He is young, active, working hard. He is also charming and with a great sence of humour. He is the External Relations Director of AEGEE! It has been already eight months since Marko Grdošić is living in the headoffice of AEGEE-Europe and doing his job with a great enthusiasm. We asked for a little time to have an interview with him and see how his life is going on. Now you can read about his plans, some of his memories from the past eight months and many more surprises…
Marko, this is your eighth month that you have moved to the headoffice and dedicated your life for your AEGEE work. How is it going your life in Brussels?
Better and better! Lately only very positive things are happening. All my tasks are finally under control, since Luis came to Brussels as Fund Raising Assistant and helps me a lot in work. Spring is also coming so you feel great in the morning when sun wakes you up and not alarm clock!
Great to hear that Luis adjusted himself to the work very fast. What is your greater plan that you want to achieve in the field of fund raising in the nearest future?
I’m not flying in the clouds and not thinking about millions. My biggest wish is to create a fund raising structure, develop opportunities external world can have from AEGEE, make it in a very tempting way and then start the implementation process. The most important thing is to make it really broad and developed so my successor can just continue the work, without implementing it from the beginning. Also this new fund raising structure will be presented to the local level to give them also advice and a broader picture on what could be done. And money? It will come!
As you are living in the Comite Directeur (CD) house with seven people you are spending lots of moments together. Can you share with us some moment which has been really important,exciting or thrilling for you?
If I think of important and thrilling one it would be the moment when a letter from the European Commission came with positive respond for quite some thousands of Euros. It is an amazing feeling when you see your work has payed off. Second one which I will remember for a long time was in November, during preparations for General Subvention, when two other Comite Directeur members were with me in the office working around 4 am. Completely tired and sleepy we turned on Danza Kuduro and were dancing like crazy! This moment will always remind me the team spirit and great people here in the house!
And among these great moments for sure there are also stressful once. Do you have any moment in mind that you were really stressed or freaked out?
Once I remember freaking out. Deadline for submitting application for European Youth Foundation. After working on it whole night, in the morning I was supposed to put it in the online form, press submit and run for the train to south of Belgium. The problem was that the form was not submitting it, third time I pressed submit, after 2 hours of copy/pasting, program deleted entire application. I almost cried, managed in the end, and missed my train!
Wow! Sounds sad entirely but at least it was submitted :) And you have lots of challenges when you are a CD member. Apparently one of them must be traveling pretty often and be packed on time, catch trains, buses and so on…Do you arrange yourself to be on time and well-prepared before your travels? Or you get ready randomly and then go?
I guess that most of the AEGEEans are skilled in packing fast. I doubt it takes longer than 20 minutes. But when it comes to being on time I have pretty big problems. There is always this one more e-mail to answer before leaving. But I still haven’t missed anything non rebookable :) My next travel is on next two weekends in a row : Network Meeting Amsterdam and Network Meeting London. And I really can’t wait to go on road again.
Besides all fund raising work, you are also an appointed CD member for the Public Relations Committee (PRC) and they just had a meeting in the CD house last weekend. What are your impressions about their work?
Because of my tasks I really didn’t have enough time for better involvement in the work of PRC, but this weekend I promised to change it. PRC is really a great team of people that are doing really much. During the meeting we created two big common projects which will in the next couple of months cause a lot of attention in our Network. I know that after I leave CD, for sure I’ll stay with them.
Do you have any plans when your term as CD member is finished? What to do or where?
It’s already a bit frustrating how many people ask me this, starting with my mom and grandma! The only thing I know is that I will start working, earning money. :) But I have no clue in which field, economics or politics, which country, which continent! I guess I’ll start thinking about this after the Agora! Only thing I am planning at the moment is in which field of AEGEE should I concentrate after August.
Do you have any message for our readers?
Be active in AEGEE, follow your dreams and follow the AEGEEan!
Written by Deniz Özhan, AEGEE-Izmir