Halfway December a group of AEGEE members gathered in Utrecht for the Network Meeting (NWM) ‘Key to your AEGEE future’. It was a weekend full of brainstorming about AEGEE and developing your personal skills: two aspects you need in order to work on the key to your AEGEE future! The amount of sessions and social activities were well balanced, resulting in a productive and inspiring NWM that was very well hosted by AEGEE-Utrecht.

The participants were lodged in the ‘Centre for the World, Peace and Environment’, which sounded already as a suitable location for an AEGEE event. In the course of Friday evening, AEGEE members were arriving mainly from Dutch, Belgian, French and German locals. On behalf of the Comité Directeur (CD), Anna Gots from AEGEE-Kyïv was present to support and contribute to the NWM. Louise Noël, from the partner organization Board of European Students of Technology (BEST), joined the NWM as well.

The first important things was to get to know each other and to have a nice start of our time together in Utrecht. Therefore, a pub crawl was planned, where participants had to battle in groups against each other. Probably, the usual sense of mutual solidarity in AEGEE was even strengthened by the Christmas feeling that was present at all pubs and squares in town.

On the next morning the NWM was kicked off by a session about the Action Agenda Coordination Committee (ACT) and the Strategic Plan. CD member Anna Gots, Ana Potočnik from AEGEE-Ljubljana and Anna van den Berg from AEGEE-Groningen discussed the Action Agenda 2013-2014, which contains the concrete guidelines for AEGEE until August 2014. From the three focus areas, Youth Participation, Bridging Europe and Social Inclusion, aims were discussed and objectives that could be implemented by local boards were highlighted. During the conversation about Bridging Europe, the contribution from Anna Gots about the current situation in Ukraine, and the one from Rasim Zulfigarov (AEGEE-Bakı) about the tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan were very valuable. The overall message was that not only the CD, but also locals can easily implement the objectives of the Action Agenda in their local activities.

Louise Noël gave an introduction about BEST before Mayri Tiido from AEGEE-Tartu started her workshop about teamwork and communication. Don’t think you could have a rest sitting on a chair during that session! By means of small games, exercises and tasks, Mayri Tiido showed the importance of communication and explained you can make a big impact with small changes. Besides, improvisation games were played during this active session in order to trigger the participants’ creativity and to think out of the box.

And, how do you gain and keep enough AEGEE members? How do you gain and transfer the knowledge in your local? According to Dominique Lenssen from AEGEE-Leiden and Tom Simons from AEGEE-Enschede, your local needs a good Human Resources cycle, as they explained during their practical session about HR. As a part of the recruitment step, elevator pitches about AEGEE were developed and practiced. Furthermore, the importance and implementation of the integration of new members, their maintaining and their knowledge transfer steps in the HR cycle were discussed.

Besides, there is no progress in AEGEE without goal-setting. To achieve these goals, you need a good time management and motivation. These elements together formed the topic of the session given by Maartje Natrop from AEGEE-Utrecht, speaker of the AEGEE Academy (ACA). The participants were asked to think about their personal goals in AEGEE in 2014 and to determine the order of their priority. “Time management is not always that easy”, Maartje admitted. Therefore she handed the crucial ingredients for a good time management. With this eye-opening session, we were all ready to achieve our goals in 2014!

It was time for drinks, dinner and a good night out in Utrecht. Even more participants arrived and local members from AEGEE-Utrecht joined as well. It was time to relax and to look back at the inspiring sessions. Eventually it was time to dance together in the historical cellars of Utrecht, located adjacent to canals in the city centre.

On Sunday, already the last whole day of the NWM, we started with a brainstorm session about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the locals that were present. Members of the same local gathered together and made a SWOT analysis of their local which they presented to the group. It became clear the locals present have aspects in common but also differ a lot from each other. A weakness that have several locals in common, is a low numbers of (active) members. The presence of many other student associations besides AEGEE was often considered as a threat to the locals. Large differences were observed in the knowledge transfer, the fundraising possibilities, the activity on European level and the number and character of local activities. We could see how other locals are organized and we could learn a lot from each other.

CD member Anna Gots gave an update on the AEGEE Identity presented and ratified during the Autumn Agora 2013 in Zaragoza. She gave an inspiring speech about the importance of our identity and her strong belief in it was convincing and motivating to come in action. During a brainstorming session, the tools, mission and vision of AEGEE were implemented in new elevator pitches.

Do you know all countries in the European Union? Do you know all countries in which you can pay with Euro? Matthijs Overhaal visualized Europe with the help of the participants and explained more details about the history, challenges and future of the EU and the European Parliament. This session was logically followed by a session on the Y Vote 2014 project, given by Léa Charlet from AEGEE-Paris, Project Manager of the Y Vote 2014 project. Léa explained the approach of the project, which aims to motivate and increase the number of young European citizens that will vote during the European Parliament elections taking place in May 2014. We contributed to the program by thinking about ways to promote the project and the elections. How would you motivate young people on the street or at your university to vote?

Iris Hordijk from AEGEE-Utrecht, former speaker of the Environmental Working Group (EnWG) and the current Policy Officer on Sustainability, gave a session on sustainable development. There was a brainstorming session about sustainability in our universities in order to contribute to Iris’ position paper on this same topic.

The final session of the day was offered by the Dutch National Youth Council (NJR). As external trainers, they succeeded very well in implementing many aspects of AEGEE and the NWM in their session. They focused on the planning and structure of projects. The session ended with the question: how would you describe this NWM in one word? Among others, the NWM was labelled as inspiring, different, motivating and awesome.

As an overall impression of the NWM, it can be said there was a good balance between session with an AEGEE topic and sessions about personal development. The NWM has been considered by many participants as very good and productive. There was enough time and space to have discussions, to inspire each other, to make new friends, to have fun and to create lots of memories and new plans.

Thanks to AEGEE-Utrecht, thanks to our Network Commissioner Dominique Lenssen, thanks to all the trainers of this NWM and thanks to all the participants for the inspiring, motivating, awesome event!

Written by Margo van Berkum, AEGEE-Leiden

Pictures taken by Sandrine Lafay, AEGEE-Leiden

In Agora Zaragoza we saw changes to the Network Commission. Emotional goodbyes had to be said to Claudio Armandi, Bartek Sudorowski, Pilar Lop, Inez Wenta, and Andra Toma. At the same time the ZarAgora gave a warm welcome to Arsenis Tselengidis, Pauline Létard, Holger Schmidt, Mateusz Dokurno and Mattia Abis. In this NetCom telegram you will get to hear about what Bartek, Inez, Vira, Dominique, Patricia, Pauline and Claudio did the months prior to the big event in Zaragoza, while working for the Network Commission. 

Bartek

Bartek Sudorowski

Recently I have been struggling with an unpleasant event in my family life. This was the main reason that I decided o detach from any other activities for a short period of time. However, that does not mean that I did not work. I am working on preparation for Autumn Network Meeting together with my fellow Network Commissioner Inez Wenta and AEGEE-Poznań. I am also keeping in touch with the coordinators of EBM in Lublin. I have a fresh update of progress on the preparation of the project. From 6th to 12th September I was co-organizing the Academic Campus Swinoujscie 2013, the event where freshmen students can adapt to students’ life. I was promoting AEGEE and I was giving trainings on PR, HR, and public speaking. I also have changed the team of AEGEE.pl website and am working on finalizing the work. Moreover I’m working on the expansion of the Network, but this case is so fresh that I don’t want to say anything more about it untill it will happen.

Claudio

Claudio Armandi

I cannot write my last NetCom Telegram without getting a bit emotional. It’s been a great year that will leave me with a lot of wonderful memories. They normally say “Netcommie once, Netcommie forever”. I will feel always a bit responsible and protective towards my beloved locals, even if I am sure they will be in safe hands for the upcoming years.

In August, most of my locals were busy with their Summer Universities and they sometimes needed just small advise. Two of my Contacts were busy preparing their statutes for the big moment in which they signed the Convention d’Adhésion in Zaragoza.

September has been quite hectic. There were many candidates from my locals, and I was in touch with all of them. Furthermore, many locals needed a bit of assistance for Agora-related bureaucracy. In this month I also selected participants for my last Network Meeting in Foggia and defined the program.

September was also the month of my final and biggest achievement. Italian locals finally submitted an official request to join their national Youth Forum. It was the only point in my plans that I hadn’t fulfilled yet. Now I can say I did my homework!

