It’s the closing plenary of Spring Agora Enschede 2017 and the next European Planning Meeting hosting local has been announced: it is AEGEE-Yerevan! We reached out to them and spoke to Armenak Minasyants from the Armenian local to ask them more about their reaction to the good news and some sneak peeks. 

The AEGEEan: Why did you apply to host European Planning Meeting 2018?

Armenak: There are many reasons behind the motivation of our local to apply for hosting the European Planning Meeting 2018. We have a strong belief towards our own institutional and administrative resources to host such a big event in our city. In AEGEE-Yerevan we are people who believe that the objective of life is to hit and not get hit. We are looking to expand our portfolio while we are on top and while we are extremely motivated. In the last seven years, we have set the model for showing to thousands of young people in Armenia how they should be responsible citizens and youth workers in and out of AEGEE. Now, it is high time also to deliver this on the European level!

Another amazing reason and motivation for applying is that practically EPM Yerevan 2018 will become the biggest youth European event ever organised in Armenia and AEGEE, in our perception, shall be the organisation making the history in different corners of Europe! We welcome the approach of the CDs in recent years to grant the locals in non-EU countries an opportunity to host statutory events. Our Network is amazingly diverse and it is great to have these synergies of hosting for instance Agora in Western Europe and afterwards coming to the very South-East of Europe and experiencing ideally a different reality during EPM. This will surely contribute to internal transformations within AEGEE and will boost our sense of being European not just as a matter of geography, as being European is first and foremost caring about the same universal system of values. Hence, we are motivated to have the EPM and allow everyone to discover one of the oldest cradles of European culture.

How did you react when you first heard the news that you were accepted?

Ohhhhh my God! OMG OMG OMG! I mean, this is literally the biggest moment in my life! When it was announced it literally took almost a day from me to calm down, as I have been calling everyone to inform about the news! On the next day, we hosted a board meeting and pumped a bottle of the best local champagne, thus marking the start of our preparations! Yes, we have started it already! The emotions are too hard to describe, this is something you need to go through.

How would you describe AEGEE-Yerevan?

We are young, talented, passionate and very professional local! Our ultimate goal is to always break records and the EPM 2018 is the next milestone for us! Our local now has successfully undergone the period of reconstruction and revival, the generational change has been finalised, the institutional memory of the organisation is better than ever, and the organisational matters are handled in the most professional manner with six board members constantly working. We have extremely experienced board members, who are flavoured with very young newcomers’ enthusiasts striving for experience.

Who will be in the core team of EPM Yerevan?

Let me first of all pass words of thankfulness to Ani, Kalipso, Anna, Nirvana, Izabella, Armine, Davit, Anush, Vika, Suren, Tereza and everyone who has helped us to make this application happen!

The core team of EPM Yerevan has eight members and is indeed amazingly strong! We have decided to bring out the best we have in the wardrobe. We will have former Network Commissioner Tereza “China” as one of the logistics officers working on the preparatory, we will have Ani Khachatryan – our long running and very experienced Secretary General, and surely another 40 local organisers and helpers coming up to help on any matter.

Furthermore, EPM Yerevan will be also special as all the external promotion, PR materials, merchandise will be made by professionals, as we will be working with professional PR and design agencies such as Ktor Designs and Deem Communications. This will help us having qualitatively new branding for such a big and important event.

Last but not the least, I have decided to be the head of the core team and I want to dedicate myself fully to the biggest project of my life, which the EPM is! Probably this will be the best way to end my long European AEGEE journey and retire from the association right at the EPM stage surrounded by my friends, AEGEEans and the organisation, which has given to me so much in past eight years.

Does AEGEE-Yerevan have any past experience in organising an event similar to the EPM?

Every year in Autumn we host a thematic EU-funded conference – Armenia Model EU Conference, which brings to Armenia up to 150 young people, youth workers and civic activists from all over Europe. This four-days project consists not only of a typical simulation conference style activity, but also of almost two days full of encounters, thematic panel discussions and open space discussions with leading European and local experts, mainly focusing on European political agenda matters.

It is worth to mention that in February 2017 we solely organised and hosted a thematic conference attended by Mr. Christian Danielsson, who is the Director General for Enlargement at the European Commission (DG NEAR). This has been a tremendous experience for us: just imagine we hosted a thematic event for 250 students with the attendance of a top EU official.

So, we are looking forward to comprehend our resources, experience and build up on our success stories for making the upcoming EPM really groundbreaking.

What do you have in mind for the facilities and the programme?

Even though it is a bit early now to discuss the facilities, it has been agreed preliminarily that the event will take place at the auspices of one of the best universities in Yerevan, which has the highest quality of technical equipment and facilities, which will be surely available to any EPM participant. We want participants not to face any technical problem during their activities. More notably, we want to suggest participants the most comfortable ever conditions of stay during an AEGEE statutory event. I really do not want to fold all our cards now, let’s keep it still as a surprise, but we will try to set up ideally a new benchmark in project quality and fundraising in AEGEE.

The programme will be amazingly packed, and not only because of the sessions, as we want every participant to feel the magic and spirit of our city, which will be marking its 2800th birthday in 2018!

Hence, everyone will have a chance to climb over the heights of the Cascade Stairs of Yerevan and admire the city panorama view, we will have an AEGEE flashmob on the longest pedestrian avenue, we will taste the best of our local wines and just enjoy the hospitality of any ordinary Yerevan resident, suggesting participants classical Armenian coffee and pastries.  

What will be your biggest challenges in hosting the EPM?

We treat every challenge as a new opportunity to develop our skills and grow stronger as an organization. Hence there are no challenges for us to host the EPM – it is all about opportunities – ain’t no boundaries, ain’t no limits. However, focusing more on the technical ground, I think the biggest challenge will be in supporting every participant with the travelling matters. Basically, we are going to help as much as possible in any transportation related matter. They are four ways for travelling to Yerevan (counting also Tbilisi and Kutaisi) and we are going to work at maximum to help each participant to reach Yerevan in the most cost effective and budgetary way.

What makes Yerevan attractive to visit?

 Yerevan is all about people! The hospitality and friendly attitude are probably the most common features of any Armenian and you can feel that hospitality on every step in Yerevan! Yerevan is rocking Europe since 786 BC! For millennia Yerevan has been at the crossroads of cultural trends, intellectual thought, groundbreaking research, and incredible inventions. Now it is bursting with a rocking nightlife and a buzzing restaurant scene. The city center is full of great wine houses and our city is owning the title of one of the world’s top 10 safest cities. Yerevan is an incredibly walkable city. As one of the safest cities in Europe, you will never find yourself in trouble, no matter how shabby the neighborhood appearance may be and how much drunk you might be. Around 82% of Yerevan residents feel quite safe walking home alone at night. So yes, life in Yerevan goes on in a safe, tiny, and sunny spot. The day of Yerevan residents starts with the bright sun greeting them in the morning, as we have sunny weather almost 300 days per year! The smell of “Armenian” coffee is spreading everywhere since the morning, and everyone from schoolchildren to officials doing their everyday work feel safe about their lives. Truly, if you are top AEGEE talent wanting to change the world, our organisation and enjoy yourself while doing it all, there is no better place to come and join than EPM Yerevan 2018!

Written by Federica Soro, AEGEE-Cagliari and Maria Zwartkruis, AEGEE-Utrecht

Did you miss the European Planning Meeting this year? It was organised by AEGEE-Leiden and took place between the 25th and 29th of February. Thanks to their amazing work and team coordination, they managed to organise a great European Planning Meeting. Not suprisingly, AEGEE-Leiden was voted Local of the Month for February for this great accomplishment. So, we had a talk with Boudewijn Steenhof, Main Organiser, and also Casper Renting, Vice Main Organiser of the event to tell us a few details about the challenges the team encountered  and the antenna’s future plans.

The AEGEEan: First of all, congratulations for being voted Local of the Month for February! What are your future plans in AEGEE?

Casper: Thanks on behalf of everyone from -Leiden! I’m sure that all these active and intelligent members will continue to do great things for our local and the Network. For example, I’ve heard things about a NWM next year… Personally, the EPM feels like a transition from Leiden to Europe. I recently joined the LIG & HRC and started as SubCom for Loes.

Boudewijn: For me, organising the EPM was the last big thing I will do in AEGEE-Leiden. I’ve had five great years, learnt a lot and made quite a few good friends. But what AEGEE-Europe has in store for me, you never know…

What was your overall impression as a hosting local of the EPM?

Boudewijn: Apart from it being very tiring, it was amazing. To see all these participants enjoying all we have worked for in the last year was simply great. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we have learnt a lot from organising the EPM about ourselves, each other, and AEGEE! A hosting local receives a lot of attention during this time, which can be overwhelming. But I think we dealt with it well, and everyone knows AEGEE-Leiden for whole different reasons now!

What do you think you could have done better?

Casper: Oh, so many things! No seriously, we are really proud on what we have accomplished, but we also see room for improvement. Happily these were things mostly invisible for participants. For example, we lost quite a lot of stuff during the event. Apparently it’s not that hard to lose a big professional trolley, or 40 forks.

There were also quite a few participants who thought the food was a bit too ‘Dutch’, meaning, too many sandwiches. But I don’t think this is something we would have done differently, as trying different cuisines is part of exploring other cultures.

Do you plan to also organise an Agora at one point?

