1. FEARS AND REALITY

Never before there have been so many fears about the organisation of an Agora as in the case of the one in Constanta from 3rd till 6th May 2001. Many people still remember the attacks by someone calling himself "Neo", who tried to discredit the organisers from Constanta and the town itself by writing very harmful e-mails one year ago. Also, during the preparation of the Agora in the past couple of months, the CD in Brussels had a very high time to communicate with the organisers in Constanta. In case to receive answers to his mails, every mail had to be sent via fellow CD member Calin Haiduc, who is treated like a god by many Romanian antennae. Especially the fact that there would be no room for the plenary which had place for more than 150 participants was scaring the CD. And of course, everyone feared that no one would go on such a long trip, to the Black Sea Coast.
In the end everything was solved. AEGEE-Constanta started to communicate intensively with the network - especially the new CD secretary Anca Fanea answered every e-mail in warp speed. For the plenary the organisers took a corridor in the university building which offered space for 450 people - and which was always well filled. The acoustics was bad in the back though, which made chairman Koen Berden say the words: "People come to the front, especially the ones in the back."
In general this Agora will be remembered as one of the best organised with extremely efficient and friendly local organisers. And of course because of the beach, which was only a few steps away from the lodging place.

450 Delegates gathered in the Agora room - or rather in the Agora corridor. The chair desk with chairman Koen Berden from AEGEE-Rotterdam had sometimes quite a hard time to make itself heard in this atmosphere. This did not stop some CD members from sleeping in front of the room. The usual participants though paid attention.

Talking about the hotel already: logistics worked very well at the Agora. All participants were lodged in two-bed rooms in Hotel Flora in the Marmaia resort of Constanta. There the participants got breakfast and dinner. The waitresses though sometimes behaved as if the times of communism had never vanished: being quite rude it seems they never heard of consumer-friendly services. It is also questionable whether the Agora organisers really had to wake up everyone at 7 a.m., while the buses went only at 9 a.m. to the university. After the knocking on the door everyone fell asleep again in order to get up around 8.30.
Ah, the buses. THIS was a great service. There were buses for the participants all the time, whether taking the people to the plenary, to the party or back home at 3 a.m. Big compliment! Very sad for the organisers: the Post Agora was cancelled due to lack of interest among the Agora participants.

AEGEE-Europe president Karina Häuslmeier presented the activity report of the CD, while treasurer Pepijn Migchels gave the account on the finances (left picture). But of course, the Agora was also about fashion - and this could be clearly seen in the ties: be it correct and official as Sergio Maestri, fake ties from paper or Grzegorz Stanisz's blue camouflage tie on blue ground.

Talking about the parties: On Thursday, a very warm and sunny day, there was sort of a beach party next to the hotel. On Friday and Sunday night the parties took place at a big disco which was reserved for us. The location was very nice, just the DJs were lousy. On Friday there was at least some Latin music, while most of the time the DJs played house. On Sunday there was only house. Hardly anyone liked that music, but since people were in the mood for partying, they danced anyway.
The party on Saturday was considered as the highlight by many. It took place open air at the "Pirate Inn", outside of Constanta. A band played open-air, making people dancing in large circles and chains; there was a fire at the nearby beach and lots of tables to sit at, drink, eat and talk. It would have been one of the most remarkable Agora parties ever, if it hadn't been so cold suddenly. Still, it was an outstanding party for sure!
During the plenary, chairman Koen Berden had announced the party like this: "The party will be at the Pirate Inn. After dinner there will be an informal meeting with the CD candidates at the same place, the Private Inn".

Next to the Agora corridor was a nice and wide square. Here some people prepared for their upcoming Agora presentations (second picture: Zeynep Sönmez from AEGEE-Kayseri), made fun like AEGEE-Sibiu (middle), took a break from the duties as CD candidate like Dominika Wiora - or they simply admired the amazing AEGEE yearbook "Key to Europe", here presented by Margaret Fenech, one of its editors.

If there is one country in Europe where PR seems to be easy then it is Romania. I cannot recall all the officials who gave speeches and all the newspapers and other media that wanted to report from the Agora - and this right after the successful Final Conference of Borderless Europe, which had also an intensive media coverage. I don't really think that most Agora participants enjoyed all the speeches of all wannabe important people... In fact they were endless and incredibly boring.

AEGEE-Passau was represented with one of the biggest delegations - and due to their sweaters always recognisable. Second picture: Agora organiser Anca Fanea - with read hair - took a break from their duties. The funniest sisters in the network: Carol and Irene Martinez from Barcelona and Hannover (middle). The newly elected board of the Cultural Working Group held its first meeting in the sun, while around others just partied.

The Agora was a huge triumph for the Comite Directeur. The Activity Report with 86 percent of the votes. Formerly this report was known as "Moral Report" - I guess the name was changed because previously not all activities were morally ok ;-))) The Financial Report was brilliantly cool presented by CD treasurer Pepijn Migchels. The presentation style combined with the achieved surplus of 27 823 Euro guaranteed a voting result of 95 percent in favour. This means that since the Agora in Poznan in November 1999 all Moral and Financial Reports have been accepted. Quite good times for AEGEE! Similar high was the result for the new budget: 92.7 percent in favour.

Candidates with different fate: While Dominika Wiora (right on the first photo) got elected with a great result, Diane Ducreaux (left) had less luck. Between them: Susanne Andreae, president of AEGEE-Paris. Counter candidate to Diane was Piotr Tylko (second picture). Of course the candidates had to face a lot of questions. Not only a new CD was elected, also the commission members had to candidate, like the smallest Juridical Commission ever, who held their speech on a chair. The CD watched all these candidatures carefully.

Does anyone remember an Agora without electing a new president? Well, last time it happened was in 1991, because since 1992 not a single president of AEGEE-Europe stayed longer than six months. Okay, a few wanted to stay longer, but were somehow kicked out. With Karina Häuslmeier we have the first president who fulfills a one-year term. And who knows what will happen in six months. ;-))) The two other key positions, treasurer and secretary, are also held by women: Dominika Wiora from AEGEE-Katowice became new treasurer with a very good 84.6 percent of the votes, Agora organiser Anca Fanea from Cluj/Constanta reached "only" 72.3 percent, probably because of her sometimes hot temper and the fact that she won't move to Brussels before June - and leaving again in autumn.
Very impressive was Dominika's candidature. Dressed in blue with a skirt, she walked from the back of the room to the microphone near the chair table where her campaign manager Bartek Nowak had already put a few piles of multi-functional "Key to Europes" to stand on, so she was better visible.
This is not the first CD in which three girls hold the key positions - the same happened at the Agora in Poznan, having Fani Zarifopoulou as president, Aliki Louvrou as treasurer and Oana Mailatescu as secretary.

Many presentations were made with Powerpoint, which caused of course a lot of technical problems. Even more problems were caused by Panagiotis Karras (right on the second photo), who wanted to found the Democratic Politics Working Group - without success. And again, people listened carefully: such as Susanna Ritala, president of AEGEE-Helsinki, inventor of the "Hug Coupons" - or like the girls from AEGEE-Bucuresti. Longer discussions were also made in some workshops, like in the one concerning the next yearplan.

One candidate more than places - this doesn't happen too often at Agoras. While there was only one candidate for the posts of secretary and treasurer, four people competed for the three places for being ordinary CD member. On the other hand one of them was not even presented - and he got the best election result: former NetCom Carlos Miragall from Valencia, who is currently studying in the US, reached 86.5 percent and will take care of Internal Education. He had recorded his voice and made a Power Point presentation. It was incredibly long and boring, since Carlos spoke veeeery slow. Still, it was original, so he got many votes. He will come to Brussels in June and will probably leave in autumn.
A sure CD candidate was always smiling and silent Pedro Panizo from Valladolid, who has already spent some months in Brussels, working on several applications. 82.9 percent thought that this was good enough to elect him. He also cooks well.
A fierce fight aroused around the remaining place of a network responsible. On the one hand there was Piotr Tylko-Tylczinski from Leiden (fortunately for him his name was already printed on a ballot paper), ambitious, experienced, professional. The other candidate was Diane-Ysabel Ducreaux from AEGEE-Paris, a really idealistic member, who even decided to give up her job to dedicate more time to the association. Piotr gave a very clear presentation, Diane was nervous, forgot everything she wanted to say and was also nervous at the following 15 questions to the two candidates. So, Piotr was elected with 66.2 percent, while Diane reached 25.7 percent.

Anyway, the good thing is that except from Carlos and Anca every elected CD member wants to stay for one year. Since many people don't think that Pedro and Dominika want to candidate for president in six months, the bets are very high that Piotr might candidate for president of AEGEE-Europe in six months. So lets see his performance as network responsible...

The voting starts: The Human Rights Working Group had to distribute quite some votes and still made their crosses, while at the ballot boxes people were queuing already. The team at the ballot boxes - most of them from AEGEE-Passau - had a lot of fun.

Of course, while the votes were counted, others had time - for example for reading AEGEE's outstanding yearbook "Key to Europe". Kostas Rigos (second photo) voted for AEGEE-Athina, soon afterwards the counting started. One of the fastest counters - next to the countless AEGEE-Passau election helpers was Chiara Benetazzo from Treviso (Last photo). Next to her: Michael Forster from the Juridical Commission, who supervised the elections.

8.1. Network Commission

Competitive elections were the sign of this Agora. Not only for the CD, also for the Network Commission and the Members Commission there were more candidates than places.

Elected were
AEGEE-Amsterdam	80.6 percent
AEGEE-Katowice	79.3 percent
AEGEE-Bucuresti	65.4 percent
Sergiy Slupskyy	50.7 percent

Not elected were
AEGEE-Szeged	35.5 percent
AEGEE-Lviv	34.1 percent

AEGEE-Szeged and AEGEE-Bucuresti on one hand and Sergiy and Lviv on the other hand were competing to be NetCom for the same region. Fortunately the delegates voted in such a way that there was no region without Network Commissioner. Anyway, at least between Szeged and Bucuresti there was an agreement that the antenna with less votes would not be NetCom, but only SubCommissioner in case both were elected. Still, this election situation made many people call for fixed regions and having regional elections.
Many people were surprised about the fact that Sergiy Slupskyy was elected, although the incumbent AEGEE-Lviv has more experience and can rely on the human and financial resources of a whole antenna. Some say the reason is the better performance of Sergiy, others say that the reason is a certain disappointment about the performance of AEGEE-Lviv as NetCom in the past. No doubt there was about AEGEE-Bucuresti being elected. The nearby antenna had a very convincing presentation and could show already results of their work, while AEGEE-Szeged was represented only by one delegate at the candidature.

Not all AEGEE-Passau members were so serious as the Juridical Commission, represented by Yvonne Fiebig and Michael Forster. Their fellow antenna members presented their congress on Jewish culture in Europe: this was the best of all presentations, especially Stefan Hauk's appearance as gay jew was very funny.

Six candidates for four places - and most of them really good ones - a nice change compared to previous Agoras! Calin Haiduc received only two votes more than Luca Falcone, who made himself a name in the Visa Freedom Fighters.

Elected were
Katerina Tsaligopoulou (pres.)	74.3 percent
Stefan Hauk (CD)	67.3 percent
Berber Hettinga (Utrecht)	60.4 percent
Calin Haiduc (CD)	54.7 percent

Not elected were
Luca Falcone (Napoli)	35.5 percent
Vicenzo Posa	18.4 percent

8.3. Audit Commission

No big changes in the Audit Commission. The three guys who burnt and destroyed once the coffee machine in the AEGEE-Europe office (and bought a new one meanwhile ;-)) were re-elected, but changed places. Kostas Rigos replaces Koen Rijnsent being president of the Audit Commission. The result:

Kostas Rigos (Athina)	82.4 percent
Koen Rijnsent (Utrecht)	80.6 percent
Hans Peskens (Enschede)	68.0 percent

Crazy people: When AEGEE-Beograd presented their upcoming event, it turned into a dance happening. Moving your body to the rhythm of music was also aim of the newly founded Dance Working Group (second picture). Music is also an essential part when new contacts sign the Convention d'Adhesion, because the CD is obliged to sing to it! This time, among others, contact Suceava and contact Pécs signed.

No changes in the Juridical Commission. The smallest team ever continued its task. This time they climbed a chair in order to be seen behind the microphone. The JC stays firmly in the hand of AEGEE-Passau. The facts:

Michael Foster (Passau)	90.1 percent
Yvonne Fiebig (Passau)	85.5 percent

8.5. Secretary of the Agora

Martijn Hovestad from Delft left his task after being "the man who types faster than his shadow" for two years. His successor was Nynke Mesonides from AEGEE-Rotterdam who received so brilliant questions like "Can you type with ten fingers?" After this question many people demanded a typing competition between Nynke and Martijn - which did not take place. The result:

Nynke Mesonides (Rotterdam)

90.4 percent

The new CD, from left to right: Sergio Maestri, Dominika Wiora, Pedro Panizo, Voichita Radu, Piotr Tylko-Tylczinski, Ivana Vukov, Karina Häuslmeier and Anca Fanea. Carlos Miragall, also elected, was not present. At the end of the Agora many people used the opportunity to take pictures in front of the giant AEGEE-Constanta logo at the wall.

Vittorio dell'Aquila, Michael Merker, Georg von der Gablentz - these are names that are connected with AEGEE history. Therefore they were granted honorary membership of AEGEE-Europe. At the Agora in Constanta AEGEE-Europe got its ninth honorary member: Markus Schönherr from AEGEE-Passau.
Calin Haiduc listed the achievements of Markus Schönherr in a funny speech: "Markus speaks seven languages in can say Cheers in 30 languages - after which he is usually quite drunk and starts singing."
Markus himself, known for his brilliant, sharp and witty speeches, was totally caught by surprise - and was speechless for the first time ever behind a microphone. There is hardly anyone in AEGEE who had a right to this honour as much as Markus. As Alex Glos put it: "So they finally chose someone who deserves it?" ;-))

Karina, Susanna and Koen - like many others survivors of the European School in Athens they used this opportunity for a reunion. Chairman Koen had an intensive exchange of ideas with Betina, new Network Commissioner from Katowice (second photo). Calin, leaving CD members was overwhelmed by his feelings, like his fellow Sergio Maestri. Since everybody had to leave the room fast, people used the last minutes for some final AEGEE business talks. Minute-man Martijn Hovestad packed his stuff for the last time - he finished his term as secretary of the Agora and PM (fourth picture). Right after organising a successful Presidents & Planning Meeting in March, AEGEE-Katowice members joined the European level of AEGEE, just like Betina Szkudlarek and Dominika Wiora. And finally - the AEGEE-Europe flag was rolled in.

10. PROPOSALS

10.1. New strategies

The strategy plan, which is showing the direction of AEGEE in the next years, was accepted with a huge majority: 95.8 percent in favour. The strategy plan replaces the abolished Long Term Programme.

10.2. More money for the NetCom

The proposal to reform the NetCom was accepted with 86.0 percent of the votes. This means: 4000 Euro instead of 2000 Euro reimbursements per year, but also the chance of a vote of confidence against the individual Network Commissioners.

10.3. New education and old roots

The new Yearplan consists of two projects: "Education" and "Roots of Europe". The education subject was suggested by the CD, mainly in order to get money from the Commission and in order to sharpen AEGEE's profile of being the leading students association when it comes to education matters. It was also clearly visible that the CD was reluctant to give its approval to the second proposal, which was put forward by the Turkish antenna AEGEE-Kayseri. This project "Roots of Europe" will analyse the different cultural heritages in Europe and show directions for the future. Not a really new concept, but for sure more interesting and attractive to the participants than the usual education stuff. The voting results:

Education	76.3 percent
Roots of Europe	52.7 percent

After the Agora many people used the occasion for doing some sightseeing in Constanta, like former CD member Sebastian Klüsener. The last Agora survivors could see the famous casino, climbed the mosc, saw the original inhabitants of Constanta - or admired some of the many churches.

11.1. The phantom of AEGEE

Panagiotis Karras - everyone knows this name, but until the Agora he had been an e-mail phantom to most people. There he was, the man with the endless e-mail debates, who attacked others on the IPWG mailing list, who called former IPWG speaker Frank Burgdörfer a fascist and complained about a lack of democracy when he was banned from the list after paralysing it with his mails.
There he was, and presented the foundation of the "Democratic Politics Working Group" (DPWG). Repeatedly he pointed out his concept: "We have a new approach. We want to organise events with debates, inviting distinguished personalities." Several people said that this is standard for every event and asked Panagiotis whether his real intention wasn't rather a revenge act for being banned from the IPWG discussions. His answer: "Can you repeat your question? I do not understand it. We have a new approach. We want to organise events with debates, inviting distinguished personalities." Asked whether there is a need for such a working group at all, he replied: "Pluralism allows all flowers to blossom." Berber Hettinga sharply answered: "We should rather focus on the existing working groups. They need our support." In the following voting the proposal to create the DPWG was rejected with about 76 percent of the votes.

More impressions of Constanta: the main square, the harbour and a monument... Finally, everyone went home. The old and new CD members could finally get some sleep.

Only five minutes after rejecting the DPWG, another working group was approved: the Dance Working Group (DWG). This working group was initiated mainly by the crazy members of AEGEE-Sibiu - some of the best dancers in the whole network. They had this idea during breakfast on Saturday morning and chairman Koen Berden had no objection that they could present it to the Agora. Of course they gave a brilliant presentation, making the delegates enthusiastic. However, they could not make it a Supporting Working Group, because these ones are only supporting the CD - and they should be able to dance themselves. So it had to be a Thematic Working Group - which was accepted by acclamation!!! Watch out for their activities! :)))

12. PRESENTATIONS

Typical for this Agora were also some high-class presentations. Being it by Power Point and film (Agora Ankara was the top one!) or as live performance. Here AEGEE-Passau was top with its congress announcement on Jewish culture - especially Stefan Hauk's appearance as woman was outstanding.

13. OTHER STUFF

Some locals were deleted from the network, such as Canterbury, Dnipropetrovsk, Strasbourg and Ternopil, a few others downgraded. The Bulletin Award went to AEGEE-Skopje for its monthly magazine with the imaginative title "Europe".
The Sunday morning proposal however failed. Since the plenary was quite empty, chairman Koen Berden was looking for a way to entertain the audience. He asked Pepijn to present the proposal that after each agenda topic the Agora have to make a wave three times across the room. The support was great - but the necessary quorum was not fulfilled.

14. THE END

As usual the local organising team of the Agora received a present. The CD gave them a penguin (whatever it may mean...).

15. CONCLUSION

This Agora was excellent!
So: Good luck with your future events, AEGEE-Constanta!!!

More Agora photos: