And the Local of the Month of July is…. AEGEE-Udine. Located in north-east of Italy, AEGEE-Udine “in the last months was the most dynamic within my area (Italian speaking locals, AEGEE-Valletta and Contact of AEGEE-Europe in Lugano ed.), and probably in the whole Network” quoting the words of Mattia Abis, Network Commissioner (AEGEE-Cagliari). We spoke with the President Alberto De Nardi and two active members, namely Laura Garbelotto and Giancarlo Nicolò, about their past events and their upcoming plans.

The AEGEEan: Tell us a little bit about the history of your local.

Alberto: I could write a book! Where should I start? I’d say that we are experiencing a positive trend started more than one year ago, characterized by an increasing number of active members, projects, partnerships and promotional activities. In the first months of the year we introduced many changes, mainly with the purpose of giving visibility to the antenna and creating a distinctive image of the association to the external public: new logo and stickers, new t-shirt and hoody, new mascot (Mandi), new flag and banner, new web site. The next phase of this improvement process has just started. It will be deeper and it will take some time. It’s a structural change in the antenna and in the human resources management. We are introducing the committees, the mentor system and a kind of membership criteria that each member has to fulfill. It won’t be easy to implement, but the idea is to have active and motivated members from the moment of their subscription. They have to feel like part of a family and we wish that they don’t take the membership for granted, but as something that has to be conquered.

The AEGEEan: You organized a conference about CIEs (immigrants’ detention centers) and immigration problem in Europe. Why choose such a delicate topic? How was the reception?

Laura: We believe that caring about this topic is our responsibility, as citizens and AEGEE members. Being aware about the social and political reality around us doesn’t mean only to learn how to socialize and respect the different culture of the European natives. We need to consider also how the freedom of people’s mobility inside the European Union emphasizes the existence of an external border around Europe and raises the difference in the rights between European citizens and those who comes from outside, who do not have the same freedom of movement. After the conference, more than a few were surprised and astonished. People would have never expected that this could be happening inside the borders of the civilized and advanced EU, a few kilometers away from their houses, in the total silence of the mainstream media.

The AEGEEan: Not only Udine, but the entire region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The EVS Tour with Europe Direct was organized in Trieste, can you tell us more about that? Why Trieste?

Alberto: Despite the fact that our region, Friuli Venezia Giulia, is quite small, there are two universities: Udine and Trieste. As Udine is the only local of our region (AEGEE-Trieste was deleted during Autumn Agora Budapest 2012), we decided to promote AEGEE in the city of Trieste too. The promotion is of course not as intense as in Udine, but we still manage to publish some posts online about AEGEE events. The EVS Tour was organized by the youth association Europe Direct Trieste, and consisted in the organization of many events around the region to present the EVS project. We thought: what a good chance to promote AEGEE amongst youth locals. So we contacted them and attended two meetings introducing our association and activities.

The AEGEEan: The BBalkans were hit by floods and a lot of locals and members showed a lot of support. You organized an info desk to get funds/goods for the flood victims. How did you come up with the idea? How did it go?

Giancarlo: As soon as the floods hit the Balkans we wanted to do something to help our neighbors, so we decided to contact the local Balkan community. Udine is close to the border and lots of people from the Balkans live in our region. The first idea was to inform and make students aware of the situation, so we began to collaborate with other university associations in order to be more efficient, according to the Balkan example United we stand. The result was a conference to explain the project, to inform about the emergency, the sanitary problems, the needs and the collection points. Then we created an info-desk inside the university campus to give information and collect goods to ship to the flooded territories. The whole process was very difficult to manage due to time limits and very slow official communication channels of the university, but thanks to the AEGEE spirit the result was great.

The AEGEEan: AEGEE-Udine in the last year almost doubled the number of members and elected a brand new board. How do you deal with knowledge transfer and activating fresh members?

Alberto: At the moment,  knowledge transfer is the most important task of our local. That’s why we organized a Regional Training Course (RTC) in December and a Local Training Course (LTC) in April. The timing of the LTC was strategic: right after the end of the application period for the SUs, because we had the highest number of fresher members. The LTC took place for two full days during the weekend (no classes), far away from exam sessions, not overlapping other events and completely for free. Then we created an online database to store all the useful materials we need such as documents, forms, tool kits, flyers, presentations, contacts and so on. Finally, besides the direct knowledge transfer between each role of former and new board, we just started to introduce the mentor system and the committees as these are two powerful ways of training and integrating new members in the team.

The AEGEEan: Three of your members went to the European School 1 (ES1) in Enschede and one to the Summer University Project School (SUPS). How was it? How important are for you those kind of trainings?

Alberto: Besides them four, another member attended the Training for Trainers (T4T) and one more applied to the IT School, but it was unfortunately cancelled. Personally I attended the ES1 and I’m extremely satisfied with the program and the trainers of the Academy. We covered all the important managerial aspects for a local, the sessions were stimulating and most important the School was inspiring because I came back with some very useful suggestions that we already started to implement. In the same way, another member went to SUPS in Izmir and claimed that it was an incredible experience as well. Trainers were really experienced and motivating and they shared a lot of good ideas. So we strongly believe in the power and utility of trainings and European schools, we always push our members to attend them giving also a partial reimbursement.

The AEGEEans: What are the next plans of your local?

Alberto: First of all, our Travel Summer University, that will start in Ljubljana in a couple of days. We’ll spend seven days in Slovenia and seven in Italy. Everything is ready and we are very happy about the collaboration with AEGEE-Ljubljana. There is a big team of motivated organizers and the program is fantastic, so we have all the ingredients for a great event. But we have also started to work already on the next big event organized by our antenna…drum roll…the 3rd RTC in a row. The first two were memorable, so we are thinking to repeat it every year. Last year we had 60 participants and we reached the limit of the lodging place and we don’t expect less people to come this year. The dates are already set: 5th-8th of December.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia

“Where the hell is AEGEE?” That is one of the questions floating on Facebook at the moment, and AEGEE-Toulouse is behind it. The AEGEEan interviewed the antenna from France about the idea behind their project and how it is going with the project so far.

The idea was proposed by an old member of AEGEE-Toulouse one year ago, but the antenna did not manage to make the project happen while she was still a member. This year people started talking in the antenna about the project again and this time the decision to begin was stronger.

It all started during a brainstorm session in a Local Training Course, where they thought about the video “Where the Hell is Matt”. With so many antennae in AEGEE they agreed that this kind of videos would be a great idea to show how wide AEGEE expands across Europe.

The idea is that every antenna makes a little movement to the song Move your feet in front of a building or place that represents its town. AEGEE-Toulouse will then make a mix with all the videos they receive. “This project would be a great occasion to improve the visibility of AEGEE and it can also be a part of our project Bridging Europe!” is what AEGEE-Toulouse wrote on the official Facebook page of their project.

In the description of the project they ask antennae to do the filming in front of a special place in their city. AEGEE-Toulouse’s members decided to film themselves dancing on the Square of Capitole. “We chose the Capitol because it represents Toulouse; every big event runs through this square. It is also a meeting point for Toulousians, so we can say this is the real symbol of our town”, Laura Kaddour (Public Relations) and Nolwënn Piqeuet (Human Resources) say in the interview with The AEGEEan.

The project has been received very well by the Network. In less than one week there are more than 100 AEGEE members following the project on Facebook which AEGEE-Toulouse is very pleased with. When interviewed by The AEGEEan AEGEE-Toulose had not received any contribution or responses to their survey yet. This is normal as it is a new project and supposedly people need to have meetings with their antennae to talk about the project, so AEGEE-Toulouse is sure that the number will go from zero to plenty very soon.

Actually, just the day after the interview, AEGEE-Toulouse received a contribution from AEGEE-København and their vice-president, Karlis Kazins, says to The AEGEEan: “I liked the Where the hell is AEGEE? idea right away when I read the description, partly because I like the original Matt’s videos, partly because I like to do this kind of activities. And so as I liked it, I suggested it to our board and we did it.” AEGEE-København decided to film in front of the Copenhagen Opera house. Actually this is not really a landmark that people associate with Copenhagen, but the beauty and the nice view in front of it are the reasoning behind the choice according to Karlis.

Being a small antenna the difficulty relied in getting people to join “We invited some people, but at the end there were only three people that showed up. But the good thing is that our Spanish HR responsible – Gonzalo Peréz – was there and he talked to a whole tourist group, who had just finished their tour, and another smaller group and we got five people to join us,” Karliz tells The AEGEEan about the experience. He also encourages other antennae to take part in the project for many reasons: “Because you will definitely have a good time, while making the video. And the final edited video with contributions from a lot of antennae all over Europe is going to be great, so you do not want to miss being a part of it.”

The next step in the process for AEGEE-Toulouse is to mix all the videos they will get into a final movie to be posted on YouTube and to be broadcasted as large as they can.

Besides the video, AEGEE-Toulouse is working on a European movie screening for Erasmus students and other students which they organize every month. “It is a brand new project and we are excited about it! We are also organizing a Summer University, which has four thematic colors, we hope it will be a success too,” Nolwëen & Laura agree and tell The AEGEEan. AEGEE-København is definitely busy too, focusing on the upcoming Network Meeting that will take part in the Danish capital next month and also working with the Summer University promotion, hoping the antenna will expand in amount of members.

It will be interesting to hear more in the future about what these antennae will do and of course to see the final product of the video itself. You can find more information on the Facebook page of the project here

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-Zaragoza 

The upcoming organisers of Autumn Agora Zaragoza are infamous for their ability to steal flags and mascots. Moreover, they are also well-known for being a big antenna that has active members involved in many well-thought decisions. Even when they chose which mascot(s) should represent their city in the centre of Europe in the middle of nowhere?

Ander Guerrero Ruiz who is one of the many AEGEEan freelance journalists from AEGEE-Zaragoza gives you here the story behind their mascot Deborah.

Why is your mascot a cobra?

In AEGEE-Zaragoza we were bored with all the “innocent” mascots around AEGEE, and, therefore, in Zaragoza we thought we had to find something more passionate, spicier and exotic to show how we are in Zaragoza.

We are famous for our love for Jamón, the Ebro, and the river of tequila and kingdom of anti-cobras. So after some ideas, the decision was clear… a cobra would be the perfect mascot for us!

Why is it named Deborah Cobra?

So… if you have met any member of AEGEE-Zaragoza you should know it. Deborah is the live result of the technique known as “Anti-cobra”. Many people already know it and/or have been delighted by one of our members doing it, but we will explain it for virgin people. “Anti-cobra” is an originally created name and technique that comes from a normal “cobra”: you are in a bar, in a club, in an AEGEE event, everywhere and one boy or girl is really close (more than you would like to, in this case…) to you, you can see their intentions and they decide to make the move and kiss you, you have to be quick to avoid the kiss and the move you make is similar to the movement of a Cobra.

Coming from this “do the cobra” expression, there are other techniques called “Anti-cobra”, “Double anti-cobra, “Anti-cobra extreme”, etc… but those are for experts. We will not describe it for you, but in case you don’t know about it yet then you can discover through asking some representatives from AEGEE-Zaragoza.

When did you get your mascot?

The mascot will turn one year soon. One year ago we thought that it was time already for AEGEE-Zaragoza to have a mascot, so we started to think about “the chosen one” (type and name) and we decided by an overall majority that Deborah Cobra should be the mascot of AEGEE-Zaragoza.

Is it true that you have 12 copies of your mascot? Why is that the case? Are you planning to give her away like your friends from León do with Leoncio?

Yes! Deborah Cobra is actually a crew of Deborahs! To be honest, it was something unexpected. We saw a suitable cuddly toy to be the icon of Deborah, we ordered her through Internet and it came from a long, long distance. Although we thought it was a bit expensive for being just a mascot, it was our lovely and valuable mascot, so we paid for it. The surprise was that once we opened the box… one, two, three, four… up to twelve Deborah Cobras appeared! However, Deborah likes to take too many risks, travel a lot, etc.; so, it’s her life insurance! If something happens, or she needs to take a break to “change her skin”…. we still need our mascot! That is why we are not planning to give any Deborah away.

Do you have any stories featuring your mascot already? A little birdie says that one of your 12 mascots was broken by a member from AEGEE-Helsinki? Is that true, and how?

As we have said, Deborah in her short life has experienced a lot (the crazy Summer University of Zaragoza, Valladolid, Budapest, Erasmus Trips etc.) and a lot of stories could be told… because Deborah has lived and seen a lot, but she is really cautious and there are some AEGEE-Zaragoza Top Secrets.

To enhance the legend of Deborah Cobra it’s true that a well-known AEGEE-Helsinki member almost killed Deborah in the middle of a silly game with other well-known member of AEGEE-Zaragoza… but, Deborah has pure AEGEE-Zaragoza spirit so she is tough, resistant and immortal. Long live to Deborah Cobra!!!

Written by Ander Guerrero Ruiz, AEGEE-Zaragoza.