Casper: We already did! In 1987 (EGEE-III) and 2010 to be exact. But also if we hadn’t, I don’t think we would soon organise the Agora. It’s not like the EPM is a stepping stone to the bigger and maybe more prestigious Agora. Actually, it’s better to do something smaller really well, than something big so so, and because the city of Leiden arguably doesn’t have the facilities to host an event with this scale, I don’t think we should consider it. This is the sad reality I know other antenna deal with as well. They are very capable and would do great, but their city lacks the facilities.

What do you think was the biggest challenge in organising the EPM? 

Boudewijn: Definitely the logistics. Having the right locations, with the right stuff and the right people all come together to form a well-working machine has been a great challenge.

Casper: I’d add to that satisfying everyone’s needs. Obviously participants are very diverse in their preferences, but also in our team we had different ideas of what “EPM Leiden 2016” should be like. Combined with requests from the Content Team, Chair Team and Comité Directeur, all within our limited financial and logistical possiblities, this created a complex but interesting challenge.

After this experience, what piece of advice would you give to a local who has just decided to host an EPM?

Casper: Don’t ‘just decide’ it, haha. Make sure you have full support from your university and municipality, as you will very likely need them. Related to that, money is everything. Don’t even consider applying if you’re not sure you can get your funding sorted out. Lastly, you’re not going to organise it yourself. Make sure your whole antenna (especially if you’re small) supports the idea and is willing to put time and effort in it, and be aware that your local activities and plans will suffer. I’d say these are the three most important checks you should do before you can decide to host an event on this size.

What did you think of the theme (the refugees’crisis) for this EPM?

Casper: I think it’s a very important and relevant topic that deserves attention in the Network. From an organiser’s perspective, it was way easier to ‘sell’ an event with this topic to financial partners and media, than an EPM without a specific topic would have been. Combined, I’m proud we could facilitate a discussion about this topic. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to actually participate.

The AEGEEan: Thank you for your time!

Written by Gabriela Geană, AEGEE-București

AEGEE-Burgos was born only six years ago, and since then, they haven’t stopped facing one challenge after another one: organising Summer Universities, Network Meetings, a Renove, several training courses… The ‘peak’ came only last February, when they organised a European Planning Meeting. Many agree that it has been one of the best statutory events in the past years, and they have unanimously been elected as Local of the Month of March! The AEGEEan has spoken to Rubén Sanz, main organiser of the EPM Burgos and one of the people who made AEGEE-Burgos grow so successfully in the past years. Now watch out… as they have some new challenges in mind!

The AEGEEan: First of all, congratulations! You just came back from organising the European Planning Meeting in Burgos, what was the feedback that you got from the participants?
Rubén Sanz, AEGEE-Burgos: Thanks a lot for this prize, dear AEGEEan! We always support you as much as we can, and you have made us very happy when you nominated us [at the past two editions of The AEGEEan’s Choice Awards, ed.] as “Best merchandising” for our famous pink style, and Morcillote for “Best Mascot”. This is the first time we win in one of The AEGEEan’s awards and you can not imagine how happy we are.

The feedback was awesome, all people have written really nice things about us. You know, Burgos is one of the smallest AEGEE cities and universities, so we have to work more than others to get good results. All the work has been rewarded when you constantly hear that all the small details were thought of. I always say that big things are the link between a lot of small ones, so first of all we took care of all the small details, and we made a big effort to try to avoid problems. When somebody asked anything, we always had the answer prepared, people were aware of it it and that was the result. In the words of the Comité Directeur at the closing ceremony: “the best organised event ever”.

Which are, according to you, the ingredients that made the EPM such a good event?
I think the mix of experienced members and newbies with a lot of motivation. What made the EPM so incredible was the group, there is no doubt about this, with about 30 people from Burgos and 12 helpers from other cities with a lot of experience. We had a lot of training weekends for all the organisers, so we were prepared for this. But to me, the most important thing is that we have become friends, all of us, so when one organiser could be tired…  another one was always going to help him, so the support and the motivation were absolutley amazing. This was team work, and it ended as a group of friends doing a common project. This recognition is the recognition to all of them.

Were there any “congratulation” messages that made you particularly happy or proud?
Yes, I was completely impressed when I got a congratulation message from a board member of AEGEE-Leiden. You know that there was a race between AEGEE-Burgos and AEGEE-Leiden in order to organise this EPM. We got it, and since then, there was a big controversy about our choice. Receiving a message with such good things about us really made me break some stereotypes. Especially in AEGEE, Dutchies and Spaniards usually have rather different points of view, and I can say it clearly, when I received it, they really increased in value to me, and I feel really proud of being part of the same association.

What was the best thing of organising the EPM, for you?
I think the most important thing for AEGEE is that we showed to all of Europe that small antennae can organise big events too. You only need a motivated group, having this and a bit of coordination you will be able to solve all the challenges.

And the biggest challenge you had to overcome?
Of course we had a lot of “surprises” and things that went in a different way we thought. Our big challenge was to solve all situations fastly. It was not easy but we were successful because I think participants didn’t realise about them.

Now, can you tell us a bit more about our new Local of the Month, AEGEE-Burgos? 
AEGEE-Burgos was founded just six years ago. We have 60 members but we have a good knowledge transfer system that made us have more than 30 active members, and one third of them have been main organiser of some events. We have a weekly meeting, and in the last three years we have organised almost all the events (Summer Universities, a Network Meeting, Renove, Local Training Courses, our yearly event “Burgos me pone Morcillote”, and now this EPM). We work hard, helping and organising activities for Erasmus and international students in Burgos, and a lot of trips and exchanges with friends from other cities.

What does the future hold for AEGEE-Burgos? Any ambitious plans coming?
Now we have a lot of newbies which are ultra-motivated, so… After an EPM, there can be only one further step… So who knows… Maybe in some years we will have an Agora in Burgos! People checked and we are able to do it. Now all of Europe knows we can do everything.

What makes your antenna so special?
We are growing a lot as an antenna, year by year new people join our group, and the factor that makes us different is that we are a group of friends, a hard core that can easily add people to the team. Even when there are no meetings, we have social meetings, and from one event we always start to prepare the next one.

Anything else you would like to add?

Finally I would like to say “thank you” to all the organizers, I am really proud of you, I am really happy for having been able to do this in Burgos. Thank you to all our friends that came to support us and to all participants who came to Burgos, too. I hope you enjoyed, we tried to do our best, thanks to all! Now you have a bit of Burgos and a bit of us in your hearts… because “Burgos won’t leave you cold” / “Burgos no te dejará frío”.

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

As the Agora Asturias 2015 is approaching at a high speed, our ‘Proposals for Dummies’ series is still ongoing! Today we are taking a look at three proposals which mainly concern Statutory Meetings, namely Agorae, European Planning Meetings and Network Meetings, and which aim at introducing some changes to the Antenna Criteria and the Working Format of the Agora.

The first one of the proposals that we will analyse today, Proxy voting for locals, has been proposed by Léa Charlet from AEGEE-Paris, Olga Rivero from AEGEE-Oviedo and Ruben Navarro from AEGEE-Tarragona. It addresses a problem that some of our locals are facing since some of them don’t the money, time and resources to send their delegates to the Agorae. It means that these locals cannot participate in the decisions taken at the Agora, as they are unable to cast their votes. The proposal suggests that locals who cannot attend the Agorae can delegate their votes to another antenna, who will cast it on their behalf.

The proposers argue that smaller locals often face disadvantages, as they usually have lesser chances to send delegates to Agorae. Moreover, they argue that often, the city where an Agora takes place “is also decisive for a candidate to be elected or a proposal to be approved, just because the attendance from the nearby antennae is bigger” than others.

However, this doesn’t mean that antennae who delegate their votes to others will fulfil the antenna criterion of being present at Statutory events. It will only mean that some other antenna will vote on their behalf, so they will not be in any way present in Agorae. According to the initial proposal, antennae who would like to delegate their votes would have to inform the Juridical Commission two weeks in advance, and approve their decision of delegating the vote in their own local Agora. Find the proposal here.

The second one of the proposals we will take a look at today concerns the attendance to statutory meetings, too. It aims at Changing Criteria for Representative Attendance during Meetings, referring to Agorae, European Planning Meetings (EPM) and Network Meetings (NWMs). Mario Galea (AEGEE-Valletta), on behalf of the Network Commission, proposes to change the current criterion of attendance to plenaries (currently stated as “full attendance”) and set a minimum percentage of plenary attendance instead (80% of them), and as many prytania per slot as it has representatives – so, if a local sends only two delegates, this local should send these two delegates in two prytania slots.

Concerning Network Meetings, Mario argues that the current criterion implies that locals have to send a participant at a Network Meeting, but this presence is not usually counted – meaning that participants can be free of skipping the sessions or simply visiting the city. The proposal aims to avoid this by setting a minimum percentage of the sessions to be attended in order to make this criterion fulfilled. The full proposal can be found here.

Our last daily proposal, Providing Room for Deliberation on Motions, is proposed by Gijs van Amerongen and Maarten de Groot, from AEGEE-Amsterdam. Currently, there is enough space for deliberation before voting candidatures and proposals. However, this doesn’t happen when it comes to motions, which are proposed during the Agora itself and often voted on within the same plenary session, with not enough space for discussion.

As the proposers from AEGEE-Amsterdam suggest, sometimes delegates do not have the time to deliberate and to discuss before making a decision. Because of that, they propose a minimum of three minutes during the plenary session in order to provide the delegates with some time for deliberation among one another and the members from their local. The full proposal can be found here.

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona