drinking beer in Nyhavn which is a must-visit place in Copenhagen, and especially Rajissimo is a perfect location to buy icecream or churros to enjoy. After the treats you can either visit the royal palace nearby (which is not open to the public) or take off in the Canaltour which will take you around interesting places such as the famous Danish opera house and that famous mermaid. A mermaid that you also can visit by taking the bus to “Langelinje” because let’s face it – who goes to Copenhagen without visiting the little mermaid? Not so far from the little mermaid you can enjoy possibly the best ice cream in your life – the little shop “Lydolphs Isbar” always has a long queue outside, but it is definitely worth the wait!

But enough about ice cream – it is time for some more culture! The national museum of art located near the “Kings garden”, which is a perfect spot for a picnic during summer time, and the royal palace “Rosenborg” (open for visits), is free to enter everyday as well as the national museum and many other museums in the Danish capital.

At night you cannot and will probably not visit any(more) museums. Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, and has a lot of students

AEGEE-København ladies at Australian bar

and therefore a nightlife scene broad enough to please everybody. Studenterhuset is the place where AEGEE-København has its board meetings but it is also a place where many students party. Then we have Christania, the alternative choice to more “pop” themed places such as Kulørbar and Australian bar “A Bar” where early birds can get free beer for one or two hours before midnight. Next to A Bar you will find “Frøken Nielsen” where you pay for the entrance (usually between 100 & 250 DKK) and then the drinks are on the house for the rest of the night. In the end, there are many different places to party in Copenhagen, and it is easy to assure that it is possible to party in Copenhagen.

A nice way to cure a hangover is to find the nearest bakery. “Hej, hvad skulle det være?” will be the question the nice girl behind the desk will ask you and if you want something really Danish then the answer would be “en spandaur med crème”. Then afterwards, you can head out to visit places such as “Rundetårn”, the oldest observatory in function in Europe, see “Christania” by day, or any of the other cultural visits that would still be on your to-do-list before heading back home or towards your next location.

It all sounds good, doesn’t it? And now you are not sure when to visit Copenhagen. There is always something going on in Copenhagen, but it is especially crowded in June where the street party “Distortion” goes on for a week, in July the big music festival “Roskilde festival” is organised in a city near Copenhagen and in October the cultural night “Kulturnatten” brings tons of people to the city center to visit free museums and more. However, there is no need for a big event to visit the Danish capital, it is safe to say that there is always something going on in this wonderful city.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

ACT will be there, PRC will be there, EaP will be there, but the question is: “Will you be there?”. All these abbreviations might create a question mark in your mind. “What is EaP?”, “What is PRC?”, “What is ACT?” are all questions that you could be left with right now. How can you find the answer? Go to the AEGEE fair!

Of course The AEGEEan could simply tell you that EaP is the abbreviation for the Eastern Partnership Project, ACT is the abbreviation for the Action Agenda Coordination Team, and PRC is the abbreviation for the Public Relations Committee, but that does  not fully answer the question “Who are they?”. It is not often that you get to ask questions, meet the people behind the Network Commission, or have the courage to go and talk with the CD members, but if you are one of the lucky Agora participants, then you will get the opportunity to do just that. How? By attending the AEGEE fair!

The AEGEE fair is organised by CD responsible Guillermo García Tabarés and AEGEE fair manager Patricia Anthony, in close cooperation with AEGEE-Enschede and the chair team. It will take place on May 2^nd, from 10 AM to 13 PM. During those 3 hours, the participants will have the opportunity to hear grasping stories about the twin antennae bond between AEGEE-Beograd and AEGEE-Istanbul, play “Who wants to be a millionaire?” with the Network Commission, learn about the opportunities of joining the Eastern Partnership Project or the Human Resources Committee, and about how to become a journalist or proofreader for The AEGEEan. In total, there will be more than 25 bodies present at the AEGEE fair, ready to answer your questions.

The AEGEE fair booklet – Coming to a computer near you

The AEGEEan was created by the PRC, so it was an obvious choice for us to work in close cooperation on the booklet for the fair. We understand that Agora participants will already be busy reading booklet after booklet, but hope that you will also take the time to read about who will be present at the AEGEE fair. The booklet includes information about (almost) each stand, what they will do, and who will be there to answer your questions. It required a lot of hard work from the AEGEE fair team, the presenters, proofreaders and especially Network Commission candidate Réka Salamon, who took the responsibility of leading this project and making sure that each page of the booklet catches the eye and attention of the reader.

The fair is part of the AEGEE opening festival, taking place on May 2nd, from 10 AM  to 14 PM (The AEGEE fair is between 10 and 13). Now four hours may seem like a lot, but when you have to register for the Agora, take part in breaking records, visit different stands and reunite with AEGEE friends, then four hours quickly slip away. So think about it, read the booklet, and prepare yourself for an opening festival that will be legen…dary!!!

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

This summer more than 30 Summer Universities contaning content related to sports will be organised by young Europeans in AEGEE locals all over Europe. They include everything from rafting to canoeing, scuba-diving, bicycle trips and much more. It is not only the Summer Universities (SU) that use active activities to promote volunteering, non-formal education and learning. Sport activities in general such as basketball and football matches, running together on a weekly/monthly basis, skiing trips, demonstration of typical dance from different countries and much more is organised by the different locals during the year. All these facts were the reason for and used in the AEGEE-København presentation of “Learning through sports in AEGEE” at SportVision2012. 

Why is sport relevant for AEGEE?

”AEG… What is that?” that was the question that I was asked the most times while participating in the SportVision2012 conference in Denmark this week. 400 participants from 38 countries gathered in the Danish capital for a conference which focused on volunteering in sports, non-formal education and health.

Why is this relevant for AEGEE you may ask? Well, at first I signed up for having making a presentation about sports in AEGEE at their open fair market partly due to my personal interest in sports: I have volunteered several times previously at sport events; I am a huge football fantastic and I have been working at the national stadium of football in Denmark for about four years. Another motivation was to make AEGEE-København take advantage of having such a big conference in Copenhagen with politicians, non-govermental organisations and companies from all over Europe.

Sports as an instrument of improving team work

When preparing for the conference I reached out to our Network to gather information about sport activities

taking place in AEGEE. There is a wide range of activities going on such as local basketball games, running teams, and AEGEE football teams e.g. in Alicante. “This past winter, we set up a football-7 team made up of AEGEE-Alicante members, who play in a local league in our town.This made people who did not know about our association join AEGEE and furthermore it has been a perfect opportunity to introduce sports in our antenna and create a new weekly activity for our members. This initiative makes us feel closer to each other and, of course, it improves teamwork,” explains Alvaro Quiñones from AEGEE-Alicante.

Move for AEGEE

AEGEE-Nijmegen takes part in something called the Batavierenrace in the Netherlands every year. This is a a running competition between the cities of Nijmegen and Enschede, in which every year a lot of the Dutch locals take part. This year, AEGEE-Nijmegen team has joined forces with runners from Groningen, Eindhoven, Utrecht, Leiden and Amsterdam. The focus is rather just to take part of it instead aiming for a victory, because in the end it is a fantastic opportunity to connect the locals.

Related to this project we have the “MOVE WEEK” which is an annual European wide campaign, which takes place all over Europe in the first week of October. The initiative was promoted during the SportVision2012 Open Market Fair where they got different individuals to commit to participate in a sportive or physical activity hopefully a lot of antennae around our Network will follow their lead.

I-just-want-to-make-you-sweat Summer Universities

Furthermore what I also discovered is that more than 20 of the Summer Universities organised this year in AEGEE have at least one activity related to sports. It is especially antennae such as AEGEE-Oviedo, AEGEE-Athina and AEGEE-Canakkale that have experience in organising sportive Summer Universities. AEGEE-Oviedo is this year organising for the 6th year in a row a SU with sports thematic (SUperAction). AEGEE-Athina have never organised a SU solely based on sports but have always included sportive activites such as beach volley and waterpolo. However, this year they are focusing on the Olympic roots of their city in their summer course (SC) “Let Me EnterTrain You” with sportive activities such as sea sports, beach sports, sport competitions, and workshops about topics such as the Olympic Games and sports in modern life.

Setting up the Sportive Working Group

As previously mentioned AEGEE-Canakkale also organised an active Summer University last year. The Summer University coordinator of that was Hakan Unal Jr. who originally is from Ankara, then moved to Canakkale and these days he is a member of AEGEE-Kyiv. However he contacted me for another reason: setting up the Sportive Working Group (SWG) of AEGEE. This topic resulted in being the main focus of the “Learning through Sports in AEGEE” presentation at the SportVision2012 due to its high relevance for the conference, me, and for our Network. If approved by the Comité Directeur and the Network the SWG will be a group of AEGEE members sharing an interest in any kind of sport, international affairs, and which uses the power of sports to unite people from different cultures. This will happen through actions such as training courses, organising AEGEE Olympiads, workshops, online blogging and much more. However, The AEGEEan would like to stress that nothing is official/certain yet.

Can you imagine your life without sport?

