In the north of Britain, pass the point where Wales breaks off from England and where the River Mersey makes its way to the sea, lies the city of Manchester. It’s a city that was once famous for its textile industry and its factories giving off noxious gases. However, time has changed. The textile mills don’t spin on the scale they once did, and large sections of the city have been demolished or re-developed. And in these new times, an AEGEE-local has sprouted and eagerly looks forward towards the future.

The AEGEEan: Could you tell us who are behind AEGEE-Manchester?

AEGEE-Manchester: The three founding members of AEGEE Manchester are Domitille, Pablo and Bryn, and since December 2015, Claire, Jeremy and John are members of our board. We are an international team, with a third of us being British!

As President, Domitille is a motivating and energising leader who always challenges us to dream big. Pablo is our most experienced AEGEEan bringing knowledge and guidance from his original antenna in Alicante. Being responsible for Human Resources, Bryn keeps in contact with all our members and tries to make them active. For fun and entertainment we have Claire, our party girl and European Youth Parliament member. Jeremy joined our team to help us with our fundraising while John is our treasurer: he’s the one responsible for the money, so make sure you treat him nicely!

What kind of activities or events has AEGEE-Manchester recently organised?

Since signing the convention d’Adhesion in April 2015, as a team in Manchester we have organised:
– a 3 day, 2 night RTC hosting 11 members from across the UK, with 2 international trainers
– various local events such as bar crawls, movie nights, political discussions and European food night

– we’ve also had members attending Agora, NWMs, EPMs and SUs European Night out with other national societies such as Francophone, Italian and Turkish.

In your opinion, what are the appealing qualities of AEGEE in general and AEGEE-Manchester in particular as a student association/forum for students in Britain to join?

AEGEE-Manchester is a small and friendly antenna where it is easy to make new friends from across Europe. In British universities you can join hundreds of societies depending on your degree or your nationality. But AEGEE-Manchester is the only one that brings you the awesome opportunity to go abroad and meet people from other nationalities or other degrees. Life is better if you mix a little bit!

Do you sometimes collaborate with other AEGEE locals, in Britain and beyond?

We keep in good communication with all other antennas in the UK, and have hosted people from different cities.

We enjoy welcoming others to Manchester and have hosted people from Liverpool, Aberdeen, London, Madrid, and Kyiv.

Following our weekend in Leiden for the EPM, we are hoping to see further collaboration with AEGEE-Canterbury and AEGEE-London particularly on the UK’s favourite hot topic of the moment!

Is AEGEE-Manchester engaged, in any capacity, to events, campaigns, and other projects regarding the upcoming EU referendum in the UK?

AEGEE-Manchester is currently working on a 2 day event around the UK-EU relationship which we will be holding in May. This event will be organised with participation from other student societies and EU referendum groups. We would like to offer a different narrative that focuses on the positive relation between the UK and the EU.

Could you tell us something about AEGEE-Manchester’s future plans?

Our immediate plans are to be upgraded to a full antenna in Agora Bergamo and assist in the referendum as we’ve mentioned above. We will continue to be active in sending our members to European events and organising local events to gain and activate new members. For the future we are also looking into hosting a NetWorkMeeting, but nothing can quite be confirmed. And finally, that question people always want to get the answer… a Summer University in the UK…??? Well AEGEE-Manchester doesn’t yet have the strength or the finances but this has always been a personal dream of Bryn’s and he’s said even if he has to stay in AEGEE until he is 50 years old he will make it happen!

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen

From the 2nd until the 4th of May, AEGEE-Manchester organised a Regional Training Course (RTC). As its name says, this RTC was ready to connect different members of the network to learn, share experiences and work together. We interviewed Bryn French, organiser, and Katharina Lawall, trainer, to find out more about it.

The AEGEEan: How did you come up with the idea of organising a Regional Training Course?
Bryn: AEGEE is really starting to grow in the UK and so we needed some training in order to help our antennas grow in the right direction. Organising a Regional Training Course was an opportunity to bring together different members from across the network to share our knowledge and experiences. As Manchester is a fairly new local it gave us a project to work towards to and helps us fulfill antenna criteria in order to be upgraded from Contact Antenna to Antenna as soon as possible.

What were the best moments in organising the event?
The highlight of the event for me was our final dinner. Through Pablo’s close attention to the pennies throughout the event we were able to splash out a bit extra and enjoy a fantastic meal at a local restaurant on the Curry Mile, one of Manchester’s specialities. Treating everyone to an indulgent meal was a real pleasure and it was great to see the friendships we had created over the course of the weekend.

