Every month The AEGEEan selects a member of the month from the inputs we receive from the Network. In November the choice was Francesca Zorcolo from AEGEE-Cagliari. She has been a member of our association for some years, being in the team of Agora Cagliari 2014 organisers and President of the board of the Italian local 2015-2016. In November she was the Main Organiser of the Network Meeting (NWM) in Cagliari, the first in the history of the local, and was selected as SubCommissioner of NetCom Gabriele Scollo (AEGEE-Firenze) helping Italian and Maltese locals in FR. 

The AEGEEan: Who is Francesca in AEGEE?
Francesca: I have been a member of AEGEE since February 2014, and my passion for it has been growing since the first Agora I have been to, Spring Agora Patra, and even more with Autumn Agora Cagliari. I was part of the executive board for two years and my mandate has just expired. If people ask me who I think I am in AEGEE I always answer that I feel like I am kind of a mom to AEGEE kids. This year I am SubCommie for the Network Commissioner Gabriele until Autumn Agora Catania.

Who is Francesca outside of AEGEE?
I am a desperate economy student, a basketball referee and the former founder of a local LGBT association, as well as the founder of a start up about lateral thinking.

You have been nominated as Member of the Month of November. How do you feel?
I am embarrassed… Ahahha, just kidding, I feel very honored and proud, and I really want to thank everyone for it!

Your term as President of AEGEE-Cagliari just finished. How would you describe this year? What do you think is your biggest achievement with your board?
This past year has been one of the greatest of my entire life. One of the things I am most proud of is the fact that we were able to share more information about the European opportunities for our members and we were lucky enough to create a very well connected group of people!

You were the Main Organiser of NWM Cagliari. How did it go?
It was amazing! We pictured this event so many times before it happened, and when it did, our expectations were exceeded. This was because of the incredible people that participated and worked for it. I especially want to thank former Network Commissioner Lisa Gregis (AEGEE-Bergamo) and Financial Director Zvonimir Canjuga! We had so much fun, but it was also a learning experience for everyone.
What were the biggest challenges in organising the event? What were the biggest rewards?
I always want to keep up with everybody’s expectations. We were really worried about something going the wrong way, or not as we planned. But, as soon as we saw people very happy and proactive, we understood that everything was going in the right direction. I am very happy that we were able to talk about joining forces with other teams and many members have now double memberships. That is how networking works!

Name one good thing in AEGEE and one bad thing.

A downside can be that sometimes we are not able to share our stories with people outside AEGEE, and to let others know what we are, and in my opinion that is one of the reasons why the number of members is dropping.

On the other hand, the thing I love the most is the fact that it lets you feel like home in each part of Europe you are, and that inside AEGEE everyone gets the chance to grow and get experience in what interests them.

Let’s play a game. Describe yourself by using adjectives that start with the letters that compose your name.
Friendly

Reliable

Active

Naive

Curious

Emotional

Skilful

Creative

Altruist
What’s next for you?
I am not sure right now, but after spending these two amazing years working at local level, I think it is time to expand my horizons, and that is why I am very glad to be a SubCommie in Gabriele Scollo’s team, for something else we will see!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

Behind the Commissioners of the Juridical Commission and the Network Commission some AEGEE members make an unknown, but very relevant work: they are the SubCommissioners. The AEGEEan decided to talk with these people who, perhaps, might be the next Commissioners.

The next group of SubSommissioners, that we have interviewed, are those of Aleksandra Mojsova (AEGEE-Skopje): Nika Krnjak (AEGEE-Zagreb), Marina Klanjčić (AEGEE-Zagreb), Andrea Adamović (AEGEE-Beograd), Dimitar Hristov (AEGEE-Sofia), Jovana Trajković (AEGEE-Beograd), and Ksenija Baković (AEGEE-Podgorica).

Nika Krnjak

Nika has been a member for one year, but she has been very active during that time. She has been Human Resources responsible in her local since last December. She helped organise exchanges with AEGEE-Ljubljana and AEGEE-Amsterdam, several language and soft skills workshops, and is currently involved in organising her Summer University and the European Planning Meeting (EPM) Zagreb. She has participated in a Summer University in Pecs, the New Year Eve (NYE) event in Maribor, a Network Meeting in Niš, and at Spring Agora Bergamo. She applied as a SubCommie of the Network Commission, because she has always been eager to help people in any way she can. She is interested in motivating members from locals, informing them about the possibilities of AEGEE and getting to know the local’s accomplishments, issues and concerns, so she could support them and help them in their progress and in achieving their goals.“You have to be very motivated, a team player, open-minded and approachable. It is also very important to have good communication skills and patience, to be good at resolving any problems and to be easily reachable” says Nika.

Marina Klanjčić

Marina has been a member of AEGEE-Zagreb since October 2014, and she was the Vice-President of her Antenna in 2015. She has done everything in AEGEE (HR, PR, FR, IT, LA …), regardless of being charged or obligated to execute these functions. During her first year in AEGEE, she was not able to experience European events due to some obligations to her university, but she participated in the Network Meeting (NWM) Valletta earlier this year and attended Agora Bergamo as a visitor. She is the Main Coordinator for the next EPM in Zagreb in 2017. According to Marina, you need to be motivated to be the SubCommie in the first place, because any title within AEGEE includes putting others before yourself. Secondly, experience in AEGEE, knowledge about its structure and knowledge about the way AEGEE works are helpful. You should be good with people and a good motivator – in one word a good at HR.

Ksenija Baković

Every SubCommie has organised, initiated and implemented numerous events of various themes. They communicate with many AEGEEans, both locally and outside of their network, for all kinds of different events. Furthermore, they have promoted AEGEE to other NGOs, communicated and cooperated with external representatives of different organisations on their events, targeted many young students to help them develop both individually and in teams that are as large as AEGEE itself. We, SubCommissioners, primarily need to have an active communication with our NetCommie, Aleksandra. The team of SubCommies and our assigned locals try to communicate through every available channel, mostly via e-mail or Skype meetings. The communication between ourselves and our locals is essential in order to support, inform and help them. Secondly, we are evaluating the situation in our locals and plan how we can improve and motivate the members of our antennae. The role of SubCommissioners is to help their NetCommie to better manage all the antennae that she is responsible for. We share the improvements of our locals, motivate and advise people for the betterment of our assigned locals.

This article is part of a series of articles about the SubCommies of AEGEE. Check out our first article in the series, by clicking here. Or check our second article in the series by clicking here.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari