They’re our favourite busy bees, pollinating information and support between various antennae, projects, working groups, NGOs and more. As a CD Member you have a lot to say, both literally and figuratively, but curiously there are some things they never seem to say… The AEGEEan decided to make a list of ten of these oddly missing phrases. If you missed part one, click here.

6. I miss people around me

If you are familiar with the CD House, you know it is packed with people and it is harder to find a quite place than at a Kristian Nairn concert (Nairn also being the actor who played Hodor in HBO’s Game of Thrones). And just like Hodor, when you live and are visited by so many people, you might leave the room with somebody else; so it is important to hold the door.

Most members even have to share a room, so, if you want some peace and quiet, you might want to try the basement… unless you have visitors over, cause they tend to gather there to relax themselves. If you have no nose whatsoever, you could go ‘Michael Jackson’ and try your luck in the room with the oil-powered generator or you can go into the archive… unless there are people there too, in which case you can move even further to the room where, when moving into the house, some, let us say, ‘kinky’ toys were found. Nobody knows what that room served for. #torturechamber #fiftyshadesofBelgium

7. We don’t welcome visitors

There is a hilariously weird scene in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, where the protagonist, Sigmund, enters the house of Hunding, a man whose clan wants to kill him. Even though Sigmund is horribly injured and cannot defend himself, Hunding cannot kill him, because the ancient Germanic custom dictates to always treat any guests in your house hospitably. This means, in Wagner’s work, that Hunding has to wait an entire day, and feed and take care of Sigmund as if he was his friend, before killing him in a duel.

While CD members don’t generally provide complete free meals and clothing for their guests (or duel them), they do host a lot of AEGEEans from all over Europe over the course of the year. They provide free shelter, in some cases reimburse at least some of the travel expenses, occasionally provide free ingredients for their guests’ meals, and even provide medication, if possible. A CD member surely is as gracious a host as those according to the customs of old.

8. I never speak English

Yes and they are also never kind or open. Furthermore, they never eat, nor do they ever cook well, and they are never, and I mean never, polite. They never use the rest room, they never take time to talk to you, they never go out to have a drink and they are never even in the slightest bit funny or witty. Most importantly, they never understand sarcasm. Honessendaret anglar, CD honietdá ot.

9. We all had dinner on time today

Dinnertime is a curious custom around Europe, because it hardly ever happens around the same time. This lapse of coinciding hours are due to some cultural factors that determine when you are most likely to have dinner.

In certain Eastern European countries, it is customary to enjoy a warm meal at noon or early in the afternoon. In North-Western European countries people usually start eating somewhere between 5 and 6 pm, and in Southern European countries this may be postponed as late as 8 pm.

Because members of the CD hail from vastly different countries, they either have to adjust to a, for them possibly, unusual time… or they’ll have to eat alone or in smaller groups. As if planning to eat with an entire group was not hard already.

10. I never work after 8 pm

Unlike the ‘English thing’, CD members tend to work after eight at night. This could be because they have to have a Skype conversation with some members outside of university-hours, or because they need to go to important European events in Brussels, or simply because the workload happend to be incredibly high that day. Regardless, some working days are extremely long, especially when major events are coming up.

That does not mean, however, that all working days go on until after 8:00 pm, or that CD members are merciless workaholics. Just like you and me, they also like to relax at night, maybe watch a movie or maybe go out and have a drink. We are all AEGEEans after all.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen (based on the original concept of Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen)

They’re our favourite busy bees, pollinating information and support between various antennae, projects, working groups, NGOs and more. As a CD Member you have a lot to say, both literally and figuratively, but curiously there are some things they never seem to say… The AEGEEan decided to make a list of ten of these oddly missing phrases. Here is part one:

1. I hate having to travel to more than three countries each year

“To be AEGEE is to travel” is what the proverb says. Even with the digital age, the most effective and enjoyable way to explore all the nooks and crannies of Europe is to see them with your own two eyes. As a CD member there is another reason to travel. Instead of just going for fun, there are some activities that a CD member simply must attend, most obviously the Agoras or the EPM.

You could compare it to your local board members who also have to attend some mandatory events during the year. Except that, where they generally have to go to an event on the other side of town, CD members have to go to an event on the other side of Europe. ‘To be CD’, it seems, ‘is also to travel’.

2. I can balance AEGEE with my studies/job

AEGEE can be as addictive as a gambling machine, in the sense that you can put more time and resources into it than you can actually afford (and that one can only hope that the input is worth the outcome… it’s probably going to be fine). For the typical ordinary member, procrastinating your studies for one day or two every several weeks would normally not be such a big deal.

Regardless, the higher you go up in AEGEE, the more time and resources you have to spend on it, thus compromising on time to study or work. You might already see this in your local board as some of its members are unsuccessful at completing some of their courses. On the CD level this phenomenon is even worse. Therefore, it comes to no surprise that CD members generally do not complete university courses or maintain even a part-time job.

3. OMG, I got so much free time!

No, you don’t. As stated before, a CD member has to put so much time and effort into his or her duties that there is no time or energy left to work or study fulltime. CD members do have free time, of course, but generally never that much that they can turn to the sky in ululation and boast about their significant amount of R&R. CD members usually have long busy days. Still, at least their long list of duties is part of a function they like to do… and, if you like it, you should do it.

4. God, my work–home distance is horribly long

It is incredibly long, especially if you live all the way to the top floor. However, as soon as you’ve made your way to the ground floor you can finally start breakfast, except that you left some food in your backpack upstairs for some reason; so you have to go back. Nevertheless, once you are back on the ground floor again you can have breakfast and move into the office in the next room over.

This time, however, you forgot your memory-stick, so you go up one floor to the meeting room, where you used it during that presentation yesterday, only to remember that you also used it to store your movie on it for the post-presentation movie night. So, you go down two floors to the basement, grab the stick, and go up one floor again to the office. Congratulations, you’ve already ran half a marathon and it’s not even 9:00 am yet. Forgetful CD members; they get the best cardio every day.

5. I never get any emails

Yeah… if memory serves well, Svenja van der Tol, the Secretary General in 2015-2016, once had to send so many emails, Google wanted to shut the account down because it thought she was a spam-bot… that’s all we need to say about it.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen (based on the original concept of Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen)

Maryana Semenyak is a candidate for a position of Member of the Comité Directeur (CD), preferred task External Relations Director. She is 28 years old and joined the organisation almost eight years ago (also being the President of AEGEE-Lviv for three years). Nowadays our current CD member is responsible for our Network Development and is willing to stay in office for a second term, but with other responsibilities. Check out her interview!

The AEGEEan: One year in the Comité Directeur can be very long, but now you are running for a second term. How did it happen? Is your motivation still as high after one year in Brussels?

Maryana: Indeed, it has been a very long and tiring year. On the other hand, I’ve had lots of experiences, challenges and emotions, that is impossible to find in any other place. When I just moved to the house in July last year, I heard two comments about living here: one was – “You will be happy to leave this house in one year”, another – “Living here will be the best year of your life”. I followed the second suggestion. People who knows me can confirm that I’m energetic, positive and a smiling person. The good example about my never-ending motivation could be the time that I’ve spent in AEGEE-Lviv as president for three years. I joined my local when it was a Contact Antenna, and I wanted to leave the board being sure that my work there was already done.

In the last nine months, as Network Director, you spent the biggest part of your time with the Network Commission. How was this collaboration and what did you achieve as the Network Director?

Due to my task portfolio, I’m in constant communication with the Network Commission and the locals. Certainly a person who is holding this position should like to be in contact with people almost 24/7! Luckily, I do like this part of my tasks. It’s interesting to work with Network Commissioners because during one year you have possibility to work close with more than 20 people, as half of the team change in December and later in June after Agora elections. We have daily communications and Skype meetings a few times per week. I was very happy to have the possibility to gather all 10 Network Commissioners at a live meeting in Brussels in December. In my work I wanted to get focused mainly on sustainable and health development of the Network. Even though Antenna Criteria does not always show a complete picture of the status of the Locals, we can take a look at some statistics: more than 50% of the Locals fulfilled all Antenna Criteria, around 30% were missing only 1-2 criteria, like report, list etc, what was submitted after reminders, approximately 15% – were facing different small or bigger problems.

And what about the other task of your portfolio, the Human Resources management? What is the best result you got in this field?

Apart from Network Development and Network Commission, I’m also appointed to HRC (Human Resources Committee), YMWG (Youth Mobility Working Group) and SUCT (Summer University Coordination Team). Due to my portfolio and personal interests, I was also involved in work with other bodies. We are changing now Speaker team of HRC, and I hope soon with new members we’ll be back on track in HR field, although a big research and development was already done in previous years. According to YMWG, we have organized trainings about funding possibilities. Of course work towards Visa Directive is very complex and bureaucratic, and one NGO can’t really change the whole system, but we should keep working on that field. Third part of the Network is from non-EU countries. The last but not least body, where I’m appointed, is SUCT. I suppose you’ve already heard about new elected team and their work. They are very active and implementing many new ideas this year. For more detailed descriptions of my tasks, I would suggest to check my personal Activity Report for Agora Bergamo.

