Spring Agora Enschede was over not long ago, but Autumn Agora Catania is approaching very fast and there is just one thing between being an applicant and a participant: the application.

The first thing to know is: who is going to read your applications? The Chair Team, in cooperation with the Comité Directeur, is the one in charge of selecting participants. And in case you are wondering, yes, the Chair Team will read ALL your motivation letters. Despite the fact that in the team we speak more or less a dozen languages, and ironically two of us are Italian, all your motivation letters should not be in the language of the hosting local of the Agora. The working language of our General Assembly is English, therefore while writing your application remember to use English, and English only. Do not worry if your written English is not the best, as long as you will be able to put a sentence in the right order subject + verb + complement(s), we will definitely understand you.

What to write in it? The application system is helping a bit by giving some outline questions that can help you in drafting the text.

1. Why do you want to participate in this Agora?

2. What do you know about the Agora?

3. How can you contribute to this Agora?

4. What is your AEGEE experience?

5. Since when are you an AEGEE member?

You don’t necessarily have to answer in that order. For example, you can start by describing the highlights of your AEGEE experience and when you joined AEGEE. If you are a new member and you did not have a chance to be active in your local, explain what are your expectations towards the association and the Agora. When asked to explain what you know about the Agora, do not write “enough to attend” or copy and paste what the CIA says about it. What does even mean “enough”? Each Agora is different, so try to go more in depth and describe what Agora means and is to you, what the General Assembly is for AEGEE.

What if you never attend an Agora? Don’t worry, usually up to half of the participants are at their first statutory event. Here you can write how you discovered about Agora, what do you expect the Agora to be. You can also talk with more experienced members, your local boards or even the Network Commissioners and ask what our General Assembly looks like, thus having a better picture of it. Don’t write that you never been to Agora and that’s all, but show that, even if at your first experience, you are eager to learn and participate.

How you can contribute to this Agora is a subjective questions, but in this field you can specify if you are thinking to hold a workshop or a progress meeting, if you are thinking to present something in the plenary, if you would like to help other delegates or visitors with your knowledge or even if you want to run for an elective position. After answering all these questions, why you want to attend the Agora will come easily. And no, getting fatter with heavenly delicious Sicilian food will not be considered a good motivation, even thought we all know that Local organisers are working hard to have the best food possible [Of course, no pressure on you here! she winks, ed.].

Don’t leave it empty, don’t type random words or don’t put just smiles on it. Especially empty applications mean automatical rejection if you are a visitor. Even if you are most likely to be accepted – if you are a delegate or member of a European body – writing a good motivation letter is always a plus. Definitely, it would be perfect to state at least the body you are representing or what you are going to do during the Agora.

What you SHOULD NOT write on it. Avoid having the desire to visit Sicily as your only motivation to go to the Agora. You can book some days before or after the Statutory Event will take place to do that. Don’t say that you will go to the beach instead of attending plenaries, don’t use as your main engine coming to Catania with the intention of meeting friends, discovering a new culture or being a party animal. Those things are nice, but they are not in line with the purpose of our statutory events.

Locals’ boards are important too. They have the faculty of creating a ranking for visitors and assign the participant type (when it is not decided by the local agora) and to leave comments. In this cases, the best thing to do is to be honest. Do not copy and paste the motivation letter of other applicants from your local, but also do not copy and paste board comments for every single member who applied, especially if you do not make an effort to at least change their gender. If you think that several people are promising and more or less equally good, change the words you use for each one of them, personalise your comment. Indeed it is true that boards do not know all the members personally, especially with big locals. In case this happens, and you do not know the applicants, then find a moment to talk with them in order to understand better their motivation to go to the Agora. Locals’ Boards are important also to prepare a bit members who are coming to the Agora. Treat our General Assembly as a Summer University when it comes to the applications. How much effort do we put in making sure that all the members who applied for a SU have a solid motivation letter? Then, try to check also what members of your locals are writing for the Agora. It’s a good way to have all the applicants coming from your local accepted, and an occasion to prepare them already for the event to be.

You can apply for Autumn Agora Catania till the 21st of July here. Locals’ Boards can set a participant type and add board comments until the 25th of July using this link.

For any questions, you can reach the Chair Team here or send an email at chair@aegee.org

Written by Erika Bettin, Chairwoman of Autumn Agora Catania 2017

Spring Agora Enschede is approaching very fast and there is just one thing between being an applicant and a participant: the application.

