{"id":873,"date":"2011-05-03T22:17:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T21:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2011\/05\/03\/spring-agora-alicante-2011-very-much-appreciated\/"},"modified":"2011-10-02T07:17:03","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T06:17:03","slug":"spring-agora-alicante-2011-very-much-appreciated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2011\/05\/03\/spring-agora-alicante-2011-very-much-appreciated\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Agora Alicante 2011, very much appreciated"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spring Agora Alicante is over. It was our last Agora in charge, and all of us are a bit nostalgic these days. It is exactly like Miguel G. A. said when he was announced as honorary member of AEGEE-Alicante on the Agora stage: Some things are given to you that you just cannot give back, even if you do your best. You always gain more than you give, and this is what makes it such a wonderful thing to work for this association. There are too many people that I would need to thank, so I will not even try that here (but do it individually). On this occasion, just thank you all<\/strong> for being such a great part of my life…<\/p>\n

\n
In the meantime, it is of course not only the emotional experience that remains. I also feel like I have gained some small pieces of wisdom in the process. And instead of attempting an (inevitably boring) full report of the Agora, it is a few of these small pieces that I want to share with you here.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
Change only comes through confrontation.<\/em><\/div>\n
\n
I am a person that needs harmony in order to survive, and I believe that I am not really alone with that in AEGEE. But in this context we tend to exaggerate – namely by shying away from disagreement where it would actually be necessary. Often, good ideas are born out of conflict situations. So we need such conflict situations where people have different interests and represent these with all their human and intellectual capacity. This is what brings us forward, both as individuals and as an association. And for this reason, it has always been my pleasure to be provocative, striving for change where I see it necessary. We must only be mature enough not to forget that in the end, warfare will lead to nothing, and that in our association everything is based on trust and cooperation. And we must be benevolent enough to assume that any other party follows this understanding as well as we do ourselves.<\/div>\n
In the course of this Agora, the debate about the Working Groups took an encouraging turn, away from the particular interests of individual people involved, and towards the general interest of the association. As it seems, we reached a consensus that we need a functioning thematic work on a European level that directly involves the local level and that constitutes a democratic balance vis-\u00e0-vis our European “management”. I am glad that all of us that were involved have handled the sometimes heated debates with the mentioned maturity and that despite a few slips here and there never damaged the basis of friendship on which the work in our association is built. I am positive that we will reach a convincing solution until the next Agora!<\/div>\n

\n<\/em><\/div>\n
Change is only born where we all come together.<\/em><\/div>\n
Voluntary work is based on inspiration and personal motivation. These two things are nothing normal, they need to be generated. And usually, they are generated where people come together.<\/div>\n
During every Agora and EBM, we can see the huge boost of energy that takes possession of all participants just because of the fact that they are meeting each other, being together, forming part of something great. Each of these meetings could be a starting point for spectacular new projects, for lucid ideas that will change our future – just like it was the case with one particular conference in Paris on 16th April 1985, where students decided to create a project that is today called “AEGEE”… But unfortunately, we spend our statutory events with “boring stuff”, talking mainly about ourselves instead of talking about Europe, about those things that really bring us together.<\/div>\n
One thing that I realised again at this Agora is that there is only little room for reducing this “bureaucratic” aspect of our work. We can not abolish too many Prytania and plenary sessions from the Agora, because we simply need them for the maintenance of our structures. So the consequence is that we need more such meetings, with the only difference that these additional meetings should be exclusively dedicated to “the world out there”: to the question how we can make a positive impact on Europe. I have good hopes that in the course of our current planning reform, the new EBM will become such an event (changes to the structure of the EBM will be proposed to the next Agora). But I think that one EBM per year is not enough. I have to think about this in the next months…<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Continuity is a necessary condition for change.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
“Change” is not always a revolution. “Change”, at least the change that we are striving for, is the continuous improvement of what we have. And this “continuous improvement” already implies that we need continuity in order to make a change, even if that sounds like a contradiction in the beginning.<\/div>\n
What I noticed again at this Agora is that we are all so terribly little aware of what happened in the past of our association. I have met new members that had not even heard the name of Dragan S. before. And on the other hand I have again learned a few interesting things myself from older members about what happened in the past. When putting all these observations together, you get the feeling that every few years, the wheel is re-invented again, and all discussions that were carried out three years ago are repeated now with a set of new people.<\/div>\n
\n
How can we finally overcome this situation?<\/div>\n
First of all, I believe that we can never “finally” overcome it. Tradition is something that needs to be cultivated day by day. So in the first place, we must make a greater and more continuous effort to educate our new members with our own knowledge. Second of all, we must make information better available, as Guillermo G. T. pointed out in his candidature. But what I particularly appreciated at this Agora was the simple presence of a few experienced members from “past” generations, who contributed to our current discussions and added a valuable perspective. I hope that in the future we will have an increased opportunity for such consultations on the spot, because as I realised at this Agora, this is often the only way to establish a connection with our past, gain a deeper understanding of our current problems, and contribute to a more sustainable identity as an organisation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
That’s just a few impressions of the Agora I had. I am looking forward to the remaining four months of our term, and I am especially glad to know that we will be able to lay our work in the qualified hands of the newly elected team. The knowledge transfer starts today! Or in fact it has already started a long time ago.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spring Agora Alicante is over. It was our last Agora in charge, and all of us are a bit nostalgic these days. It is exactly like Miguel G. A. said when he was announced as honorary member of AEGEE-Alicante on the Agora stage: Some things are given to you that you just cannot give back, even if you do… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873"}],"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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1580,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/1580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}