Goodbye Cyprus...

Some people already returned home, others went to the post event and some others stay a bit longer to enjoy some days at the beach and relax after an exciting Agora. The last days were full of surprises some might say full of controversy. Let me try to give you an idea what has been happening the last three days.

Everything started with a long journey from Larnaca Airport to Near East University. For most people their flight had arrived at Larnaka in the middle of the night, so there was hardly time to sleep. In the morning being half awake, some decided to go to Larnaca beach first, others directly tried to go to Nicosia. The problem was to find out which bus to take. A Cypriot bus driver told us: “The bus to Nicosia? It’s coming, just wait!” However, nearly everybody had to wait for at least one hour somewhere on Cyprus. Nevertheless, in the end everybody arrived in the AEGEE Neighbourhood.

The organizers prepared apartments for the participants, which were actually still under construction, so some girls on high-heels had serious problems to manage the tracking. The whole Agora took place at the campus of Near East University, which is a little “town” of 20.000 students close to Nicosia. The concept of walking buses was not new to those who had attended Agora Aachen, however, at Agora Magusa the organizers themselves didn’t know where to go. That’s why the plenary often started with only half of the people present.

In comparison to the last Agorae, there was quite a lot happening this time. The discussion about the Intranet, which has started already on several mailing lists before the MagusAgora, was continued intensively. There were a lot of questions on the presented AR of the CD in Thursday morning session. Suddenly, the contract about the Intranet, which was up to that moment been held secret, turned up. This was the catalyst for a lot of dicussions about the transparency and the implementation process of the whole project and finally led to the postponement of the voting on the AR to Friday. The progress meeting on the Intranet was brought forward. It had the shape of a question-and-answer round, in which the audience could ask questions to Dragan and Robin.
In the following plenary session the voting on the Activity Report took place and, as you all might know already, it has not been approved. About 6 votes tipped the scales, so it was a quite narrow majority. As a consequence the current CD isn’t disburdened and therefore could still be brought to book for their whole term. Nevertheless, the CD decided to stay in office and promised to improve communication and cooperation with the network. I haven’t checked AEGEE’s whole history, but till MagusAgora the CD always resigned after a negative vote on the AR.

Only one day later, a group of more than 10 members of the Agora initiated a vote of confidence. The intention was to confirm the confidence of the network towards the CD. In the past, the intention of a vote of confidence against the CD was usually the opposite.
The vote of confidence has been positive. On the first sight that might seem to be controversial to the negative vote on the AR. For sure, every single delegate had his/ her reasons why he voted in that way. The initiators surely want to show their confidence in the CD. The delegates voting against the vote of confidence don’t trust the current CD anymore and want to replace it or rather kick out some of the CD members. Moreover, there seems to be a bunch of people who want the CD to continue the work they started and evaluate it at next Agora. In other words: “You've made your bed, now you must lie in it.”

As you probably all received the election results on AEGEE-L, you know that there will only be 6 CD members after September 2009. That means that they need to distribute all the tasks among them and it will be interesting to see who will take over which duties. In their presentations at the Agora, it was not clear who will take over Public Relations and Human Ressources, so maybe there will be new combination in task division in a fresh CD with new motivation and working style. Agata, our new president, emphasized the key-role of the network in AEGEE and would like to unite the AEGEE family. It is likely, AEGEE will see a change in the style of leadership. Hopefully, she won’t lose sight of her dream.

Unfortunately, for some the trip back to the airport rather was a nightmare instead of a beautiful dream about a strong AEGEE in the future.
After the closure of the Spring Agora 2009, those who did not go to the last party, had to pack their stuff and leave for the airport. The organizers had prepared transportation from the Campus to the border and provided taxies from Nicosia to Larnaca Airport. Unfortunately, their were not enough taxies at the check point. So people had to move together (7 in one limousine) with the luggage on the top of the car. The driver was almost flying to the airport with 140 km/h (although it was not clearly measurable because of a jumping speedometer) with his 35 year old Mercedes Benz. Suddenly their was a bump in the road and one of the suitcases fell down on the highway. The car behind had to slam on the brakes. The driver stopped the car on the emergency lane. Somebody had to went back to search for the lost luggage. All the other passengers were waiting behind the side rail. Some 15 minutes later the adventurous trip continued and finally all people arrived in time to catch their flight.
One thing is for sure: All participants will never forget MagusAgora!!!