Pick a topic; any topic, occupation, skill or subject and you will find a multitude of how-to guides in stores or online. Grossing over 1800 guides the For Dummies guides might be the very first of these to come to mind. However, until recently there wasn’t a guide yet that could tell you how to deal with the various aspects any member of AEGEE might encounter during his or her membership.

Go online, then go to the Members Portal and you will find a collection of eight, of which three still upcoming, how-to manuals, which are called toolkits. As the name suggests, these toolkits could prove to be very convenient whenever in a stressful situation. After all, a helpful tool could already do half the work for anyone. 

Back to our past

The first of the five already published toolkits is on the most fundamental of mankind’s philosophical questions and rightwing parties’ most vocally expressed standpoint: Identity. Much like the Bohemian artists in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge the identity of AEGEE and its members could be summed up in four pillars; vision, mission, means and statement of principles. While they might not seem as interesting to a reader as the exclamations of ‘beauty’, ‘truth’, ‘freedom’ and ‘love’, these four pillars do contain a bit of those four bohemian ones in them. Vision is to strive for a democratic, diverse, borderless and integrated Europe, in which there is an esteemed place for young people’s participation. It is in short, an aspiration of the generally youthful members of AEGEE for all to be able to enjoy and shape the different cultural flavours, which are in such a rich abundance on the European continent.

How to achieve this mission? Every European themed activity attended by every member of AEGEE had in fact paved the way for this vision. The international themes of these activities were not merely a decoration, but to either a greater or lesser extend something that made members more aware of the interconnections of the various cultures and likeminded communities throughout Europe. This in its proper terms gets summed up in the statement of principles, using keywords to describe the vision, mission and means: diversity, cooperation, freedom, a strong Europe and progress.

As any child is formed by his or her upbringing from an early age onward, a community is also defined by its history. Generally a student association’s history goes as far back as its longest existing member, except for AEGEE. Using the History Toolkit any member can dig up some fun facts about their association using the smart timeline. AEGEE for instance is not very old, however, it does exist longer than the age of most of its individual members. It has been established even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the middle of the nineteen eighties at the height of the Reganite anti-communist offense during the Cold War.

In 1985 EGEE, as it was called then, was founded in Paris by representatives from six cities from each a different country. Although it was inspired by an earlier 1950’s student protest for a more integrated Europe in Strasbourg, the name was based on neither its foundation nor its inspiration. The name EGEE (États Généraux des Étudiants de l’Europe) is in fact an onomatopoeia of the Aegean, a sea whose costal shores are one of the contenders for the oldest democratic political system on earth. More specifically the Greek colony of Patras on the north-western most part of the Peloponnesos. Furthermore, the choice of referring to itself as an ‘États Généraux’ or an Estates General is a conscious one. In many European countries the Estates General or the ‘Commons’ is a political body where representatives who are not of nobility or clergy can take a seat in. Like the Estates General, AEGEE consists of common members representing the general population of their respective country or antenna or to put it differently, direct democratic representation: no elitism. To cut a long story short, next time someone says he or she is a member of AEGEE they are referring to an organisation, which values both proponents of classical and modern democracy.

Fundraising, Public Relations and Human Resources Cycle

Fundraising manual is a helpful tool, which shows that fundraising can occur in a number of ways. From public to private funding of either money or goods, it shows that fundraising thrives on a mutual gain. How do you get these mutually beneficial donations? Check out the toolkit. So next time, when an antenna organizes a barbecue, there might be a chance that the meat is free and fresh, funded from the local butcher.

When members go on a Summer University they might have noticed that in their home country AEGEE is viewed as an association, whereas abroad it is a forum or a union. As languages differ, so do the concepts their words try to articulate. So, when something is called an ‘association’ in French the word ‘forum’ might cover the concept of AEGEE best in English. Spanning thirty-five languages, there is a name for AEGEE in each and every one of them. For more interesting notes on how to promote an antenna, check out the Public Relations toolkit.

Finally there is the Human Resources Cycle, which could be seen as the Book of the Living combined with the Book of the Dead, but AEGEE style. From a member’s introduction to their entry into alumni-hood, there is one manual to help them all the way. This guide could be seen as the mother of all toolkits, since it combines bits of all the other published toolkits. It has parts of the four pillars of AEGEE, to which each member is subtlety introduced to from their introduction onwards. It shows how to promote AEGEE and deals a bit with AEGEE’s history and its fundraising. However, above all it gives aspiring mentors some convenient tips on how to excel at an introduction. Being a mentor or parent is never easy and sometimes people might wish there was a guide. However, as an aspiring mentor of an introduction, how could you resist a toolkit that refers to you as “angels”?

