The Events Committee now has a new name: Quality Assurance Committee (Q.A.C.). This fits better with its role of improving the quality of the events that are organised by AEGEE locals. They also have a new team, the AEGEEan interviewed them on the recent changes.

AEGEEan: So, you are a new team. What are the roles of the members of the team?

Q.A.C.: Yes, a new team with new ideas and a new approach to the work! The team now consists of a speaker: Antonis Triantafyllakis (AEGEE-Heraklio); plus five Quality Assurance Responsibles: Patrick Scholz (AEGEE-Aachen); Hilde Lahaije (AEGEE-Utrecht); Margarita Simonova (AEGEE-Moskva); Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Aachen); and Andrew Bartolo (AEGEE-Valetta).

The Quality Assurance Responsibles have already split the AEGEE locals among themselves, in order to have a better system to keep track of events and to improve communication with locals. We are planning to create Facebook groups and have one representative from each local for bidirectional communication between locals and the Q.A.C. Our priority for now is to reach all locals and explain why we should focus more on “quality events” and how cooperating with us would have great benefits for them.

What are the reasons behind renaming the (former) Events Committee?

AEGEE means a lot of things for all our members, but for many it is a learning platform for gaining competences we cannot get elsewhere. The Events Committee’s role in this was not very clear to the Network. Non-formal education is an important aspect of our work as an organisation, but that has to meet certain standards. With renaming the Committee, we set a clear aim: we want to raise the quality of events  by putting more emphasis on educational content.

A better organised event with the right logistics and content will produce happier participants. Plus it will help keep a clear overview of AEGEE’s impact on its members and help us having a further recognition of non-formal educational tools, which is one of AEGEE’s greatest strengths.

How exactly are you planning to introduce this new system to the Network? Do you think the locals will be more interested in cooperating with the Committee this time?

We want to establish a constant communication with the locals and the Network Commission is already helping us with this. We are not here to annoy everyone with our forms; but more helping hands will result in making the organisation of events easier. The locals can contact us at any time with their proposed event and we are more than happy to:

1. Aid cooperation with another European Level body (especially in case of thematic events).

2. Help with the promotion of the event (we are thinking about an Events Newsletter).

3. Our guidelines and forms can make planning easier – so locals don’t have to start everything from scratch.

Will locals have to submit a forms and get “quality checked”? And how complicated is this new system going to be?

No more complicated than using Intranet… The locals have to submit the Assessment Form (which will become available on the Members Portal later). Once their event is approved, they can upload it on Intranet and the promotion can begin on EVENT-L  and other platforms. Once the event is over, locals should fill out an Evaluation Form to give us proper feedback on the outcomes which they can also use for an internal evaluation of the event.

Anything else you would like to share with the AEGEEan?

Yes, ‘Quality Indicators’ is just the fancy new term for ‘I can help you with that’. Check out the presentation of the brand new Committee and don’t hesitate to write to us any time.

Written by: Lia Tuska (AEGEE-Kastoria & AEGEE-Sofia)

Some of you never might never have heard about the Events Committee, and those who have might have no knowledge about what it is and why it is necessary. If you are interested, then continue reading. 

The EvC (Events Committee) is not a new born committee – it was founded in June of 2011 with the aim to improve the quality of the European and AEGEE events and to support the locals in organising them. The new EvCom team was elected in october of 2012 and the four enthusiastic board members are ready to do their best to accomplish their mission.

How does the EvC work?

If an Antenna has decided to organise a European or an AEGEE event, except a Statutory Event, a Summer University or a Network Meeting, it has to contact the EvC first. And then the process goes as follows:

1. Make a plan with your local
2. Fill in the application form and send it to the EvC
3. Your application is evaluated by the EvC
4. While you are waiting for the reply of the EvC, you create an event on Intranet
5. You are informed by the EvC if your event is approved or not
6. If everything is fine we approve the event also on the Intranet and you can start the promotion.
7. If something is wrong or missing, we contact you and help to solve the problem. 

Filling in a form is not a big deal, but usually it used to be a problem to the locals to choose a Focus Area correctly. However this is the most important part of the application since it is the aim of the EvC to encourage the locals to organise events with thematical content. Organisers have to choose from the fields of Youth Participation, Bridging Europe and Inclusion of Minorities. Unfortunately most of the members in the Network do not really know what these topics are, but no worries; you can find the criteria in the Strategic Plan and the Action Agenda.

Future plans and present actions 

The EvC has a lot of ideas for the future. Soon the EvC homepage will be ready, where you can reach the application form easily, you can find the the descriptions of the Focus Areas there as well as all the other important information about the EvC .

There are plans to adjust the system of EVENT-L, but probably the biggest project will be the classification of the events by taking the guidelines of organising them more seriously.

Photo competition

Right now the EvC is working on making a collection of the pictures of last year’s events, for which a photo conest is hereby announced. Everyone is asked to send in photos of AEGEE-events of 2012, hoping to see which was the greatest one and for participants to share their memories with the rest of the network. The pictures will be uploaded on the Facebook page of the Events Committee so everyone can vote to their favourite ones. The winner gets the title „The Best Photo of 2012” and the chance to write a nice summary in The AEGEEan about his/her experience and memories of the event where the winner photo was taken. You can read about the details in the mailing lists or you can contact the EvC at  events@aegee.org

Even though the Events Committee is not “new born”, it is still in its infancy and it is believed that with persistence and hard work the EvC can make great changes and become an essential part of AEGEE.

Written by Liliána Tóth,  Speaker of the Events Committee