Dominique

Dominique Lenssen

Now Summer has ended and everything is getting back to normal. Well, ‘normal’…. With the Agora coming closer and closer, my work as a NetCommie was as busy as always! Staying in touch with locals to remind them about all the deadlines, answering questions, checking the status of locals together with Beata Matuszka and so on.

Where August was for my locals all about gaining new members during their introduction weeks, September was the month in which the boards of most of my locals changed. This meant getting to know the new board members! A perfect opportunity to do this are ‘constitution drinks’, where board members come to a local to congratulate the new board. I have been to these meetings of AEGEE-Enschede, AEGEE-Delft and AEGEE-Leiden, which was a perfect opportunity to meet many new boards at the same time.

Also the preparations for the NWM are going well. In my last Activity Report you could read that the NWM would take place in Nijmegen, but due to logistical reasons this has been moved to Utrecht. The theme for NWM Utrecht is ‘Key to your AEGEE future’, so apply now if you want to learn everything about the future of AEGEE, the development of your local and so much more in the beautiful city of Utrecht.

Inez

Inez Wenta

The Summer ended, but… the whole new academic year started! As you know there’re many new boards starting their work, so also many hours of knowledge transfer! It’s great to see all the motivation and passion for AEGEE and I hope everyone will succeed in their amazing plans.

Also preparation for the NWM Poznań “Share your secret. AEGEE Know-How.” started to be really intensive. Together with Bartek and the coordinator Justyna Zielska from AEGEE-Poznań, we want to create an unforgettable experiance for you all. I hope that this will be the opportunity to meet, discuss and create new ideas for people all over the Network!   Almost 200 AEGEEans in one place? And it’s not EBM? It’s possible! Just come to Poznań!

I’m very happy to say that I see the Network evolving and exploring new grounds – amazing projects are coming up! We’re trying to make some more steps. Even if Summer ended and we’re again working and studying, in the new academic year we gain a fresh start, great ideas and an amazing amount of positive energy! How can you not love AEGEE?

Vira

Vira Kakhnych

It has been a stressful month due to Agora preparations and organizing a Network Meeting. Trying to keep in constant contact with a variety of AEGEEans (considering a huge time difference) was very challenging. A big huge ‘thank you’ to my subcommissioners and the excellent team of Rostov-na-Donu for their efficiency in collaboration and great ideas. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to attend this Agora, but I have heard it was awesome.

I would also like to take this opportunity and welcome the new colleagues in Network Commission! Guys, I wish you all the best for this term! Welcome to our family!

Patricia

Patricia Anthony

Before the Agora I was finishing up my internship in Valladolid (Spain) and at the same time I had to deal with personal health matters. Luckily I have an amazing team helping with preparation of the upcoming Network Meeting in Tartu. Maria Arends and Sergio Oliveros have been working hard on preparing the program for it and I am sure that it will be great and I am beyond jealous that I cannot go, as taking part in NWMs is one of my favorite things in AEGEE. Instead I keep trying to find ways to help the antennae from home with improving and before the Agora I tried in every possible way to ensure that the delegates came prepared to Spain, and indeed they came to Zaragoza full of knowledge about the event.

Pauline together with fellow Network Commissioner Mattia Abis – Picture courtesy of Golden Times

Pauline Létard

October was a month quite busy for me because I have been preparing the Agora in three ways. First as a delegate of AEGEE-Toulouse, I read all the candidatures, proposals and activity reports and talked about it with my antenna and some friends of mine. Then as subcommie, I worked together with Pilar and the Tripulación 5.1 to make sure all the delegates of our area were getting all the information needed for the Agora through the Facebook group we created. Guillermo Macia Diaz, from AEGEE-Alicante, summed up the proposals in Spanish. Based on his work, we wrote a guide for delegates in English: a sum up of the proposals and a voting guide “how to choose the best candidate”. I contacted all the bodies whose members would be elected at the Agora in order to give to the delegate an idea of what is the “ideal candidate” for the positions concerned. Thirdly I was also preparing the Agora as candidate for Netcom. For this reason this Agora was really special for me, a new step in my AEGEE life, the Agora during which I became Netcommie!

Written by the Network Commission