According to your candidature, your preferred task in the future CD would be the External Relations and you understood it during the last year. Is it not a contradiction for someone who was Network Director, therefore more focused on internal issues?

It would be a mistake to say that I understood to apply for External Relations during last year. It could sound like I’m not satisfied with position that I’m holding now. I like being in constant contact with Locals and work with different bodies. But when I started to consider about applying for the second term, I decided that I’d prefer to work with a new portfolio as doing new tasks in the Head office will keep my motivation very high. I like to learn new things and challenge myself. Second, external world was always interesting to me. I studied International Relations at university. I was always taking active role in society. During this year I was also attending events and conferences in Brussels and sometimes helping in contacting another NGOs and partners. I don’t see these tasks as contradiction, as internal world of any institution or organization, including AEGEE, doesn’t exist apart from external world. Being involved in internal work for nine months already, I believe that I have gained the necessary skills to hold external work of association.

You uploaded a candidature program four days after the deadline expired. Why did it happen? Was it a last minute decision?

My final decision was made on the last day. I applied being in my room, as I was looking for some personal time and space in the house, and connection wasn’t the best. As I was copying and pasting my candidature from word document, the last part wasn’t submitted successfully on time. But the same night I sent the missing part directly to JC asking to upload it, as I didn’t have access. Apparently, it took some days to communicate, and at the end it was uploaded.

What are the things you want to achieve, carry on or change in AEGEE external representation?

Our organization has multiple contacts with different NGOs, institutions and platforms. The role of External Relations is to monitor and to have an overview of the benefits and different opportunities, what AEGEE can have collaborating with them, and vice versa – contribution that AEGEE can provide to them. We should keep introducing AEGEE and its achievements to partners and another organizations, in order to maximize our impact.

You want “to strengthen the cooperation with NGOs like ESN, BEST, JEF, JADE and others” and “bringing External work closer to the Network”. How are you going to do it? Why should AEGEE locals be interested?

It’s not the first year that we are focusing also on closer cooperation with students and youth organization that have the similar scope to AEGEE. With BEST, for instance, we keep very good collaboration, our members are attending each other events. Together with other NGOs, we can organise common projects, share experience and ideas, best practices and knowledge, learn from each other. There are fields, for example Youth Mobility, where only by working together we can achieve some changes in Europe. At the end members of other organisations are also volunteers who are taking active role in European society like us. We should take advantage of this collaboration, not only between boards of listed NGOs, but also between our branches.

In your online candidature, you stated that you plan to contribute “in such crucial areas such as Youth Participation, Youth Employment and Youth Mobility“. Can you be a little bit more specific on what should be done and why are these issues related to the External Relations position?

These areas, apart from being focused on our current Strategic Plan, are also hot topics in Europe. The work on developing policy paper in Employment field is already done, in Youth Mobility – still in progress. As you might know, final task distribution is happening after knowledge transfer, depending on abilities of the team, and working in Comité Directeur obliges you to be diverse in your portfolio. These fields, that I’ve already mentioned in my candidature, are my preferences, where I would like to contribute. I would also like to empower AEGEEans being more involved in policy issues and active citizenship.

Five out of seven current CD members are running again for a position, how do you feel about the possibility of sharing the CD house with them again? Would you define the last year in the CD house a brilliant one?

Living in the house is quite challenging itself. You should learn how to respect each other’s needs and to compromise almost always. I would like to mention that I’m differentiating very clearly my working and personal space. And I felt myself comfortable in both. Probably my 7 years’ working experience is helping to organise and to structure my life in the house.

You needed a visa to stay in Brussels, but you had a lot of problems about this issue and still you don’t have it, missing also NWMs and EPM Leiden. Is it going to be solved if you get elected as External Relations Director? Are you going to be present in Bergamo?

When I was answering questions to my candidature at Agora Kyiv, I’ve received only one question: “How are going to work in Brussels if you are from Ukraine, as probably you will need visa?” Apparently it will stay the most popular question to me.

I would like to ask people stop perceiving it as my problem, as far as it is visa and residence permit bureaucracy problems in Europe. We are forgetting that Europe is not only EU countries, and main idea of AEGEE since the very beginning was Borderless Europe. I got the feeling (I hope I’m mistaken) that members are not giving enough patience, empathy and support in Visa issue.  The procedure of gathering all needed documents for long-stay is very complex and complicated. It started in August, and basically finished only half a year later in March. In total I prepared more than 50 documents. All my documents are successfully submitted, and I’m in the status of waiting for 2 months already, which is nothing in such situation.

If I would stay one year longer in CD, then procedure is easier – I’m just adding few updated documents to previous one. For Belgian authority positions that we are holding in CD are not specifically important, for them crucial document is our official registration in Belgium as Board members of NGO.

Of course my mood was very down in February knowing that I won’t be able to go to EPM Leiden or Spring NWMs. I was blaming myself that I applied for CD and now I need to go through this procedure. But then I realised that barriers concerning mobility of youth, and mine mobility in particular, cannot discourage me from my tasks and I can work being in Head office in Brussels.

I hope to see you all in Bergamo! But if not – then I hope my case will bring visibility to Visa issue in Europe and AEGEE members will work together in this field. We should bring awareness, deliver knowledge regarding the procedure, build understanding among members and support for documents of your friends around the Network.

State a thing you like and one you don’t like about AEGEE!

Pros: Possibilities and challenges

Cons: Misunderstanding

QUESTIONS FROM THE READERS:

How could you work in Brussels for one more year if you don’t have the permit to live there after nine months? Do you think it’s wise to apply for another year before settling this issue?

I arrived in Belgium with Schengen Visa, that I could use for my stay for the first few months. But according to 90-days stay regulation in EU countries, I was supposed to apply for residence permit. I was elected at Agora Kyiv in October, so I have received official registration as member of Board Directors in Belgium in December. Only starting from that month I could officially work on gathering all needed documents. I finished and submitted the documents in three months. Currently I’m waiting for a positive answer. Applying for second or more times for residence permit, or long-term Visa, costs less time and documents, and it requires only copy of already existing one and updates of relevant information. Actually another year should be much easier than the first time. More details about my document status are in my personal Activity Report for Agora Bergamo.
In case you once again don’t manage to receive your papers in time during a potential second term, how do you plan to go to external events in Brussels where your ID will have to be controlled (especially in the last months with the increase in control due to terrorism)?

First of all, I would like to clarify that I’m successfully managing my documents, but this procedure requires a lot of time due to EU and Belgium law regulations. And as I’ve already mentioned a few times, I have been waiting for the answer for two months. Applying for the second time is always less bureaucratic and much faster. I don’t have any problems with attending events in Brussels. I’m using my ID and I have Schengen Visa in my passport. But in order to be eligible to stay longer than 90 days in EU country, I was obliged to apply for residence permit. Once I arrived to Belgium last year I was registered in the municipality. And currently I also have registration number for my documents.

Will you be so active on Facebook during working hours again next term?

What is working hours? We are supposed to work 8 hours per day. But average time in the office is at least 60 hours per week. Responding to your question, it’s not a news that Social Media is a working space nowadays. Currently I’m using more than 10 groups, five chats and five pages regarding my work. I assume that external position requires less contact through Social Media, as Network Director. It will depend on where I could catch potential members of my bodies, share and find information, events and contacts relevant to my tasks. As an official communication channel, I still prefer email.

How quickly do you answer e-mails?

I’m receiving approximately 30 emails daily, that I should respond, find the solutions or prepare some tasks regarding requests. Of course I’m trying to respond as soon as possible to everything, but due to workload and big amount of requests, it could take also more time.

You bring up your “perfect understanding of the structure, our strengths and weaknesses” but you didn’t give any examples. Can you please shortly describe our two biggest strengths and how we could use it more? and our two biggest weaknesses and how we could improve it?

Did I say perfect? There is nothing perfect in this world, but we should keep working on it. To me, as I have already mentioned in my candidature for Agora Kyiv, one of the biggest power, that we have in our organisation, is diversity! It can bring us achievements in different areas, establishing new projects, breaking stereotypes and building understanding, collaboration among us. Another big strength that I would like to name is opportunities, that AEGEE members can get through our organisation, opportunities in participation, in experience, and at the end in big changes.

