When you do something for the third time, you can call it a tradition. This is definitely the case of the AEGEE-Budapest Alumni Gala, which was organised for the third time on 10th of May 2013. More than 50 current and former members of the antenna in the Hungarian capital gathered in the beautiful Proféta Galéria at Szent Gellért tér in order to celebrate the past and future of one of AEGEE’s biggest locals. Also CD member Pavel Zbornik attended the very festive event.
What’s a celebration without a cake? The moment, when the two main organisers Ildikó Milanovich and Tünde Biró carried in the big AEGEE-Budapest cake was surely one of the highlights of the evening. It wasn’t just a normal cake, it was a birthday cake, because AEGEE-Budapest celebrates it’s birthday on 9th of May. That’s why the alumni gala usually takes place around this time.
AEGEE-Budapest President Kristóf Papp showed his strong AEGEE enthusiasm when he gave a highly entertaining opening speech, former PR responsible Ildikó Ferencsik told how AEGEE influenced her life in the past years and AEGEE-Budapest’s recently re-elected CD member Beáta Matuszka sent a video message from Brussels, which unfortunately suffered from technical circumstances – the pictures were not moving and the sound of the speakers were not so good. The female acapella choir Budapest Sirens contributed to the success of the evening by singing several songs.
This evening was also special for Annamária Németh. The former President of AEGEE-Budapest, whose board handed in the application for organising the autumn Agora 2012, was introduced as new Alumni coordinator of her antenna. “This alumni gala has become a great tradition”, said Annamária. “We will continue it. And in addition we will also make an oldies dinner in November.”
One of her main tasks will be motivating more of the old AEGEE-Budapest members to attend the alumni events. The big majority of the present people, all dressed very elegantly, were from recent years. While at the last two galas you had also members of the founding generation, such as AEGEE-Europe honorary member Zsuzsa Kigyós, this time there were only very few real oldies, such as the board members from the period 1996 to 1998: Helga Schuszter, “Joe” Tamás Köris, Boglárka Balázs, András Szakonyi, János Simon and Kriszta Gergely. One of them said that they asked some other oldies why they are not coming. They said they are not attending the alumni gala, because their friends are not coming. This is a vicious circle that the antenna, which nearly always had between 200 and 300 members, needs to break. Because the ones who were not there missed a really great event.
Check the photos of the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.518595628197941.1073741831.264520126938827&type=1&l=10b7f09ac2
Impressions of the previous two alumni galas: http://youtu.be/UiEw4shQmQE
