Voting Results of Autumn Agora Aachen 2008

Dear Network,
These are the voting results of Autumn Agora Aachen 2008:
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Activity Report of the Comité Directeur Agora Ljubljana – 31st of august 2008

Total amount of votes: 317
Valid votes: 315

Votes in favour: 245 (77,77 %)
Votes against: 21 (6,67 %)
Abstention: 49 (15,56 %)

The Activity Report of the Comité Directeur (Agora Ljubljana – 31st of
august) has been approved.

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Activity Report & Plan of the Comité Directeur

Total amount of votes: 311
Valid votes: 309

Votes in favour: 266 (86,08 %)
Votes against: 12 (3,88 %)
Abstention: 31 (10,04 %)

The Activity Report and Plan of the Comité Directeur has been approved.

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Financial Report 2007 of AEGEE-Europe

Total amount of votes: 322
Valid votes: 320

Votes in favour: 132 (41,25 %)
Votes against: 112 (35,00 %)
Abstention: 76 (23,75 %)

The Financial Report 2007 has been approved.

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Interim Financial Report 2008 of AEGEE-Europe

Total amount of votes: 316
Valid votes: 314

Votes in favour: 54 (17,20 %)
Votes against: 185 (58,91 %)
Abstention: 75 (23,89 %)

The Interim Financial Report 2008 has NOT been approved.

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Proposal: Membership fees

Total amount of votes: 316
Valid votes: 312

Votes in favour 174 (55,77 %)
Votes against: 113 (36,22 %)
Abstentions: 25 (8,01 %)

The Proposal of the Membership fees has been approved

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Proposal: Network Commission

Total amount of votes: 314
Valid votes: 312

Votes in favour 283 (90,71 %)
Votes against: 12 (3,84 %)
Abstentions: 17 (5,45 %)

The Proposal of the Network Commission has been approved

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Proposal: SU Change
Total amount of votes: 321
ALL Valid votes

Votes in favour 176 (54,83 %)
Votes against: 110 (34,27 %)
Abstentions: 35 (10,90 %)

The Proposal of the SU Change has been approved

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Audit Commission proposal

Total amount of votes: 341
Valid votes: 339

Votes in favour 308 (90,9 %)
Votes against: 16 (4,7 %)
Abstentions: 15 (4,4 %)

The Audit Commission proposal has been approved

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Budget update 2008

Total amount of votes: 336
Valid votes: 334

Votes in favour 224 (67,0 %)
Votes against: 44 (13,2 %)
Abstentions: 66 (19,8 %)

The Budget update 2008 has been approved

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Budget 2009

Total amount of votes: 337
Valid votes: 334

Votes in favour 171 (51,2 %)
Votes against: 105 (31,4 %)
Abstentions: 58 (17,4 %)

The Budget 2009 has been approved

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Strategic Plan 2009-2011

Total amount of votes: 337
Valid votes: 335

Votes in favour 298 (89,0 %)
Votes against: 5 (1,5 %)
Abstentions: 32 (9,5 %)

The Strategic Plan 2009-2011 has been approved

Closely kick-out of Agora building

Our brave and hard working Agora organisers from AEGEE-Aachen solved a highly dangerous situation on friday afternoon! What happened? During the trainings sessions, workshop sessions and progress meetings it happened that alcohol was consumed during a progress meeting. Drinking started before the meeting began and was discovered by the caretaker of the university building. Since alkohol is forbidden to drink in university buildings in Germany, the caretaker wanted to kick us all out of the building!! Due to enormous efforts of AEGEE-Aachen, this catastrophe was luckily prevented! (THANK YOU Guys!!!). It was a huge shock and an entirely delicate situation for us all, because there was no other option to assamble and the Agora would had its end friday evening. Hopefully, the concerned people expressed their apologies for their behaviour.

Questions on Activity Reports: General impression

A general impression during the Agora was to see when the network had the time to ask questions on Activity Reports of European bodies. The CD, working groups, commissions, liasion officers: they all received a manageable amount of questions. There was the impression that the represantative from Facebook got more questions, than were asked upon activity reports.

Hardly questions on Activity Plan 2008/09

During the first plenary session thursday morning at Aachen University, the Activity plan of the new Comité Directeur was presented as well as the pas activites of the new elected CD since they started their work in the house in Brussels. When we all had the opportunity to ask questions on the activity plan which is planned for 2008/09, only two members of our association took the chance to ask questions upon it. One was especially dedicated to the new webpage of AEGEE and its communication towards european bodies in this issue. As some of you know there were plenty of emails exchanged on this topic already before the Agora started.

