To bring you back the knowledge from international level of ESN two members of our National Board PR Officer Sandra Baltkojytė and IT Coordinator Laurynas Rašimas had to cross five countries, use four different kinds of transport and try to manage within four currencies. At the end these things does not even matter anymore since delegation successfully reached Timişoara, Romania on 3rd of October, where they have spent three days discussing and exchanging knowledge with nearly 20 National Boards of the network.

Friday, 4th of October

After opening speeches and ice-breakers lead by Eduk8 trainers participants were invited to listen about most innovative ideas, significant events and other worth sharing ideas. NEP  NBM was presented, which has encouraged all the rest of ESN regions consider closer cooperation between national boards. Afterwards discussion about image of ESN sections was opened by IB members, who invited to consider wisely the content for social media. Preferring quality over quantity should be one of the main goals for every single responsible of public face of ESN.  Later on the first day of NBM was continued by presentations of SocialErasmus, Erasmus in Schools and ExchangeAbility, which came back to life after receiving grant from Council of Europe and electing the new team for the following year, which will take care of online mapping of friendly Higher Education Institutions for people with disabilities and will directly coordinate work of volunteers for that.
During the coffee break participants had to choose the small session they want to attend. Attracted by geographical issues of other countries Laurynas has chosen the topic “Geographical distance between sections – how to cooperate?” while our PR Officer attended small session analyzing work of NBs and national committees. After summarizing an hour of discussions, the time came to join 3 hours long activity “Meet your IB colleague”. While our IT  Coordinator was getting to know the most recent changes in the field of webmasters, PR of Lithuania along with other responsible for communication covered many topics, including the image of ESN, variety of tools to form it, duties and responsibilities while working on it and much more. For further information keep updated while following news of ESN Lithuania!

Plenary of the first day was closed at 8 pm and everyone was invited to meet few hours after at the Eurodinner – probably one of the longest and craziest traditions of ESN. Variety of flavors and eager to explore all of them – every real ESNer knows how hard sometimes is to combine it, but during Eurodinner everything becomes possible!

Saturday, 5th of October

Day two has started with an energizer for everyone to wake up and loads of information afterwards. ESN Finland has presented their magazine – first of this kind in the entire network. In it you can find information about working and studying in Finland, their sections, events and their National event: Pirates of the Baltic Sea. Check it all out HERE. Later on posters session has started when the time was given for countries to promote their posters with all the general info of their ESN. During 45min you could get to know how your colleagues work, who with they cooperate, what strong and sometimes weaker sides they have. One of the greatest recent success ESN story was told by ESN Portugal, which is happy about their strong ties with the national agency, can boast about successful national events and is only seeking to grow up from 8 sections to more.  That the information about recent changes in ESN International would not be lost presentation of ESN Wiki was necessary. Source of every single fact of ESN is still a relatively fresh project, which still has to be professionalized, hopefully tools as common form for the information of every country suggested during the discussion will help to achieve that. One more information source of ESN is soon to be under reconstruction, which will not only lead ESN Galaxy towards better  design, but will also provide the system with the better roles system, spread of information and future improvements for the benefit of every single ESNer.

Presentations of Alumni Network, ESN Italy’s national event took place just before the time when the participants were invited to meet their National Buddies. ESN Lithuania together with ESN Czech Republic and ESN Slovakia used the time for experience sharing and possible actions for future cooperation. If the decisions were successful entire of the network will see during following year.

Saturday session was closed with the few hours dedicated for accomplishing discussions with the colleagues of the same field.

Sunday, 6th of October

Last 3,5 hours of the event were dedicated for the last presentations and few more work groups. International Communication Manager promised to release newly updates Section Package in coming months. Best moments of the recent Eduk8 T4T were shared among the network. Future of NBM discussed. Workshops about “How to organize a sport event” and “Motivate sections for the national and international levels” were attended. Day has ended quickly with the last part only remaining: time to say goodbye.

Even if it is goodbye for October, it does not mean we will not meet on December! Until then – let’s stay in touch, dear ESN people!