AEGEE-Oviedo on celebrating their 25th anniversary

AEGEE-Oviedo is one of the oldest antennae in AEGEE and is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. They have won different prizes this year and the antenna also has many members active on the European level of AEGEE. Therefore, The AEGEEan took the time to interview the board to hear about what makes this antenna special.

AEGEE-Oviedo was founded on 21.12.1988 by four students of the University of Oviedo. The people of the current board believe it was  Kike Riesgo (who was later part of one of the first Comités Directeurs), Jacinto Braña, Miguel Porrúa and Luis Villa who started the antenna. At the beginning, AEGEE-Oviedo was so successful that it had over 1000 members (while now there are 119) and was in charge of printing and publishing the NewsBulletin read  by AEGEE members all over Europe. This is what makes AEGEE-Oviedo special to the current board members. They are proud of the importance the antenna had back in the beginning.

Nowadays AEGEE-Oviedo is managed by a great team that they themselves are very proud of. A team of eight people working together and trying to do their best. This is what makes AEGEE-Oviedo very special in 2013. Furthermore, the antenna has a large number of beloved “oldies” (old members) who are not living in the city anymore, but are always available to help. They help AEGEE-Oviedo and are always willing to offer a piece of advice, which is highly appreciated by the board. The Main Coordinator of the 25th Anniversary event later this year, Laura López, and some of the Board members – Agustín Querejeta (President), Olga Rivero (Vice-President), Gerardo García (PR) and Alba Laguna (Secretary) – contributed to this interview, informing you what makes their antenna in Oviedo different.

How many members do you have? Are many of them active?

Nowadays, we are 119 members and around 25 of them are active. It is not a great figure, but we are on our way. We only hope to continue growing each day and keep doing our best, step by step.

You recently elected the new board of your antenna, how have the first two months been for the new board?

We are doing quite well indeed. We all make a great and diverse team. We have a couple of board members active on the European level, “old”-board members with previous experience on their fields and newbie-board members full of energy. We are working a lot on our daily projects, for instance activities organized by the Erasmus Team (ET) and Local Activities Responsible, and as well as on bigger projects, such as 25th Anniversary and New Years event (NYE).

How do you make sure in your antenna that the new board gets sufficient knowledge transfer?

This is always a difficult achievement to fulfill. Our old board members are always willing to help and advise the new ones. Let’s say we have a sort of all year round knowledge transfer period. Beside for some board positions such as ET and Secretary, we have documents which comprise information and know-how from previous years. In spite of everything, it is true that sometimes we don’t get to achieve this as well as we would like to.

You have a lot of members living in Gijón as well. How do you involve members from the two cities in the activities of your antenna?

Actually we also have members from Avilés (the third biggest city in Asturias according to population). Anyway, we try to be fair and adapt to what’s better for the members regarding the meetings because some of them study in Oviedo (and viceversa). However there is always a way to find time to talk. Also meetings take place in both cities, Gijón and Oviedo, so everyone can go from time to time. Probably the only big inconvenient is members who are not from Oviedo normally cannot attend what’s organized in the evening during the week. But there are always exceptions.

You have members very active in AEGEE and on the European level, how do you promote the European level to your members?

Normally members who are already active on the European level motivate some other members. It’s like a chain.

Why do you think it is important for them to be active not only on Local level?

That’s something each one chooses: normally when a member is motivated, he/ she tends to get involved in bigger stuff. We celebrate it because we consider this makes us a well-known antenna in Europe, even though we come from a small region. We are also happy that those members who are active on the European level do not forget where they started from and help at the Local level as much as possible.

You won The AEGEEans Choice Award for best event, what do you think it takes to organize a fantastic event?

Motivation, without any doubt. Motivation is the main key for getting everything you want to. Furthermore, the main responsible of the event is an “old” and experienced member (the results were amazing, as you could see! ). It was a great project and an awesome team. In spite of the Choice Award for best event we also got to win the Best Photo Award of 2012, in a contest organized by Events Committee last year. One of our participants, Tereza Tokmajyan from AEGEE-Yerevan, sent them our best photo and it got chosen as the best one. Of course this is not only about rewards, because our best gift was our team. Everyone got on well from the very first moment and it made things much easier. We had fun together, we learned from each other and we became friends. Relationships that still last!

What have you been doing in 2013 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of AEGEE- Oviedo?

Celebrations haven’t taken place yet! The 21th of December is the official date of our anniversary and we will organize an official and formal event, which we will gather as many old members as possible. We will also invite university representative, authorities, etc. We are still working on it. Besides this formal celebration, we are organizing a NYE Event, so we can celebrate our 25thAnniversary with more AEGEEans from all over Europe.

What made you decide to organize a New Year Event this year?

Remember this is not only about NYE. This is a birthday party! When we thought about celebrating our 25th Anniversary with university, authorities and people who have supported us somehow, the idea to celebrate with members from all over Europe also came to our minds. We wanted to share this important date with our partners and friends, have a good time and say goodbye to the year all together.

What is special about this event? Why should people go?

As I already said, there is something to celebrate besides the New Year! We hope this event will be unique: in charge is our Treasurer (Laura López) and she is doing a great job, finding a nice house to stay in (it’s always a luxury not to sleep on the floor at an AEGEE event), organizing activities and many many surprises that are waiting for our guest . We really hope our participants to be as happy for our birthday as we already are. Reminder for our participants: you can find us on Facebook and if you have any doubt about signing yup don’t hesitate and contact us

What are the plans of your antenna for 2014?

To continue working hard, improving every day and who knows, maybe celebrate our next birthday! Some of our members are really motivated and they are thinking about getting involved in some projects at European level, so we give them all our support and send them our best wishes.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København