Presentation of Facebook

Friday afternoon we had the pleasure to welcome a representative of Facebook, Javian Oliver. After a short and precies presentation about the mission and vision, the Agora audience had the change to ask questions. Interesting topics were raised such as tracing back your profile for applications,facebook as workplace, security aspects and future ideas to improve this social tool. Javian and his collegue answered all questions and listened attentively to new ideas. We had the pleasure to meet both representatives again during the European Night.

Bi-lingual candidature presentation

The Agora witnessed a bilingual candidature presentation during the presentation round of the candidatures for the Audit Commission of AEGEE. The presentation from Nico Huurman was presented in english and french to the audience. This was a refreshing and unexpected moment for the association, so to see from the reaction from the audience. Using english and french is perfectly fine for AEGEE, since these are the two official languages of AEGEE. What about more french language courses in the future? Maybe during a Summer University or as a normal event? Think about it ;-)

New guiding concept: walking buses

Walking what? Yip, that is what we thought too ;-) What is behind the system of the walking buses, so? These are nice and hard working people who are guiding the participants of the Agora to the gyms after the party, for example. These walking buses going regularly during the night, being staffed with a sign stating the number of the gym. And still we often hear of people who still get lost and enjoy a lovely night walk through Aachen. We heard even rumors or people who failed to find the way and after giving up, they took a taxi and slept the night in the hotel......

Changing rooms

During this Agora in Aachen, no day looks like the same. This is not due to the changing Agenda every here and then, but also due to the fact that we change rooms and buildings on a daily basis. Again, the city map from the welcome package helps a lot and we are guided very well thanks to wheather resistant (rain!!) signs.

Opening Ceremony

Evening... Rain... A crowd of AEGEE people gathering in the City Hall... Better to see than to read...

Gym division - dont forget your number

During our general assembly we are used to stay in one big gym. Or in a big one and a small one, maybe. This Agora we stay in not one gym, not two gyms, no, we stay in seven gyms, which are distributd all around the center of Aachen. Among our standard equipment for each day, naturally, we all keep our city map :-) Luckily in this city map we find all locations marked on the map. Still, for some people that does not help
at all and they discover Aachen by night rather unvoluntarily ;-)

AGORA. First Impressions

AEGEE-Aachen decided to leave their trace in memory of AEGEE members. They decided to make an unforgettable Agora with the best possible organization and lodging. During the beginning of October 700 AEGEE members had an opportunity to check the efforts of AEGEE-Aachen. So far everything started a bit mixed and perplex, strangely for German antenna, but later on the mess got some structure. Let me start from the very beginning…
Agora participants gathered in an auditorium of the Aachen technical university after wondering around in the search of the appropriate building of the university. At least the group from the most overcrowded VIP gym No.2 lost its “walking bus” (a person that leads participants to plenary, gyms and other important places) this is why it had a morning unguided tour in the very heart of Aachen. Yes, everything is concentrated in the centre, but there are 7 gyms and the plenary and workshops are held not only in different rooms of the university, but in different buildings. Although Aachen is full of pointers on the poles and people with pointers to the workshops and the canteen, participants still manage to get lost. This is just some street magic of Aachen…

The first session started traditionally with solemn speeches by Dragan Stojanovski, the President of AEGEE-Europe, and Anita Bosneva, responsible for cooperation with externals, followed by welcome word from one of the Agora-Aachen organizers Patrick Kabasci. Later the WGs and locals presented themselves. Although most of antennae seemed to sleep, the Spanish and German ones tried to activate the environment with shouts and songs.
Later on ratification of the Agenda came and ratification of the minutes of the latest Agoras and EBM were presented. Next the CD presented its report. According to Dragan, this CD should be a revolution one, as its activities involve a lot of changes and this is the 1st CD that will serve for 12 month. Every CD member was very enthusiastic and positive towards his/her future activities… AEGEE believes in its success and wishes the CD all the best. The first part of the day was closed by 2 prytania session and several workshops.

AEGEE Cafe

October 1, 2008

The first ‘zero’ day of the Agora started with language courses and family-type AEGEE-Café during which AEGEE-Europe presented CD, working groups and current projects. There were not many visitors as the people were keeping on arriving and only those who arrived earlier that day and were not tired managed to come to the Café.
The representatives of the projects and working groups were also wondering around the Café, as the coordinator asked them to move from one table to another… This did not work out with everybody, but still some movement created the vision of some activity going on more exciting than it was.
Overall, the Café was successful, as the interested AEGEE members had a possibility to see AEGEE-Europe in real life and address their request directly to them.