Share Ideas, Share Cluj – NWM Cluj 2015

Feeling European – something you can’t learn, but experience. That’s why I applied for the Network Meeting Cluj-Napoca in Romania. The topic was about sharing ideas and experience in an international group of AEGEE members from all over Europe. We were a great group, 25 participants from Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Spain and Italy, all eager to share our opinions, ideas and previous experience concerning the work in our local antennae.

Ander, one of the members of this year’s Comité Directeur (the European board of AEGEE), was our trainer during the sessions, just like Tekla from Hungary as the current NetCom. They prepared workshops about current topics like the changes from Autumn Agora Kyiv, the Strategic Planning in AEGEE-Europe, and we got to know about the EUth project, the Action Agenda Coordination Team and the Europtimism project.

The best part was the exchange of ideas and best practice: every antenna prepared a SWOT analysis, and we took the time to discuss many problems. On the base of best practice examples, we could come up with some solutions and tips for the future work in each antenna. Interactive presentations let us know more about Project Management, Brainstorming, PR, FR and HR, and everybody was happy to get to know other perspectives in the different countries. Last but not least, we had space to discuss other topics we could choose. We decided to talk for instance about the latest happenings in Romania, and after the terrible attacks in Paris on Friday, we stood together as Europe and were concerned about what happened. But we try to focus on the future and how we can prevent such events.

Apart from all the learning and sharing, we also had fun in the beautiful city of Cluj. It has the honor to celebrate itself as European Youth Capital 2015, and after having an interesting city tour, we had gooood times partying there. After only one night, we already left to Maguri Racatau, where we had a house for our own in the middle of the mountains of Romania. We could count shooting stars during the nights (but we preferred to have a really good time at European Night) and tried not to freeze to death there. The chefs and organizers from AEGEE-Cluj Napoca achieved to always having prepared some great Romanian meals and specialities and generally offered us a perfectly organized weekend.
I’m really glad to have met all of the highly motivated people on the Network Meeting, and to learn a lot about AEGEE-Europe and its bodies‘ work – it gave me the feeling of being part of an association with well-thought aims and structures, and I will hopefully meet even more members on the next European events!

Written by Viktoria Schwarz