{"id":37459,"date":"2016-11-03T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=37459"},"modified":"2016-10-29T20:59:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T18:59:52","slug":"aegee-samara-a-su-is-what-you-make-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2016\/11\/03\/aegee-samara-a-su-is-what-you-make-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"AEGEE-Samara; A SU is What You Make of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do, if you don\u2019t have many fancy monuments in your city? What do you do, if you don\u2019t have many participants for your event? Do you try to cram your Summer University with parties and cheap liquor, or will you be like AEGEE-Samara? Capitalise on the beautiful environment surrounding your city, heavily invest on interpersonal connections with your participants, and add some things from the Action Agenda, just because you can. Polina Chernova, President of AEGEE-Samara, tells us more:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"pv6a1810\"The AEGEEan: Could you tell us something about the programme of your latest Summer University?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Polina: <\/strong>Our programme was focused on the travelling and sports activities. We tried to combine cultural and sportive events wisely. Our programme were very intense, so in the end the participants told us that they hadn’t had enough free time. On the other hand, I attended a SU, in which participants had too much free time, and that\u00a0is not very good either. I think, it is a question with no answer \u2013 how much free time to give to your participants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you organised SUs like these in the past?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, very similar to it. But, I think, earlier we focused more on the parties and cultural events like festivals, less on the educational and sportive part and the Action Agenda.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your SU was promoted with a particular emphasis on nature; participants even camped in tents. Why did you choose to emphasise nature?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We emphasised nature, because it is one of the most beautiful parts of our region. We do not have many cultural sights, so we compensate it by doing\u00a0outdoor activities. Also, the sportive part of our\u00a0programme was connected to\u00a0nature.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard that you used an impressive PR campaign for your SU. Could you elaborate on this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"pv6a2736\"Oh, thank you, it\u2019s very pleasant to hear! But, actually, I don\u2019t think it was really helpful. As a sociologist, I made a quick survey closer to the end of our SU and I found out that our participants chose our SU not because of the PR campaign. We used many ways of PR: emails, post exchange, video, FB-group posts. But the participants’\u00a0choice was based mostly on their personal acquaintanceship and information on the official SU page, partly out of\u00a0interest towards the most eastern antenna and Russian language. And only then they peeked at the FB-group. Our Vice President, who\u00a0has\u00a0been leading our PR\u00a0campaign, worked very hard\u00a0on it, but was disappointed by results.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you already have plans for next year\u2019s SU?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"pv6a2080\"No, we don\u2019t. I\u2019m not planning to be in Samara next year, so I\u2019ll leave the new adventures to new people.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there anything that I didn\u2019t ask, but that you would like to include into the article?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, one interesting thing: the fewer participants, the stronger connection between them. Sure, it\u2019s really fun to have a bunch of people around you, but it\u2019s also a superficial experience. Connections are stronger in small groups. So if your SU doesn\u2019t have many participants, it doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019ll be boring, trust me. It\u2019ll be more family-like.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you do, if you don\u2019t have many fancy monuments in your city? What do you do, if you don\u2019t have many participants for your event? Do you try to cram your Summer University with parties and cheap liquor, or will you be like AEGEE-Samara? Capitalise on the beautiful environment surrounding your city, heavily invest on interpersonal connections with… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":37463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[1456,38,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37459"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37512,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37459\/revisions\/37512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}