What were the difficult moments in organising the event?
At one stage before the event we did not have accommodation, and we did not have a place to do the training. We were seriously concerned about how we were going to do it all. Fortunately things worked out, so do not panic and never give up!
However, the accommodation was on the other side of the city from the university training rooms and so I personally found transport the most stressful thing to organise. We were able to travel in style, getting taxis everywhere, but it took a lot of coordination.

How did the RTC go? Was it productive?
The RTC was extremely productive as we achieved a number of the aims. Firstly, Manchester showed that we can organise a European event and show our participants a good time. Secondly, the trainers were enthusiastic and informative and developed a good ethos in the group. Thirdly, the participants were all able to contribute something positive and also gain something to take away from the event. Finally, communication and collaboration between antennas was established and improved.

Can you brief us shortly on your programme?
The programme focused on how to motivate our members and get more people to join AEGEE. We had training sessions on teamwork, communication, leadership and public relations. For the social programme we were able to host a city tour and show our participants two different night life scenes in Manchester

What is your overall impression of the RTC?
Katharina: I really enjoyed the RTC and was impressed by how well and with how much energy the team from Manchester organised everything for us, even though they are were not so many. It showed me that so much is possible if lots of enthusiastic people work together. I was also really impressed with our participants who were so enthusiastic and eager to learn even though we had very packed training days and, as in all good AEGEE events, very little sleep.

What was the structure and thematic of the training sessions?
We wanted to design a training that would respond to what all the different UK locals present at the training course needed the most right now: a big focus was therefore on Human Resources and recruitment, but also included training sessions on Public Relations, Teambuilding, Leadership and communication in AEGEE. My co-trainer Maria Arends and me prepared and then facilitated the sessions mostly together which was great!

What was the biggest challenge you encountered during the event?
The biggest challenge for us was to design trainings which were appealing and valuable to all the participants as they were a real mix from experienced AEGEE oldies to very new members. On the other hand, I think this actually turned out to be one of our greatest assets as it allowed very dynamic sharing and learning between the participants!

Anything else you would like to add?
Just that it was a pleasure to give my first training course in Manchester and that I thouroughly enjoyed every bit of it. AEGEE in the UK is alive and kicking and I hope Manchester will invite us over for a next event very soon.

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Sofia/Thessaloniki

After several new contacts in Russia and Belgium, on the 19th of December it was announced that AEGEE-Europe is also expanding to England with a new contact in Manchester. The AEGEEan spoke to Pablo Palazón, member of AEGEE-Alicante, to find out more about the newest contact!

Pablo Palazón

Pablo Palazón got in contact with AEGEE in 2013, when he became a member of AEGEE-Alicante. “I went to a Summer University in Torino and became quite active. I ended up being the treasurer of the amazing Summer University of AEGEE-Alicante last year!” However, when he moved to Manchester last August, he noticed that there is a big need for organisations fostering Europtimism in the United Kingdom. “I was missing my AEGEE life so much that I decided to start working on the recovery of this AEGEE experience”, he says. “I had so many AEGEE friends wiling to visit me in Manchester too that I just needed to give them a good reason to come here!”

Bryn French

After Pablo met Bryn French, a member of AEGEE-Durham living in Manchester, the two guys agreed to found an AEGEE contact in Manchester. They got in contact with Domitille Simon, who founded the European Union Society in the University of Manchester some weeks before, and started to work together.  Together with the members that the European Union Society already had, the three are full of plans for the upcoming year. “We want to take advantage of the great opportunities that AEGEE offers, so we would be really happy to send people to European events”, Pablo explains. “We will be focused on recruiting members and activating the ones we already have! We are also planning to organise an event in May and open it to the AEGEE network and our Nordic Stars.”

To attract new members, there are plans to be present at the students’ fair that will take place in January at the University of Manchester. “We will organise interesting local events for members and we also want to have a good Summer University campaign”, Pablo says. “The relationship between the UK and Europe is one that is continually debated here, and we believe we can bring some much needed Europtimism!” Luckily, with help from other AEGEE-locals like AEGEE-Alicante, AEGEE-Dresden, AEGEE-London and AEGEE-Sheffield and support from Jorge Sánchez Hernández and Pablo Hernández, the new contact has more than enough support in order to achieve their plans and bring some Europtimism to the United Kingdom again.

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen