What happened at the EPM in Izmir? What does this new party Volt do? And what’s so special about the Romanian AEGEE antennae? These were just some of the questions that the annual Rhein-Neckar-Stammtisch tackled on 23rd of February 2019. Like in the past year, this event for German antennae in the South-West of Germany was hosted by AEGEE-Kaiserslautern.
Unfortunately less participants followed the event than in previous year, but what the event lacked in quantity, it compensated with quality. Three AEGEE oldies which represent 75 years of AEGEE history followed the invitation by AEGEE-Kaiserslautern President Johannes Merseburg: Frank Burgdörfer, best known as former President of the International Politics Working Group; Michael Reuther, AEGEE-Heidelberg honorary member and current Volt candidate for the European Parliament; and yours truly Gunnar Erth, reporting for the Golden Times.
Michael Reuther welcomed us with the info that precisely 30 years ago he joined AEGEE-Heidelberg. Frank (joined AEGEE 22 years ago) and I could (24 years ago) could not compete with that.
But before it was time for the oldies to step up, one of the AEGEE-Kaiserslautern members presented his French-German IT project, which is financially supported by the French embassy in Germany. He is making a website/app that enables you to post, find or participate in events in France and Germany. It looks really nice, easy to use and would also be perfect as event promotion tool for the entire AEGEE network.
Then I told the participants about the ups and downs, hopes and successes of AEGEE in Romania. This presentation got the participants in the right mood for the upcoming Agora. After this it was time for Frank Burgdörfer to give insight not only in his AEGEE career, but first and foremost in the work of the German chapter of the European Movement, of which he is board member. He told us how AEGEE can benefit from being member of this network. Finally Michael Reuther explained what motivated him to join the pan-European party Volt, how he was fascinated by its similarities to AEGEE and how he became candidate for the upcoming EP elections! Of course this also meeant that we discussed about the elections itself.
Johannes Merseburg then took over and told us a few facts about the very well organised, but small EPM Izmir with 80 participants and 50 organisers. And we discussed a few issues of the German antennae in the area. A special guest of the meeting was the last President of AEGEE-Sevastopol, before the annectation by Russia made it impossible to sustain the local. To sum it up, it was an awesome afternoon!
Photos courtesy of Alexander Faas.