The first thing to know is: who is going to read your applications? The Chair Team, in cooperation with the Comité Directeur, is the one in charge of selecting participants. And in case you are wondering, yes, the Chair Team will read ALL your motivation letters. Despite the fact that in the team we speak more or less a dozen languages, ironically none of us is fluent in Dutch. Plus, the working language of the Agora is English, therefore while writing your application remember to use English only. Do not worry if your written English is not the best, as long as you will be able to put a sentence in the right order subject + verb + complement(s), we will definitely understand you.

What to write in it? The application system is helping a bit by giving some outline questions that can help you in drafting the text.

1. Why do you want to participate in this Agora?

2. What do you know about the Agora?

3. How can you contribute to this Agora?

4. What is your AEGEE experience?

5. Since when are you an AEGEE member?

You don’t necessarily have to answer in that order. For example, you can start by describing the highlights of your AEGEE experience and when you joined AEGEE. If you are a new member and you did not have a chance to be active in your local, explain what are your expectations towards the association and the Agora. When asked to explain what you know about the Agora, do not write “enough to attend” or copy and paste what the CIA says about it. Go more in depth and describe what Agora means and is to you, what the General Assembly is for AEGEE. What if you never attend an Agora? Don’t worry, usually up to half of the participants are at their first statutory event. Here you can write how you discovered about Agora, what do you expect the Agora to be. You can also talk with more experienced members, your local boards or even the Network Commissioners and ask what our General Assembly looks like, thus having a better picture of it.

How you can contribute to this Agora is a subjective questions, but in this field you can specify if you are thinking to hold a workshop or a progress meeting, if you are thinking to present something in the plenary, if you would like to help other delegates or visitors with your knowledge or even if you want to run for an elective position. After answering all these questions, why you want to attend the Agora will come easily. And no, eating stroopwafel will not be considered a good motivation, even thought we all love stroopwafel. [she winks, ed.]

Don’t leave it empty, don’t type random words or don’t put just smiles on it. Especially empty applications mean automatical rejection if you are a visitor. Even if you are most likely to be accepted – if you are a delegate or member of a European body – writing a good motivation letter is always a plus. Definitely, it would be perfect to state at least the body you are representing or what you are going to do during the Agora.

Locals’ boards are important too. They have the faculty of creating a ranking for visitors and assign the participant type (when it is not decided by the local agora) and to leave comments. In this cases the best thing to do is to be honest. Do not copy and paste the motivation letter of other applicants from your local, but also do not copy and paste board comments for every single member who applied, especially if you do not make an effort to at least change their gender. If you think that several people are promising and more or less equally good, change the words you use for each one of them, personalise your comment. Indeed it is true that boards do not know personally all the members, especially with big locals. In case this happen, and you do not know the applicants, then find a moment to talk with them in order to understand better their motivation to go to the Agora.

You can apply for Spring Agora Enschede till the 23rd of March here. Locals’ Boards can set a participant type and add board comments until the 25th of March using this link.

For any questions, you can reach the Chair Team here or send an email at chair@aegee.org

Written by Erika Bettin, Interim Vice-Chairwoman of Spring Agora Enschede 2017

Summer is appoaching and in only few days applications for Summer Universities will close. Writing a motivation letter is always very tiring and sometimes you don’t know what to write, maybe that’s why we keep on putting it off? Therefore here is a guide to help you write a winning motivation letter.  You have already chosen your dream destination for the Summer University of your life. You have successfully logged in (extremely important step) with working username and password from the Intranet. So what to do next?

• Create an IDEA for your motivation letter, which should reflect how passionate your are to participate in this particular SU and not any other. It can be some imaginary story, some personal facts which lead you to this SU, your real experience, a fairytale or an interview. We don’t put limits to your creativity. Be sincere and work on it.

• Why exactly do you want to participate in this Summer University? Is it because you adore W.I.N.E. or just because Dublin has always been on the top of your travel list as you want to find Leprechauns? Maybe you have always been dreaming to be a part of cycling lifestyle, therefore you just NEED to participate in Burgundian Bicycles Vol. III SU? Your Grandma comes from Transnistria and your goal is to go back to your roots? Or you just simply don’t think that a trip to Lake Baikal will be complete without crazy AEGEEans? The key to a successful motivation letter is to explain your real motivation, connected to the topic of the SU (not just “I want to lie on Sicilian beaches”). It may sound too obvious, but that’s the way it is. Decide on the concept of your motivation letter and the best way to express it.

• Be sure your motivation follows a structure. Good news – it is up to you to decide what this structure should look like. However, it is always nice to greet the one who reads your text, to introduce yourself in terms of the topic of the SU, to divide your text into separate paragraphs, connect them with the linking words, to tell some nice stories from your life etc, and to say goodbye in the end. You can establish quite formal structure or to speak to your organisers like to your friends or relatives, if your writing style allows it.

• C for creativity. What about some additions? We believe that every person in the world is really talented. This is a platform to express your talents! You may sing a song, especially if you wrote it for the SU, draw a nice picture connected to the topic, make a photo collage, write a poem, make a video, do infographics, a PowerPoint presentation, a website with funny facts, whatever. Note: adding these things does not guarantee that you will be automatically accepted. Therefore you really should watch the quality of what you send, filter your ideas and follow one concept. For instance, don’t send just an introductory selfie-video: most probably, it won’t be that original for you to be accepted.

• Be concise and try to keep your letter short! Not everyone enjoys reading novels or long films as motivation letters. Time may be the most valuable resource in the world, so be respectful about it – don’t put the same ideas twice and use only those that are worth it.

• If you think your English is not that good… Don’t think so. Most of the participants are not native speakers, therefore, nobody will blame you if you wrote something wrong. However, for better impression you should proofread your text and correct some typos or mistakes. And practice English before the SU! 

• Fun is always a good idea. We all are young generation of amazing Europeans who really value good sense of humour, which is suitable for this informal style of writing.If you include some jokes or funny facts, it will be easier for you to attract people. Take it in consideration especially when you answer the three questions from organisers in the end. But please remember that you shouldn’t include jokes that are too radical or too personal.

• Read your motivation letter once again when you are finished. Not just to check the mistakes, but to answer the question: if you were an organiser, would you accept yourself as participant? If your objective answer is “yes”, then your chances are very high.

Good luck with your applications and enjoy the #summerofyourlife! We hope everyone manages to get a place in the Summer University of their dreams.

Written by Yevgeniya Gagarkina, Summer University Coordination Team

There is a very good proverb almost in every language which in English sounds like «repair your cart in December; in July your sledge remember», meaning if you want to get the result in the nearest future you have to start working on it now. The best result and a lot of improvements are the aims of the new Summer University Coordination Team (SUCT) elected at the amazing Autumn Agora Zaragoza 2013. So after only a little time to rest from Zaragaza they had an internal meeting in Brussels.

So these are the elected, self-called ‘Fantastic four’ – Francesca Russo, Project Manager (president of AEGEE-Padova), Gerardo Garcia Diaz, Publication Responsible (PR Responsible of AEGEE-Oviedo), Anna Pykhtina, PR-Responsible (PR Responsible of AEGEE-Kyiv) and Andrea Nostro, IT-Responsible (president of AEGEE-Reggio Calabria).

Cooking Lunch

Waffles, Belgian fries (yes, not French, not American but Belgian), beer, Grande Place and Manneken Pis – are things that the team did not have time to try or see. The most popular words that could be heard from the room during the long but productive meeting were: participants and organizers, quality and cooperation, improvements, implementations and lunch – “when is the lunch”?

Woken up by four alarm clocks early Sunday morning, the team gathered in the meeting room and started to brainstorm with sharing fears and expectations. New improvements are good, but everyone agreed that printing and delivering SU maps to locals on time is one of the more important things to do. Having a list with more than 25 things to discuss, they started with imagining what the perfect SU should look like. This was the most important thing for the team to be sure to move in the same direction and achieve the desirable result. The discussion lasted until late in the night. These are the nine main things you need to know:

1. Categories:

All activities in a Summer University, as usual, should be linked to the theme which is taken from one of the suggested categories. It doesn’t count as theme if there is only one or two activities fitting to it. (Not to confuse things, here is an example: Category = Environment, Theme = Recycling). You can find the categories below:

After eight hours of discussion

• language
• environment
• training
• local culture / history
• sports
• volunteering (work camps)
• arts / creativity / culinary
• politics / active participation
• other / miscellaneous

2. The cooperation with European level bodies:

The collaboration with AEGEE’s working groups, projects and commissions is continuing! Each of them are ready to contribute by creating great content. The bodies will submit their information before the 13th of December, so every local can see what they could gain from a cooperation. After choosing the European Level body to work with, there will be a chat meeting with the respective body, the local and a SUCT representative.

3. Compulsory sessions:

The implementation of compulsory sessions was a good (but late) idea for the last Summer and caused a lot of controversy. For some organizers it was boring and easy to skip, but it was so sad to get «zero» on the evaluation, right? As the SU is still the tool (in most locals) for getting new members who might become active afterwards, a SU should be much more than only partying and sunbathing. The Comite Directeur will share materials on the six different topics and each organizer team will have to choose two. They will be connected to the Strategic Plan and EBM topic. The SUCT will prepare a guideline explaining how to present them and to make them into a useful and fun discussion, not a boring monologue. They will also make sure this is done on time this year.

4. Learning objectives:

As the SUCT wants to improve the content, the cooperation does not only consist of giving the organizers a set of possible activities, but also set ‘learning objectives’. Learning objectives define what the participants will take away from the SU and what they will learn during the two weeks experience (example: participants will increase their photography skills). When the locals send their proposals for SUs with website form, an external team will check the learning objectives part. Each WG or Project can propose some Learning Objectives to the SUs that wish to collaborate with them.

5. Improvement of low-evaluated SUs work:

To help locals whose SUs were badly evaluated, a mentorship system will be created. After research by the team, a letter will be sent with two options (1) collaboration with another local who will be the “coach”  or (2) obligatory attendance of SUPS -which will be organized in March. And if the local has a lack of Human Resources they can ask for extra organizers. These people will be checked by the SUCT to assure that they are acting as organizers and that they are improving the SU content, not using it as vacation.

6. Wider choice of SUs for people with disabilities:

AEGEEans who listened attentively to the presentation of Andrea at the Agora, will remember that one of his ideas was to support people with disabilities better and provide them with a wider choice of SUs they could attend. So this year the system is changed, and disabled people will be able to select among all the SUs and whether they will be selected is up to the organizers. Along with these applications will come a letter from the SUCT suggesting to think carefully about the acceptance of this participant. And useful information, guidelines and successful stories by locals who organised SUs open to disabled, will be attached as well.

Brainstorming

7. Respect the work of organizers:

In order to avoid absurd complaints of new members who expected something different from a SU, a “disclaimer” will be created as a part of the application form.  Some organizers have already written and printed them by themselves. To decrease the amount of work, “disclaimer” will look like the “terms and conditions” form which each applicant has to read before sending their application. The main information about the format of the SU and a statement that all the organizers are volunteers will be included.

8. Problematic participants and their motivation letters:

Participant are not perfect and we love them because of that. Nevertheless, a lot of fresh members were not prepared and lied in their motivation letters about their amazing experience. There is a story about the guy who decided to leave the SU because he actually came to find a job and didn’t know that he has to stay with the group and take part in the activities. He took the place of someone who deserved that more, but how could organizers know that he was lying? Another problem is a blank motivation letter, an inappropriate one or a badly written one. It means that the outgoing responsible did not perform their task properly and that the applicant doesn’t pay much attention to the most important criteria of selection process.

Each outgoing responsible should check the truth written in a motivation letter and add a comment if it is needed. Andrea improved the panel for the SUCT so they will now easily find copy-pasted comments and letters so be smart and write your own and honest motivation. From now on, each motivation letter should have minimum of 500 characters. Other boxes cannot be empty either, but they won’t have a strict limitation. If these criteria are not filled, the application will not be sent.

9. Contests between participants and collaboration with our beloved AEGEEan:

Colorful feedback from participants is a great thing to receive, and the SUCT really loved the amazing summer pictures from the participants so this contest will continue! The rules of the photo- and video contest might change, but they will be posted online before the start of the first SU. And SU-stories in AEGEEan are a favorite for everyone, so this year the SUCT will create the contest between all of them and announce the results traditionally during the Autumn Agora in Cagliari.

All this new information might cause some discussions, but read it carefully and feel free to ask the SUCT any questions you might have.

Written by: Anna Pykhtina, PR-Responsible Summer University Coordination Team