Despite the fact that we are an amazing organisation, of course we are facing many different problems. Digging in archives I could assume that we have improved our administrative part of association. But unfortunately, we are working less with political impact. It could be only my opinion, but I would like to see us working more on hot topics that are happening in Europe and beyond, on different crisis and conflicts, elections and referendums, etc. The initiative should come from WG, Project teams, Locals and of course from CD members. The other weakness, that I would like to point, however it’s also common for another organisation, is non-recognition of volunteer practices. Currently we are working on it.

If you could only make one big change in AEGEE’s current state, what would you want it to be and how would you contribute to it in the position you are running for?

No barriers! No physical or participation borders, language or cultural borders. Nowadays we are still facing many barriers concerning Mobility of Youth in Europe. We should work towards educating and bringing awareness to our members about current problems, organising different activities and discussion tables, fighting against it. It’s a long term process, and sometimes our impact could be very small, but to me this is what AEGEE was doing and should continue. After receiving personal experience in field of Youth Mobility I would like to work more on Visa Directive inside the Network and participate in that field.

What part of your task as CD member did you manage to accomplish and fully fulfill during this year?

The main task of my portfolio was to supervise the sustainability of the Network, support locals and assure constant communication, what also required a big amount of my time for the administration, such as Antenna Criteria. I have focused on stable and healthy development of the Locals. It would be quite impossible to measure whether it was fulfilled or not, as far as this task should always be in progress. All detailed explanation about my tasks you can find in Personal Activity Report. Some examples that come to my mind are below:

• Ensuring the same quality of sessions and implementing new application procedure for NWMs, together with Network Commission and CD;
• Improvement of SU project, thanks to the members of new elected SUCT;
• Printing Key 2 Europe in Kyiv within the budget and delivering it to Brussels;
• Representing AEGEE and organising events in Brussels;
• Support of Think before you Vink campaign;
• Applying for residence permit, which is a very difficult and long procedure;
• Improvement of living condition of the house!

You mention that you were the “main responsible for all external events in Brussels this year”. Can you please elaborate? How many events? What was the content? How many externals were present?

So far three main external events were held: Handover ceremony, Back to Brussels and the AEGEE Day. I was responsible for the event for our alumni Network Les Anciens “Back to Brussels” in September, which is happening once a year in Brussels, we had more than 50 members participating in it. In April, I organised the event presenting AEGEE Day project for partners and externals in Brussels. It was very well-organised event. We combined three topics: presenting the history of AEGEE and its main projects during 31 years of existence, launching the AEGEE Day project and Europe on Track 3^rd edition. We had more than 50 guests representing 15 different NGOs, institutions and companies. I was coordinating also some internal events in the house, such as the AEGEE Day activity on the 16^th of April. I was responsible for organisational part of the Leadership Training Course.

Definitely I’ll be responsible for future events till the end of July, or longer if I’m elected.

If elected for external relations, will you be responsible for fundraising? What is your experience with corporate and institutional funding?

As you might know, task division is taking place in August, once all team finish their knowledge transfer, tasks are divided for new term. For instance, in our team we have three members who are in charge on fundraising. I have experience in fundraising on local level. I can’t assure now who will be main responsible, but I can contribute in this task.

Was your team aware that you decided to rerun?

Since the very beginning I announced to my team, that my decision had not been taken yet, and regarding this decision I’d need more time to think and to consult with my family and friends. Final decision was taken on the last day after conversation with them.

You can read her full candidature here. 

Written by Mattia Abis, AEGEE-Cagliari

After two years with the same Comité Directeur, the Agora elected on the 3rd of May the six people who are going to live in the CD house and work for the association for the next 12 months. Paul Smits (AEGEE-Enschede), Antonija Parat (AEGEE-Zadar), Aleksandra “Ola” Kluczka (AEGEE-Kraków), Holger Shmitt (AEGEE-Berlin), Ivan Bielik (AEGEE-Brno) and Mayri Tiido (AEGEE-Tartu) are our new Board of Directors.

Paul Smits (AEGEE-Enschede)

Paul Smits was elected as the new President and won over two very strong candidates: Léa Charlet (AEGEE-Paris) and Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Debrecen/Aachen). After being up by only three votes, he won again in the second round against Réka Salamon by only 19 votes. Being elected brought him “a shock of happiness and relief. The Agora had been very tense and put quite some pressure on me, so I have to admit I was happy this whole election thing was over. I immediately thought about the other candidates that went through a very stressful time. Going down to Réka felt like the only right thing to do, because for her the circus ended right there. The full realisation of being elected only came when I began receiving the congratulations after the plenary session.”

Antonija Parat (AEGEE-Zadar)

Even more close was the victory of Antonija Parat, elected Secretery General, with only two votes apart. For her being elected “is an honor. I feel really grateful for this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to starting my term. It took a while for me to process everything and to really understand the ways in which my life will change now. But I’m definitely excited and I can’t wait to see what the year will bring.”

The emotion to be elected was huge for everyone. “I was happy to share this moment with my friends sitting next to me. I was also really grateful that people trusted me and I thought that I want to do my best now even more”, says Ola. Holger adds “I am very grateful and very much aware of the responsibility it means to be elected by so many AEGEE members and I take this responsibility very serious. Generally I am very happy and I can ́t stop smiling, thinking about the great things to come next”.

Holger Schmitt (AEGEE-Berlin)

Building the team is the focus for all the newly elected CD members. For Antonjia “the most important thing will be knowledge transfer and teambuilding. I think it’s important for us to be fully aware of our tasks, to get to know each other and start functioning as a team. I’m really excited about getting to know everyone a bit better and starting my term. I hope it will be a great experience for our entire team, and that the Network will be happy with our work”. “I think that after some teambuilding and knowledge transfer we will work fine”, Mayri agrees. “ Also, I am more than sure that we will have a lot of fun together!”

Along with the excitement some fears may come. A part of being scared of “getting more interviews [he laughs]”, Paul only sees “interesting challenges. The only scary thing might be the high amount of these challenges, but that only means we have to plan and manage them properly.”

Mayri Tiido (AEGEE-Tartu)

Living abroad is a huge challenge and something will be certainly missed. For Mayri it is “hard to predict, since usually we don’t know what we miss until we don’t have it anymore. As being part of the Comité Directeur is a lot of work, most probably I will miss the amount of free time I have at the moment.” Ola is very familiar with living in Brussels since she had done her Erasmus there and she was an Intern in the CD house, but she says: “I might miss some Polish food too, but you just need to know where to find it!” Even getting used to new tradiction seems hard. “People in Brussels put their garbage on the streets on certain days of the week. It looks horrible!” jokes Ivan.

A lot of CD members were involved in other projects and committees. Holger Schmitt resigned from his position of Network Commissioner and Julia Fuss (AEGEE-Mannheim) was elected Netcom Assistant until Agora Cagliari. Holger has a huge trust in her. “She already gained a lot of experience being president of AEGEE Mannheim and being involved in the Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar and my subcommie for the Rhein-Neckar area, where she organized an RTC and visited many locals. I am very much looking forward to intensively work together with and support her wherever I can. Of course I will continue my personal relations I have in my NetCom area and I will be their contact person in Brussels”, he says.

Ivan Bielik (AEGEE-Brno)

Mayri Tiido was the Project Manager of the successful Health4Youth. “As the project has been already ongoing for one year and an haf, in Autumn Agora Cagliari this cycle of the project will end. I will give my best to finish up as many things as possible before August. After that I will kindly hand over the project until its ending to Matthijs Overhaal (AEGEE-Tartu, Public Relations Manager)”. Ola Kluzcka is the Content Manager of the YVote 2014 project and she admits that “we haven’t really discussed [the follow up] with the team yet, but I definitely hope so. It’s one of the things high on my agenda and I hope we will be able to realise this project. Especially with the results of the recent European Parliamentary elections showing that initiatives as Y Vote 2014 or the project about spreading europtimism are needed more than ever due to the low voter turnout and the rise in support for eurosceptics.”

Aleksandra Kluczka (AEGEE-Kraków)

Ivan Bielik will keep “a low profile in IPWG right now. Of course, I will continue in the initiative AEGEEDebate. Moreover, I am a researcher in EaP project right now.” Paul Smits, soon-to-be former Chaiperson of the Agora is working with the Chair Team to “finish up after Agora Patra. Soon after this is completed the newly elected Secretary of the Agora will be introduced and a call for an interim vice-Chair will be sent. Even more than before the Agora, I am convinced the Chair Team will be fine and will find someone motivated and capable to bring the team back to full strength.” Some rumours about interested people are already spreading in the Network.

The new team will have a heavy legacy from the Comité Directeur 2012-2014, but Antonija is sure that “the current CD set a great example for us, they did a lot for AEGEE in the last two years, and I’m really thankful for that. They are a very good team, and they set the bar for future CD’s pretty high, so following them is surely a challenge. But I believe our team is capable of taking on this challenge: I think we can learn from the current CD, but also develop our own vision and keep improving AEGEE in the next year.”

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia

With the contribution of Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen