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A Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday somewhere in the end of October. One may thing that these would be just some ordinary days, during which (in case of nice weather) we would maybe go for a walk in the park to enjoy the golden-brown colours of autumn and feel the leaves under our shoes. Does it change a lot, if I’ll specify the dates with 21st – 24th of October 2010? Yes it does, as there days will always remain in our memory as the days during which the Agora Istanbul took place!
For four days around 800 young people have gathered together in the magical city of Istanbul to work on the future of your association, the future of AEGEE. Yes, it was exactly the 50th Agora and naturally it had to be more than extraordinary. This was very easily noticeable already while entering the gym, where few life-size dinosaurs were welcoming the participants. No I am not talking about some Les Anciens, but about skeletons, which were apparently part of some exhibition. This fact made them soon the official toy of the Agora.
The opening ceremony was very focused on dancing and the organisers were not hiding that they are going to have a lot of fun with us, so we have suited up and headed up to the first party in order to make it legen….like every AEGEE party…..dary. Even after a hard night everybody managed to be present in the opening plenary, so many that there were even no seats left and people were sitting on the stairs. The last performance of the Chair team consisting of Sido – Chair, Katja – Vice-Chair, Patrick – IT responsible and éminence grise was about to start, when many people started noticing that there is actually something missing at the chair table. Yes, there was no JC present! Both of its members have resigned, so technically speaking the only remaining member of the JC was also member of th CD (Michael), which created a serious conflict of interest. Fortunately it was possible for two former JCs Mirjam and Anatoli to come to the Agora and to take over the JC tasks as JC representatives. Naturally the Agora has ratified this extraordinary solution.
The work could go one smoothly and everything was leading into the direction of a very successful Agora! There is no need to mention here the usual workshops and Prytania, although many very controversial issues were discussed like the “Logo proposal”, the “WG proposal” and the introduction of new Antenna Criteria. One of the highlights was the very well organised AEGEE Fair, which, probably for the first time in history, was a success and motivated people to get more involved into European level activities. All new projects like Higher Education Days, Youth (un)Employment and Freedom of Press were present and very well prepared! People were so active that they even had to be kicked out from the building in order to be on time at the plenary.
The closing plenary requires actually a separate article, as it was incredibly intense, emotional and…. long! Lively discussions took place on stage, the IPWG protesting against its downgradion to a Working Group (instead of an AEGEE Working Group) which appeared to be a very complicated matter. They were granted an exception by the CD. We have welcomed 3 new Contact-Antennae in our Network: AEGEE-Ploieşti, AEGEE-Yerevan and AEGEE-Elazığ, welcome to the family! Furthermore Burcu Becermen was nominated as Honorary Member of AEGEE-Europe by the CD and was awaited on stage with standing ovations. Unfortunately she has refused this honor. Still in this very emotional moment the whole plenary gave her the honors while standing. Probably not only few people have shed some tears in such an situation. After announcing the voting results the Chair could finally close the Agora, at 9:45pm.
On the next morning, after the last party we could see that the organizers are deadly tired, but still enthusiastic, the Chair team relieved and the dinosaurs still undamaged. Yes, this was a very successful Agora!
Thank you Chair, thank you all people involved on the European level, thank you dear delegates and visitors for active participation and interest and thank you AEGEE-Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul!