NP

More professional, experienced and passionate than ever members of entire ESN Lithuania have met this weekend already for the 21st time. Event was organized by ESN Vilnius University from 26th to 28th of September and invited for already (3!) days NP hosted in Vilnius City Municipality. Event was opened by the council of presidents in the afternoon of Friday. Beginning of the implementation of Erasmus in Schools was announced and future long term strategy of ESN Lithuania was discussed within representatives from 13 HEIs of Lithuania.

Following day nearly 100 participants from 13 sections as well as 1 candidate ESN VDK were sharing their best practices of the recent half of the year. Updates of international events as CNR Porto 2014, BEST4 (together with international guest from ESN Switzerland), IT Summer Training were given and most important ongoing projects of the network were presented as Mov’in Europe, HANUL and ESN TEAM hoping to involve many more Lithuanian ESNers. 

Sunday invited sections to express their opinions while voting for the suggested changes. Starting from this weekend one place per national committee will be always ensured in the NP. Along with already established PuRe Committee it was decided to start working on structuring totally new Grants Committee. Moreover decision for the upcoming CND Vilnius 2014 was already made to delegate Karolis Kriuka (ESN VMU) as National Delegate and Gintė Skersytė (ESN SMK) as vice-National Delegate of the country. Ramūnas Adamonis (ESN VGTU) was approved as National Coordinator for Multilingual Lithuania.

Some more minutes were dedicated to the National Board which ends its term on the 1st of October. After goodbye speeches National Representative Simona Patašiūtė, Communication Manager Sandra Baltkojytė and Partnership Manager Simas Ivanauskas have finished their already 2-3 years long lasting work within ESN Lithuania. 

All the weekend was dedicated to 25th ESN Anniversary and contained lots of activities for upcoming social media campaigns. Participants for once more were encouraged to join the ThunderClap action, participate in activities, organized by PuRe Committee. Results coming on Octeber 16th, the 25th birthday of Erasmus Student Network.

OC: ESN Vilnius University

CT: Head - Julius Zaburas (ESN LT Alumni), Darija Kupstaitė (ESN Vilnius University)

Next NP: by ESN KTU, hosted in Panevėžys

Photo report here (by Evelina Kurtinaitytė, ESN VMU / ESN PuReCom / ESN ComCom) & here.

All ESN Lithuania this weekend met for the last time before well-deserved summer holidays. Meeting has united 13 HEIs of the country, representatives of Lithuanian NA together with guests from Vilnius Design College applying for the position of a candidate section. For the first time members of the organization were welcomed in Kaunas city municipality what made 20th National Platform even more special.

Every time ESN Lithuania meets in the National Platform it gets bigger and better. This weekend it has gathered more than 80 participants from 13 different higher education institutions. For the first time NP was welcomed by the representative of Kaunas city municipality, who was happy to be back to the organization where he used to belong once. After listening to heartwarming speeches from NB representatives and dear guests from ESN Estonia in the morning of Saturday 18th Spring National Platform was opened.

Saturday

Day has started with elections of the Chairing Team. This time it consisted of two long lasting experience having ESNers – Vydūnas Pakrijauskas, former Human Resources Coordinator of ESN Lithuania and member of ESN VGTU, and Modesta Džiaugytė, former president of ESN KK section. This strong duo has definitely ensured an international quality while successfully leading the entire event. Later on 6 sections of the network have presented their goals achieved during the recent half of the year. Ideas realized and upcoming projects were a great proof that ESN Lithuania keeps developing. Afterwards participants were invited to listen to the Communication Manager Sandra Baltkojytė, who has presented an idea to further develop the idea of the establishment of Pure Committee, which would invite to join all interested in communication or public relations.  President of ESN VU Darija Kupstaitė suggested sharing opinions about the future of ESNers contract, which is being developed to better establish the position and the status of the member of ESN Lithuania.
After the lunch NP was invited to participate in one of 4 organized workshops. Participants could choose between Scanbalt Experience WG (Kristofer, Scanbalt Experience) CLR or who needs to know all about ESN International in the Section (Simona Patašiūtė, NR of Lithuania), How Big is THAT (Simas Ivanauskas, Partnership Coordinator of ESN Lithuania) and Lobbing for ESN (Jaanika Saarmets, Henri Vennikas – president and treasurer of ESN Estonia). Second half of the day was dedicated for the reports of NB members for their recent half of the year and presentation about ESN Alumni and their development. Moreover, new ideas were presented as “Photo Rally within Lithuania” idea. Updates about upcoming projects as ABROADIN.EU and STORY were given. Day one was closed by the updates on the recently established positions of free listeners, who are allowed to attend NPs as guests with no rights for voting, and situation with Lithuanian NA, who recently has reached the new level of partnership since the project Erasmus in Schools were totally transferred to ESN Lithuania’s supervision.