In the end this conference opened up my eyes for how many sportive activities are and can be taking place in our Network. At the beginning of the conference European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou of Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth asked “could we imagine our lives with sports?” Even though this was a conference for sports interested people I believe that if you ask many people that exact question the answer will be no. Sport brings us joy, sport can teach us and sport can unite us, we should use that even more than we already do in AEGEE!

Thank you to Alvaro Quiñones for helping with the provision of photos for the article.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København

In the coming weeks you will all be voting for the AEGEE Award Best Project 2012 rewarding the most efficient project of 2011. So the question is who had the most effective project team last year? Over the next weeks, The AEGEEan will try to inspire you to choose a project team that, in your opinion, deserves the award.

First up is the Where Does Europe End (WDEE) project:

What exactly did the WDEE project team do last year, besides getting their flag stolen all the time? Well this question can be answered in an exhaustive report with plenty of details and information, but we know that your time is precious and will therefore focus on informing you about some of the most important work of the WDEE last year: organising a WDEE event in Scandinavia.

Destination: Lund

After organising a successful event in León, Spain, which had been a wish for the project team for a long time, the time came for heading towards to the North with destination Lund. It was the 5^th event for the WDEE project which raised the bar even higher for the WDEE project given the high expectations from the demanding participants. This high demand came from the large awareness on the Human Rights subject and the high level of English in the Scandinavian countries.

Tour De Scandinavia

Packing, re-packing and travelling is something that most AEGEEans already can consider one of their expertise, but this especially counts for the participants of this event that visited four cities (Lund, Malmø, Skannor and København) in the duration of six days. They for example walked the dark rainy streets of Lund at 5.30 in the morning when they were on their way to visit the Danish capital. A day in which they were active 21 hours before closing to their eyes again.

“Hi my name is Percin, I’m an exchange student…”

Now getting the famous WDEE questionnaires filled out was not as difficult in Scandinavia as in previous WDEE events such as Spain, but it did take some creativity to get the Swedish and Danish students to use five minutes of their time for an organisation that they had probably never even heard about. How did the WDEE solve this? Easy! They used home-made methods such as entering a class room, interrupting class and pretending to be Erasmus students that were fulfilling a task that the university had given them which resulted in the project team recieving answers from more than 400 Scandinavians.

Expanding and renovation of the project team

The WDEE team chose to expand and renovate their team after a longer standstill and due to some members having to leave the team for different reasons e.g. such as Percin Imrek who stepped from his position as project manager (and became content advisor) because of his his obligations of being Mr. Chair for the EBM Riga and the two Agoras in respectively Alicante and Struga. Juan Sordo from AEGEE-Oviedo replaced him after being elected as the new PM. It is hard to succeed such a hard working person as Percin but Juan managed to do follow the same standards that project founder Percin had set. I have myself attended workshops hosted by both and I do not know if there is some secret recipe within the WDEE project team on how to set up a highly interesting workshop, but I can personally say that the WDEE workshops that I have attended while being in AEGEE have been the workshops in which I have learned the most. Another experienced workshop host and WDEE project team member is Alperen Yavuz from AEGEE-Istanbul who became treasurer and FR of the project after hesitating for a long time to join it. One remarkable quote from an unknown source concerning Alperen joining the team is “Alperen is in WDEE? Then you’re going to be a succesfull project”. A quote which I believe pretty much says it all. Besides Alperen, Juan and Percin the team consists of five more members:  Nolwenn Donsimoni (AEGEE-Toulouse), Jovana Milic (AEGEE-Nis), Alicia Quiroga (AEGEE-León), Lavinia Manea (AEGEE-Bucuresti) and Katarzyna Bitka (AEGEE-Krakow). You can find much more information about the project and the team at their blog and their Facebook page. I am sure that they would be more than happy with sharing information, my impression is that they love to talk!

Coming to an end

The WDEE project is coming to an end and is currently in the process of organising their final conference which will take place in Utrecht this May. They have the aim of raising awareness about European identity and issues related to European integration process and have managed to do that through activating non-AEGEEans, including local student communities in the cities of the different project team members’ with the help of AEGEEans from all over the Network.

Best Project 2012?

Why should the WDEE project win the Best Project award 2012? Well the project team did dedicate many hours last year to their beloved project. The number of stories about the WDEE flag getting stolen last year give us an idea about the high number of events in which there was a representant from the project. In these events they used to effort to look deeper into problems of human rights, share their opinions with peers, attract attention of the local population in Scandinavian cities to the topic of human rights and European identity with their street actions, and they have managed to affect AEGEEans to become more active citizens in their respective countries while encouraging their friends to the same.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København