AGM Utrecht Report

8/14/2019 AGM Utrecht Report

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ESN AGM Utrecht, pre AGM CNR and post AGM CNR report

Annual General Meeting,Council of National Representatives meetings

March 23rd

April 1st

2009Utrecht, the Netherlands

By Madara ApsaloneThe National Representative of [email protected], [email protected]

Executive Summary

2009 is the year, when ESN celebrates its 20th anniversary. AGM 2009 took place in Utrecht city,where the very first ESN section was founded back in 1989. Since then ESN has grown firstly as aninternational platform, then developed as organization, having full time board working in Brusselsand hundreds of sections from Norway to Morocco. Now ESN has a participatory status in the Councilof Europe and in near future will become a full member of the European Youth Forum. Tens ofthousands of international students participate in our activities and projects on annual basis. ThisAGM we revised our vision, mission and values. We understood that we have outgrown our originalwork to help exchange students and out new vision tells about an enrichment of society. This AGMwas also time for us do mistakes, hopefully learn from them and continue working with the sametrust in each other and passion to make mobility reality and exchange the life experience for moreand more people all over Europe.

In some words:

ESN has a new vision and mission

Changes in the International Board

Happy Birthday! ESN

PRIME enters its second stage

ESNSurvey 2009 - Provision of Information forexchange coming soon

ESNTrain unfortunately cancelled

Brand new Satellite to be released

The first ever informal Nordic Baltic meetingin ESN

and as always some new stuff in ourstatutes

My biggest thanks to all of my and ESN Riga supporters, but especially to the Academic ProgrammeAgency and my wonderful ESN Riga team!

Enjoy the reading,Madara


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Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) is the highest decision making body of ESN. Each Marchrepresentatives from entire network meet to elect the new board, change statutes, approve budget,

choose organizers of the future events .. see their old friends again, share ESN spirit, work hard andparty harder and in all other matters finish one and start another ESN year.

In AGM each section has one vote and each national representative has one vote (but Council ofNational Representatives (CNR) votes just for the new board). This year we were 2 delegates fromLatvia I as the national representative and Santa Jastrebova as the section delegate for ESN Riga.We did our best to use our experience in ESN to promote Latvia and take care of ESN International.

I was in Utrecht already before AGM council of national representatives spent 4 days preparing thelast documents, doing the last changes in agenda and trying to get a common opinion in the mostcomplicated issues.

Next ESN International meeting will be CNR meeting in Porto from 7th

till 11th

May.

Network

This AGM was quite historic as we crossed 300 section line and currently we are 301 section in 33countries and two candidate sections ESN Siauliai in Lithuania and ESN Triana in Albania. Bothsections will hopefully be accepted as full members in CNR Porto, raising the number of ESNcountries to 34. I am appointed to do study visit in Siauliai and my impression of them so far is verypromising. Im looking forward to make Baltic States stronger in ESN network.

Moreover quite unique meeting for the first time took place in AGM and that was Nordic Balticblock meeting. All other countries had their national platforms in that time, but we decided to gofor a united support to the Nordic candidates to International Board (both were elected) andcollective discussion of ESN issues from our regional perspective. Much thanks Sweden for the largecontribution so this meeting could happen and I am personally very interested to keep this as atradition also for the next AGMs.

Future of ESN

During the AGM, ESN members decided on the future and the path ESN will follow over the nextyears.

The new vision of ESN is: Enrichment of society through international studentsConsequently, ESN highlights the importance of student mobility as a crucial factor to make Europeand the world a place of more understanding, tolerant and integrated societies.

The new mission states: ESN is the key volunteer student organization in international highereducation in Europe. We provide opportunities for self-development and cultural understanding,under the principle of Students Helping Students.This means, ESN as a true student organization continues taking responsibility for all internationalstudents, as well as taking an active lead in fostering cultural awareness and active citizenship..


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Values

unity in diversity, diversity in the unityWe all have different backgrounds, but share one common aim and goal.

students helping studentsWe passionately commit ourselves to volunteering for the benefits of others.

fun in friendship and respectWe enjoy relations based on respect.

international dimension of the lifeWe are open-minded, mobile, like to discover and explore, to co-operate and to interact to

break borders.

love for Europe as an area of peace and cultural exchangeWe live and benefit from the cultural richness of Europe to the utmost.

openness with toleranceWe understand and accept others and learn from them.

cooperation in the integrationWe share an holistic view towards internationality.

ESN International Board

Quite some changes affected also the international board.

Firstly, as in each AGM, a new international board was elected.

Marketa Tokova (Czech Republic) PresidentVeeli Oeselg (Estonia) Vice PresidentTroels Christensen Frost (Denmark) TreasurerMarc Janson (The Netherlands) Web Project AdministratorTajana Nikolic (Croatia / Italy) External Relations

Marketa is our current vice-president, Veeli president of ESN Tartu and organizer of NEP 2008,Troels has been financial auditor in AGM Besancon and also followed ESN finances all year as amember of the financial commission, Marc was part of the AGM Utrecht 2009 organizing committeeand Tajana is a very experienced ESN member from Italy, Croatia and Slovenia, she has organizedmany national level events and her excellent skills in both communications and statistics willdefinitely be of a very high value for ESN.

Board is very experienced and Im looking forward to see them working as a team to lead, inspireand facilitate ESN.

According to newly made changes in statutes, the board will be in charge from July 15 th. This wasdone to ensure a better transition period and change board in summer a bit less active time forESN, also allowing the prospective board members to finish their studies and then give all their timeto ESN.


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Unfortunately I have also bad news regarding ESN International board, as our president MatthiasFenner decided to step down because of ESNTrain project problems as well some internal issues. Hewill, however, stay in ESN headquarters in Brussels trying to, as much as possible, do all his previoustasks and help Marketa as the current vice-president and the next president of ESN. Good news arethat the next president Marketa is already in office, so we can be sure that they will manage totransfer all the knowledge and tasks properly, moreover many ESNers including me still see Matthiasas our leader, independently for formally having the title or not.

Happy Birthday! ESN Projects

Give 20 give plenty

ESN is turning 20 years old in 2009 and to celebrate our anniversary wereplanning a huge Give20 fundraising campaign that will take place all over theEurope. Collected money will be given to Unicef to help children in Bhutan.

The official goal is to raise 1.2 million EUR (10 EUR per international student).

Give 20 was launched in the middle of October 2008; however most of the sections plan theiractivities for spring/ fall 2009. ESN Riga is also taking part in the project and Give 20 coordinator isElina Vestere ([email protected]) please contact her in case you have any ideas for activitieswe ESN Riga - could organize.

There will be common activities for all the sections during the week before the 16th October. Thecurrent idea is to organize Flash Mob Freeze on the 12 th October and huge Birthday parties on 16th,but this still can change.


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Birthday Book

ESN Riga has finished all the necessary actions form the Birthday Book project. The book will befinished at international level during October.

Postcard Campaign: Send a postcard - send a chance

During summer 2009, ESN will launch a postcard competition to raise awareness towardsintercultural issues, reduce xenophobia and racism: "Send a postcard send a chance".

Currently contest for the best postcard design is open till the April of 15 th. Later 5 best postcarddesigns will be chosen and postcards printed. While traveling or enjoying your time abroad, allESNers and international students will be encouraged to send a postcard with a short story on atheme "impact of stay abroad on their cultural awareness".

All postcards with the stories will be published online where an online voting will take place tochoose about twenty postcards/stories composing a handbook on mobility.

Find out more about ESN Postcard project here: http://esn.org/happybirthday/?q=postcards-campaign

ESN Train (CANCELED)

(http://esntrain.org/)

On Friday 27th of March (the second day of AGM) ESN International was, to itsdeepest regrets, informed that the ESNtrain would not depart from Bratislava.Immediately, attempts to find a solution were made which unfortunately provedfutile. I am not competent to speak about the reasons; specially created ESN

commission is working on that, so Ill make my statement, when I will see theirreport, but it deals with misunderstanding between ESNTrain project organizersand Austrian Railway Company BB about payment deadlines and the terms of their contract. BBwas managing all the connections with other railway companies, and as a consequence, canceledthe Train one day before its departure, what could have been changed only by finding the missing150 000 (as minimum) EUR. ESN International Board and CNR discussed all possible solutions onFriday night as well the Annual General Meeting held a vote for ESN International to guaranty those150 000, what, fortunately, was not approved, as it exceeds ESN annual budget. On Saturday, theESNtrain organizer Platform GmbH, officially announced the cancellation.

Its important to say, that ESN International was not organizing ESNTrain, meaning the train itself.There was a separate ESNTrain team behind it, having a specially established company Platform

GmbH. It was done, as any large project has risk to fail and this way ESN as organization does nothave any financial or legal responsibility of ESNTrain. From my side I can just say, that the projectmanagement and control was not the best, as it was too much left on this one project team that weall trusted too much, while ESN was busy with organizing local activities in cities, which train wassupposed to visit. But as soon, as we knew about the problem, that was too late, of course, we CNR and ESN International board tried to do all possible to save it.

Currently we have a special team, consisting of people, who are not Board members or NationalRepresentatives, trying to identify the reasons of failure of ESNTrain, they are also trying to helpsections, that were supposed to organize activities. Some activities will nevertheless happen in


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cities they were supposed to take place, only without train. There is also a special forum forstudents, who where supposed to be on train: http://forum.esntrain.org/ as many of them aretraveling anyway.

Speaking about Latvia, as train was not supposed to be in Riga, we planned just an informativeLatvian night with some presentations and movies, so we do not have any large financial losesbecause of this. Only two ESN Riga team members including me were supposed to participate in thetrain.

There will be an update on the train issue in my report from CNR meeting in Porto. I am happy tosay, that ESN still has all other projects and all international partners, including EuropeanCommission, European youth Forum and Unicef, are informed, support us and will continue to workwith us.