Sunday 

New day, new challenges! Agenda, approved in the morning, suggested that this time NP will not be over until lunch as it used to be one year ago. This time it has lasted until 6pm. Rest of the sections were invited to present their achievements, which were no less surprising as the previous sections’ ones. Day was continued by the presentation about AGM and Lithuanian participants present there. This time Lithuanian delegation will consist of even 17 people!

After the lunch 5 workshops were organized: Image ABC (Akvilė Pušinskaitė, ESN ŠU), Goal Setting (Mariin Karp, ESN Estonia), ESN – Way to Success (Julius Zaburas, ESN Alumni), Preparations for AGM (Simona Patašiūtė, ESN LT NR) and Communicators Communicate (Sandra Baltkojytė, ESN LT Communication Manager). 1 hour long lasting conversations about the future of ESN LT and how to seize the opportunities ESN has to offer for you benefited to the motivation and knowledge of every single participant.At the second half of the day guests from ESN Estonia finally had a change to present their activities and structure. 4 NB members and 1 section representative allowed get a proper impression how are the activities in Lithuania’s Baltic neighbor organized. While the guests were already preparing to leave, stage was occupied by Communication Manager and her report for the last 6 months of activities, which was followed by the report of HRC Tomas Tamulevičius, Project&Coordinator Sandra Rimavičiūtė, who at the time was present in ESNSurvey meeting in Brussels, and Ona Bumbulytė, ESN LT SE Coordinator.

Few more discussions were held at the end of the day about the Erasmus+ possibilities, future of Partnership Coordinator’s position and International events of ESN. Event was closed by the NB representatives awarding the Secretariat, the CT and the amazing OC.
This time National Platform only for the 3rd time in the history was organized in Kaunas city and for the first time by the cooperation of two sections – ESN KK and ESN VMU. Great job was done to ensure the quality of the event, starting from the impressive auditorium, capable to contain even 725 people, ending up with the cozy evening part, where everyone had a great opportunity to get better to know each other and even be evaluated by the colleagues for the results achieved.

One day after the NP there are so many positive feedback that it makes us all to believe that ESN Lithuania, which has now accepted already it’s 12th member – ESN LEU – is one big and the most important family, who is united again.

More photos: HERE

National Platform of ESN Lithuania which has started exactly one week ago gathered more than 80 participants for the first time in the history of the country. ESN KuK faced a challenge to welcome 13 delegations of the sections, ESN LT Alumni team, NB, special guests from ESN Italy and even former ESN International president Emanuel Alfranseder. “Coming back to Klaipeda 2 years after the last NP organized there, helps to understand how far ESN Lithuania did go and what a great family it did become when all NP used to fill only half of the Aula back then and nowadays even additional chairs are used” says one of the participants.

Agenda also can be called richer than it has ever been. Feedback from various international events as CEP Košice, CNR Florence, SECM Prague, NBM Timisoara and the recent one CND Lodz was given. ESN Lithuania has beaten its own records having more than 20 delegates in international ESN events during the last quarter. Presentations about national and international ESN projects were given, work of international ESN Committees was presented, ESN ways of communication of various levels were covered. ESN Italy shared experience of their work while Emanuel presented specifics of working in international level of ESN. Small sessions and workshops were organized for better implementation of the knowledge and developing of some new ideas. Rumor has it that Responsible Party may have its new era coming!

While waiting for rumors to become official announcements it is worth to appreciate real changes which were made. 11th section of ESN Lithuania was approved under the name of ESN SMK. Vilnius Academy of Arts became second candidate section and from now on holds ESN VDA name. Few more changes concerning the names of NB positions were made. Public Relations Officer from now on is called Communication Manager and Projects Coordinator was changed to Projects&Events Coordinator. Newly old candidate for the latter position was reelected: NP was greeting Sandra Rimavičiūtė for the second term. Without all of that the one and the only ESN LT mascot was finally presented – Gilius LTU!

