As many board members already know, each local has to submit an annual report about the events that they organised, as required in the antenna criteria. But what about the plans for the future? The General Subvention from the European Commission represents around 40% of AEGEE-Europe’s annual budget, and the application for this grant has to include the activity plans of locals as well. This was the issue raised by Pavel Zborník, European Institutions and Communications Director of AEGEE-Europe, who proposed (on behalf of the Comité Directeur) to include the submission of a yearly Activity Plan in the antenna criteria.
The AEGEEan: Could you, please, sum up the main points of the proposal?
Pavel: I think the point of the proposal is quite clear: I would like to make sure that my successor – meaning not just the successor dealing with the operational grant – will have enough information about what members of our Network plan to do during the following year. Such information is also very interesting for the Network Commission, at least from what I’ve seen during my experience in the NetCom.
This proposal has two aims: the first one is to get information from locals about their planned activities, and the second is more or less the introduction of a planning system in AEGEE. Obviously, if you want to achieve something, it is very important to know how, this is why we need plans. I believe that our locals are able to achieve very good results, and this rule would help them in this by incenting them to set a concrete plan for their activities. I’m sure that for most locals, this is already a common practise and it will not create any problems for them. As for the rest, together with the NetCom we will help to start this process by providing all the necessary information and knowledge about the planning process.
Why did you see the need for the proposed changes?
Right now, submitting a report of activities from the previous period is included in the antenna criteria, but we don’t require locals to also submit a plan for the future, and this is a bit strange for me. As the person responsible for submitting the application for the General Subvention, I can only kindly ask locals for such kind of information – the information that I need to write this application, and therefore secure necessary funding for AEGEE-Europe.
So how will AEGEE and AEGEE members benefit from it?
You might know that the operational grant from the Youth in Action is 50 000 €, which in my eyes is a quite visible result. As I mentioned earlier, by introducing requirement for planning, locals will have more precise ideas about what they will organise during the upcoming year. And this would also help us in order to manage our big Network.
Writte by Zsófia Komáromi, AEGEE-Budapest