ESN Projects

PRIME Problems of Recognition in Making Erasmus

The idea of PRIME is to follow the Bologna process in the higher educationinstitutions in Europe, to evaluate how successfully or unsuccessfullyuniversities recognize courses studied aboard and if students have equalopportunities to participate in exchange programs.

PRIME officially started in September and for the benefit of all Latvian exchangestudents ESN-Riga was one of the 108 sections that decided to become take part in it. We havefinished the first part- the questionnaire for the international coordinators of universities. Muchthanks the University of Latvia, the University of Liepaja, Riga Medical College, Riga TeacherTraining and Educational Management Academy, Riga Stradi University, School of BusinessAdministration Turiba and Vidzeme University College for collaboration.

Just before AGM the second part of PRIME questionnaire survey for students was launched. Youcan access it here - http://esn.org/prime/student.php . Please promote this to all former exchangestudents, so we can take both universities and students opinions into account and be betteraware of the challenges exchange students have to face in Europe.

You can fine more at http://www.esn.lv/problems-recognition-making-erasmus

Ibiza event in Spain

ESN Spain is organizing their annual Ibiza (international but in Spanish style) event from 13th -17thMay 2009. Event will host around 1800 students and five day program, including accommodation,

most of the meals, t-shirt and entrance to parties will cost 105 EUR (+ travel costs to Ibiza) and 5EUR will be donated to Give 20 project (see below).

Registration is open to all exchange and international students, as well ESN members athttp://www.ibiza.esn-spain.org/. Registration ends at 15th April or before, in case all the placesare full, so it is recommended not to wait till the 15th April.


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BEST - Bulgaria, Education, Summer, Training

The very first ESN summer school will take place from 30 th July to 5th August in Sofia, Bulgaria. Itwill focus on international education, non-formal education, mobility, volunteering and differentintercultural issues. Project has been granted by the European Youth Foundation.

There will be 50 participants, 1 from each small ESN country and 2 from large ESN countries, thenumber of applications per country will still be a subject of the quality of applications. There willbe from 40 to 60 EUR participation fee.

More information about the summer school will hopefully be available soon.

ESN Satellite

Satellite is ESN corporate website, developed by Youth Agora (former ESN webteam, now anindependent youth organization). Youth Agora presented a brand new design Satellite 3.0 - duringAGM that has also improved functionality and is using newer version of Drupal. There are still some

technical issues, but Beta version of the new website will be available for sections before summer.ESN Riga might switch to the new Satellite, but it depends on the functionality, as well sometechnical issues.

ESN Radio

After one year of inactivity, ESN Radio project is running again. There willbe a new ESN Radio module for Satellite 3.0 (ESN corporate website,developed by Youth Agora). Unfortunately content wise project is sill

unclear. ESN Radio team welcomes proposals for programmes (and programmes made by ESNmembers). Please feel free to [email protected] in case of any suggestions. More information aboutESN Radio will be available after CNR Porto.

ESN Survey

ESNSurvey team has started to analyze results of ESNSurvey2008 Exchanging cultures. Somereports might be available by summer. Meanwhile ESNSurvey 2009 Provision of Information forexchange is almost ready and will be released in April. Ill again need your help to promoteESNSurvey to students.

Changes in ESN Statutes and Standing Orders

As I still have not received the final version of ESN Statutes and all Standing Orders with allaccepted proposals and amendments, I can for now just briefly explain the main accepted changes.

1) transition period for the international board - board used to change in CNR meeting in May,so the new board was supposed to be in Brussels (ESN headquarters) sine the end of April andthe old leave in the end of May. Those dates were not always easy for people, as they didnot match with the end of study year; as well time from election till moving to Brussels wastoo short. So now board will change in summer, which is a bit less active time for ESN, sothey have more time for proper knowledge and task transfer.

2) ESN Working groups are removed from statutes, as they will be restructured to be morefocused and more efficient.


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3) ESN Regional platforms are removed from statutes, as they are not statutory meetings.There is a new Charter on Regional Platforms to emphasize the importance of them asmeetings in the same time.

4) Finally the point that ESN board members and national representatives have to be studentsis removed, as this was not always the case, additionally was unnecessarily limiting ESNexperience to certain frames of the formal education.

5) Also point that ESN sections should be legally registered organizations was removed, as manyof existing sections are part of other organizations and student unions and this requirementwas never really in force.

Finances

ESN financial situation is quite fine. ESN received several grants in 2008, also some revenues formselling PR materials and distributing ESN Cards.

For the first time a professional auditor company checked ESN financial reports (as was decided in

AGM Besancon).

ESN budget was quite balanced for 2008, so is the budget for 2009. For 2009 ESN is granted by theadministrative grant EUR 6 087 from the Euro pan Youth Foundation, as well also individual ESNprojects, such as PRIME and the Summer School in Bulgaria, have been granted.

AGM Utrecht decided to adjust sections membership fees from 50 EUR to 60 EUR, as the last yearthey were changed was 1994. Some of money from this additional income will be used for sectionssupport that in 2009 will most probably go for ESNTrain issues.

Documents

AGM Utrecht Report