National Platform No. 17 was closed in the evening of December 15th with many wishes for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hopefully holidays will be useful and inspiring break before the new grand season which will definitely bring many changes. Are you interested how we are going to look like in one year? It depends only on us, so let’s do our best.

During the last weekend of September (28-29th) National Platform of ESN Lithuania took place under the roof of Vilnius University. More than 15 hours of discussions and decisions resulted in getting to know each other better, gaining experience and ideas from other sections since 9 of them were participating, together with ESN LT Alumni, our candidate section ESN SMK and ESN LEU, which has just applied for candidate status. New members, ideas and suggestions, negotiations and problems solving – 2 days full of ESN Lithuania policy making.

28th of September

On Saturday after sections from Kaunas, Šiauliai and Klaipėda have reached the capital and people from Vilnius have gathered together National Representative Simona Patašiūtė together with CT Vytenis Danyla have opened the Platform with motivating speeches and inspiration for every single ESNer in Lithuania. Afterwards CEP and CND were presented together with opportunities to join them and gather some international experience there. Later on some local experiences were shared with the entire network while ESN VGTU representatives gave a presentation about Summer Camp’13, organized already for the 3rd time in ESN Lithuania history and probably not for the last one.

During the rest of the morning NP was listening to different kinds of reports and presentations given by ESN LT Alumni network, which have even prepared awards for every section for their best project of the recent period. Tomas Tamulevičius has shared his experience in Eduk8 seminar Trainings 4 Trainers, which has happened more than a month ago in Romania and motivated him to apply for the HRC position in the NB. National project coordinator Sandra Rimavičiūtė has presented previous and made an introduction to the present ESN Sea Battle stating clear that it is still one of the most successful ESN projects ever, always sold out within first hours. One more successful project of ESN was presented by the guest of our NP – Xrisa Soulele from ESN Greece, who has presented us SocialErasmus and Erasmus in Schools initiative in her home country.

After the lunch all the rest of the time was dedicated for the reports of the sections and their activities of the recent quarter: welcoming weeks were presented along with mentors activities, which are playing the main role during the first days of exchange students in Lithuania. Presentations were followed by the open discussion initiated by the CT where sections shared their thoughts about the work done by the colleagues. After closing it together with the first day of NP everyone was invited to meet up in the city centre for non-formal activities.
 
29th of September

Day for the decision making has finally come. After listening to 10 different reports, questions and comments one thing became clear, that NB 2012-2013 deserves one huge THANK YOU for the time they have invested with no return, for the skills for helping to improve ESN  Lithuania, patience and comprehension, attempts to inspire volunteers of the network and to help them with going further – for all of it and much more NP expressed their gratitude for the President Gintarė Vaiginyte, National Representative Simona Patašiūtė, Public Relations Officer Sandra Baltkojytė, Project Coordinator Sandra Rimavičiūtė, Marketing Coordinator Simas Ivanauskas, IT Coordinator Laurynas Rašimas, SocialErasmus Coordinator Kristina Selezniova, Human Resources Coordinator Vydūnas Pakrijauskas, Sea Battle Coordinator Karolis Sakalauskas and last but not the least Responsible Party Coordinator Indrė Kasiliauskaitė.

Not only members of the latter NB gave their presentation, but also a special guest from our partner Scanbalt Experience has arrived to present himself and to discuss possibilities for future cooperation. After the last speech it was already the time to start voting for the new NB and other important matters.

After sections have expressed their will it came clear that the new Board for 2013-2014 goes as follows:
President – Vytenis Danyla;
NR – Simona Patašiūtė;
HRC – Tomas Tamulevičius
 

PR Officer together with the Project Coordinator stay the same until the next National Platform.

During the recent weekend, staring from the early morning of 16th of March participators of already 14th National Platform of ESN Lithuania met each other once again in a purpose of improving work, sharing experiences, gathering information and exchanging ideas. Challenging national event which encouraged not only to consider in which direction future work of organization should be developed but also to enjoy the rising quality of the NPs.

Despite the Survival Guide, shared with participators weeks before the event, and present moderator for the second time in the history of ESN LT even the opening was different – this time the network was welcomed by the representative of Education Exchange Support Foundation. After meeting and greeting covering more serious topics followed. President of ESN Lithuania discussed the meaning of being a volunteer and significant role of it which in some ways is useful while creating a good image of not only ESN, but of entire Lithuania as well. 

Later the recent Bling Bling party was discussed with the arising idea to elect the future coordinator for the one of the most successful events of ESN Lithuania. ESN LT Alumni has also played a significant part in a program presenting their motives of foundation, followed by future plans and vision. And so did the Social Erasmus with Kristina Seleziova in front of it. Coordinator of SE in Lithuania talked about the results which were achieved through the latter quarter. Also ideas for the future were presented with a promise to present them all in the official page of SocialErasmus in Lithuania.

One more happy new is that ESN Lithuania keeps growing not only in quality, but also in quantity! The new section candidate – ESN SMK (University of Applied Social Sciences) was approved as the 11th possible section of ESN network in Lithuania with ESN VGTU as their buddy section which will monitor the work of the candidate until the next NP. Happy moments were not over with this change only. After accepting new member candidate time for guests came. Michal Sikora from ESN Czech Republic and Stefanos Antypas from ESN Greece presented their ESN countries, methods of organizing work there and ways of solving arising problems. The day ended with discussions about coming ESN Olympics and relaxing in non-formal environment. 

During the second day of the National Platform many statements of National Board members were made, covering the recent results of their cadencies – participation in various international events, making ESN Lithuania more visible in international context same as in the local one. Also effort while organizing workshops and gaining the best results from it. Or even supporting the particular members of the network to take part in those workshops. One of the recent and the best examples of it – participation of Tomas Tamulevičius in Eduk8 Winter in Valencia, where trainings for the better team work, management of projects and their realization were organized. Tomas (ESN VMU) was glad to admit that it was an event worth time and money invested in many different ways. His workshop and positive reviews after the one only proves that with ESN you can always go further and help others to go with you.

That is how the recent weekend looked like under the sky of ESN Lithuania. But the life there never stops, so keep up with our website to get the latest news – about NBM Dijon, coming AGM and all the other local, national and international events approaching. 

Pallomeri!

P.S. Huge thanks for ESN ISM for organising one more beautiful event for the entire ESN of Lithuania!
 
Photos might be found HERE.

When ESN VMU was approved as the OC of the following National Platform not everyone wanted to leave the capital and move to Kaunas for these few days, but seems that hard work, consistent planning and united team fulfilled their promise that there will be No Problems in Kaunas from 1st to the 2nd of December.

Second NP in Kaunas during the history of ESN Lithuania brought together more than 50 active members including and the first Chair of NP in ESN Lithuania’s history. It was Orinta Movsesjan who bravely stood in front of everyone and kept the right order. Therefore at the end of the NP all the sections approved that CT should be elected for every single NP. One more step forward a better work quality was made continuing with the fact that even 6 different workshops were organized by 6 different members of the NB covering the topics from visual identity and marketing finishing with the basics of HTML code. 

Besides that during winter NP much more various information about present projects, outcomes of recent activities and future plans were presented. Kristina Selezniova (present SE LT coordinator) gladly represented visible SocialErasmus improvement in Lithuania, which might be followed on the new SE Lithuania page. Sandra Rimavičiūtė (present ESN LT Project Coord.) talked about the Sea Battle 2012 Fall and about the better level which this project has reached even with plans to organize a Responsible Party in the following SB. Gintarė Vaiginytė (present ESN LT president) together with Augustė (ESN Vilnius University) explained about the new action plan for the reviving project Invest in Lithuania, which is starting from the following February. Later on it was followed by the presentation of Being a Jew, which is officially starting already from this Sunday. Many other topics related to Responsible Party, CEP Graz 2012 and even new partners were covered. 

Apart of that many other opportunities for the members of ESN Lithuania’s networks was offered. One of them – Eduk8, which is inviting to participate all the potential future trainers on almost any topic. In the past workshops have been organised on topics like effective communication, team building and leadership, constructive feedback and conflict management. Also members were encouraged to join international committees of ESN and use opportunities to Reach out for more – go international!

While trying to improve skills of ESN members international students mustn’t be forgotten as well, that’s why the idea brought back from CEP Graz 2012 to participate in ESN Olympics were presented for the NP and approved by 8 from 9 sections, who were present on 2-nd day of NP. International students should start practicing their running, swimming, soccer skills, because already this spring they will be invited to Poland to show the best they can and ESN Lithuania will be there for them with all the help to win the gold!

From activities for international students to Corporal Identity of ESN, to energizers and even development of future ESN Lithuania with inclusion of strong Alumni role. Presentation made by ESN VGTU Alumni Julius Zaburas offered to appoint 5 places for Alumni in every single NP together with the right to choose and approve the participants themselves. Moreover, creation of Alumni network was initiated with more results soon to come. 

NP finished, members left motivated and prepared to seek for more goals, which might be shared with the entire Lithuanian network in the following NP, which will take place in ESN ISM for the first time since the establishment of the section. Expectations are high, so what is left it is only to wish that after the ESN LT NP Spring 2013 the survey giving the feedback about the event would show the same as it does now, that it was “amazing! Thank you, guys!”. Thank you for being together! ESN unites. 

 By Sandra Baltkojytė.

During the recent weekend 50 ESNers of Lithuania have gathered together for Spring National Platform 2012. Event was hosted by ESN ŠU in Šiauliai University. More than 10 hours were spent for discussions, new decisions making and of course improving communication between sections and national Board, which this time was represented by Gintarė Vaiginytė, Julija Garšvaitė, Roman Šarpanov and Sandra Baltkojytė.

At the first day of Platform we were finally introduced to the work of ESN ISM, which was represented by their president Pavel. Later we got to know what effort was paid to make BLING BLING party such a success, what are plans for collaboration with Let’s Do It World, how is cooperation with Education Exchanges Support Foundation is going on and what grand event will be organized in Lithuania soon together with their help. Rumor has it that Days of Mentors are coming back once again!

The most important part of the day was when all the participators were invited to sign the documents for the establishment of Erasmus student tinklas ESN Lietuva – organization, which will soon officially represent ESN Lithuania in Lithuania’s law.

Second day invited to discuss about AGM and tools necessary for appropriate representation of the country. Later new budget of the quarter was confirmed with the decisions taken to delegate our ESN LT President to NBM Switzerland and our ESN LT NR to CNR in Island. Furthermore, decisions were made about our new partners – Cocainn Bar and changes of the present national mobile phone operator.  After Gintarė and Julija have shared their experiences from ESN Estonia NP and discussion about communication were made Spring 2012 NP was closed.

Next stop – Mentors’ days, real spring and even more fun with a great company!

Keep in touch with ESN Lithuania!

Photos here.

On the 25-26th February, Gintarė Vaiginytė (President of ESN Lithuania) and Julija Garšvaitė (Project Coordinator of ESN Lithuania) attended the 13th National Platform of Estonia. On the first day, we found out a lot about the projects Tallinn and Tartu sections are organizing and participating in. We met the candidates for the next NR of Estonia and heard the presentation about ESN Italy projects and structure. Also all participants got the chance to find out more about “Let’s do it World” environmental project.

On the 26th February we presented ESN Lithuania, the projects we participate in and our structure. Afterwards we got a private tour in Tallinn by an ESNer from Tartu section.

P.S. Congratulations to Katre Trei – the next NR of ESN Estonia!!! 

More photos may be found here.

On 10th January Vilnius sections of ESN Lithuania wellcomed all ERASMUS students by organizing them a huge Welcome party. According to organizators, there should have been around 450 ERASMUS students from Vilnius, Vilnius Gediminas Technical and  Mykolas Romeris universities, International School of Business and Law as well as mentors and their friends. The party took place in Pramogų Bankas, Vilnius.

The topic of the event was BLING BLING, so girls had to wear cocktail dresses while guys were in their suits and shirts. Despite the bad weather and Lithuanian cold, there were lots of people who prepared and shined all night long. The party lasted until 6 am.

This welcome party was one of the first events organized by several sections of ESN in Vilnius. After success like this there will certainly be more unforgettable events organized so follow the news!