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen

What about the proposals’ process? Do you know the final result, but not what happened in between? Is what was obtained exactly what the proposers wanted to? If you wondered about at least one of these things, then keep reading the interview.

1. Change of the Visitors’ selection procedure

What actually changes with your proposal in the visitors’ selection process? How will this  influence next Agora selection?

Mattia Abis: The original proposal was a drastic change for the visitors’ selection procedure: we were trying to use the same procedure that locals are using for delegates’ selection. It means a voting at local Agora to create a ranking list of them which the Chair Team could use after. As everybody can imagine, this proposal created a huge debate and it has been modified.

What were the amendments? And are you satisfied with the result?

Mattia: Three amendments were presented: one by Mathijs Waegemakers (AEGEE-Enschede), which we rejected, a second one was made by Maurits Mink (AEGEE-Maastricht) which we accepted.  The third one, presented by Mário Branco (AEGEE-Paris), we rejected as well, but after a voting on the amendment the Prytanium wanted to keep it, however as we did not agree with the amendment we rejected it for a second time. The amendment was put to a vote in the plenary which approved it. So the final proposal was as follows: the selection is made by the Comité Directeur (CD) and Chair Team, while taking into account the ranking made by the local board.

The Proposal has been approved with 81% of votes in favour. Beyond what happend to our original proposal, I can say that we are satisfied: it was the first time we were presenting a proposal during a Prytania and it was wonderful to see how many people were involved in the discussion and that we contributed to improve our Association.

2. Nationality Quota for the Mediation Commission

When did you reach the decision of making this proposal and why?

Fabian Brüggemann: The decision to hand in the proposal concerning the nationality quota for the Mediation Commission was reached after the candidature presentations, realizing that we have 3 people sharing the same (Dutch) nationality. Talking to the representative of the Juridical Commission (JC) being present at the Agora we were told that they would probably be strict with interpreting the CIA. This would have meant that only two out of the three Dutch candidates – the ones with the most votes – would become members of the Mediation Commission. Having been president of the Mediation Commission for one year and a half, I know quite well that it is important to have different opinions and point of views in the Mediation Commission. So it is better to have 4 members (plus the JC President) than only three – which would have been the case if the CIA would have been applied strictly.

On the other hand, even if the JC would have said that one of the members was allowed to use his second (German) nationality, there could have been a case where – theoretically – the Mediation Commission takes a decision, after which an antenna suffering from that decision might say “but the way the Mediation Commission is composed is not according to the CIA! So your decision is not valid.” We wrote the proposal in order to prevent both of these possible problems.

You might say this is a lot “what if” and all this is very theoretical – and I do agree with that, but since we had the chance to avoid the above mentioned situations, we decided to go for it. So concretely the Network achieved more clarity and less uncertainty. Again, this is all very theoretical, but we decided to stick to our own rules and not just say “uh, we just do it the easy way”.

3. Decreasing the number of financial presentations & Change of the term of the internal financial year

What is the aim of the first proposal?

Anna Gots: The aim of the proposal was basically to ease both the life of Financial Director of AEGEE-Europe and of Agora members by lessening the amount of financial presentations at the Agora to the amount absolutely necessary to give a full overview of the finances of AEGEE-Europe.

And are you satisfied with the result? Were there any amendments?

Anna: There were no ammendments to the proposal suggested. I assume that’s because the proposal was developed much in advance and in cooperation with another experienced member: Tom Simons (AEGEE-Enschede). In fact, initially it was his idea that was successfully realised by this proposal.

Before your second proposal the internal financial year ended the 31st of July like your CD term. How  will things change after this proposal?

Anna: To be precise, last year the CD term officially ended on 31st of August, providing a shift of one month between the end of the internal financial year and the CD year. Since in Agora Budapest the term of CD was changed in a way that it should end on 31st of July, the aforementioned shift was lost, leaving the Financial Director not many chances to close internal financial year while still being in the office. So this proposal just fixed this discrepancy, returning things to normal.

Is it the result  you expected? Were there any amendments?

Anna: Indeed, it’s the result I’ve been aiming at. There was only one amendment suggested by the former Secretary General – Alma Mozgovaja – still during the process of online consultation, which I incorporated in the final version of the proposal. The amendment concerned the amount of days Financial Director can stay in the office after the end of his/her term. Namely the fact that it shouldn’t be more than seven days.

4. Removing the Main Fields of Action

Why did you decide to present this proposal? How did you come up with it?

Ana Potocnik: During the Identity meeting, where we were drafting the new Identity document with the Identity team and CD, we realized, that the Main Fields of Action do not reflect the reality of our organisation. They are not concrete and they do not describe what we do in AEGEE, some aspects of our work (especially that of the EnWG, HRWG, Health for Youth, and Youth UnEmployment) were not covered. Moreover in the survey we launched before Agora Budapest, more than 70% of our members stated that they believe AEGEE does not contribute to two of the Main Fields of Action (Higher Education and Peace and Stability). We (the Identity team) believed that the structure of the new Identity document -which was ratified by Agora Zaragoza, presents all aspects of AEGEE. This makes the Main Fields of Action an unnecessary element of the Identity. The Identity document that we have now consist of: VISION – what AEGEE dreams about, what do we want our future to look like, MISSION – how does AEGEE contribute to this future, MEANS – what exactly do we do and what are the tools to achieve the Mission, STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES – which values do we stand for.

Were there any amendments? And are you satisfied with the result?

Ana: Yes, we and the CD are satisfied. There was only one amendment, suggested by JC. Our team missed the fact that the Main Fields of Action are also mentioned in another part of the CIA. They suggested to avoid confusion and nonsense in the Statutes by changing this part as well. Besides that there was nothing, about which I was quite surprised. The proposal was accepted easier than I expected.

5. An updated AEGEE identity

How will members and Antennae benefit from this ?

Maria Arends: With this updated Identity, it is much clearer what AEGEE is actually about. That makes it easier to explain it to members and future members, as well as externals. Even though it might not be phrases you know by heart, from this you can remember and, more importantly, understand the scope of the association, which makes it much easier to share.

Are you satisfied with the result?

Maria: Personally yes, I am very happy with it. The reason why I wanted to join the Identity Meeting and later the team, is that I felt AEGEE’s structure was chaotic and hard to explain -even if you are an active member. That’s why I think it is much better now: now I know what to tell people!

For further information: https://www.zeus.aegee.org/statutoryvote/jc/view_public.php?proposal_id=54

Written by Cosmina Bisboaca , AEGEE-Torino

What does Europe sound like apart from the political debates about debts and power? Isn’t there something that created a deeper connection and understanding among different nations, a part of culture we all share? And what role did and does music still play in the process of European integration?

The event Music – Connecting People organized by AEGEE-Passau in cooperation with the music festival Young Classic Europe gathered people from all over Europe to deal with all these questions.

The European Union was first founded as an economic community but as Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, already indicated, it is above all a cultural community.

“If I could seize a fresh opportunity for the political integration of Europe, I would start from culture and not from the economy”, he said, illustrating what is the most important premise for successful European integration. Mutual understanding, exchange, awareness about a common past and a culture we all share are the foundations for a deeper integration and they make Europe come alive.

Music is a language that everyone can understand and that does not have to be translated. Today the unifying power of music is a topic that is addressed in many concerts, festivals and conferences where people from different nations are brought together to create and enjoy music.

Also during the event in Passau we were all able to experience this power. We sang, we danced and we went to a classical concert together, and even though we only spent one weekend together we could feel a great atmosphere and a special connection between the participants.

Having a look at the European history, we realised that the European roots lie way further back in the past. The engagement with the similarities and differences of music in Europe started long before the idea of political and economic integration in Europe was even born.

Already thousands of years ago, the Gregorian musicology existed as a common European style of music that stretched across Europe. Moreover, in the following centuries many composers were famous beyond the national borders and the coexistence of different cultures sometimes even created a completely new style of music.

One of our workshops for example was about ancient music in Andalusia, a combination between Christian, Arabic and Jewish music. Professional trainers taught us a lot and in the end our participants were able to play one of these songs themselves.

A cultural simulation game aimed to raise awareness about cultural differences. In groups, the participants made up their own cultural norms, composed a hymn and managed to overcome cultural borders by cooperating with other groups.

All in all, we had a great weekend, we learned a lot about music and intercultural communication and experienced a great atmosphere within the group of our participants. After this event my answer to whether music can really connect people and different cultures would definitely be yes.

Written by Veronika Hönes, AEGEE-Passau