The Silver Times

Great news! The first participants of the Agora have arrived at the location – or at least, they thought so. When they arrived in Novi Sad, they took a cab and asked the driver to bring them to the Agora he knew about. The taxi driver responded “Frušk Agora, coming right up!” and 30 minutes later they arrived.

Participant Tom Barleyel needed to admit he expected the Agora to be somewhat different: “I am absolutely amazed by the view, but also surprised by the sleeping arrangements. I guess I should have known when I heard the gym was called the Million Star Gym.”

After not being able to find any organizers or helpers, Barleyel decided to set up camp himself, hunted around for some food, and is now waiting for the other participants to show up.

At the Agora, many new initiatives are presented to the world for the first time. For the first physical Agora in 2,5 years, a new working group called “The Old Happy” has been founded! Several old AEGEE members are working together to the participants some old happiness. This will be achieved in many ways. For example, during the opening ceremony, aside from the usual sign language interpreter, there will also be a mime player and a jazz band. After the ceremony is over, a stand up comedian will perform ‘The roast of the CD’, and later that evening the open mic tournament starts.

Old AEGEE-Debrecen member Gundalf von Urph explains why: “With the pandemic in the past few years and now the tensions all over Europe, we realized there was a lot of new sadness in Europe. We couldn’t possibly relativize away all the new sadness, but with age comes experience and knowledge, and one bit of knowledge is that you always need happy things in life. And when there are not many new happy things, it’s always good to bring back the old happy things.”

During the plenaries, the Old Happy working group will be sending old CD members dressed as clowns, to remember the participants of the old happiness they need in their life.

Sad or happy? Mental wellbeing is important, especially at an intensive event like an Agora, you’re important to you. Did you know AEGEE has a Mental Health focus area? Check them out at their website.

During a stunning F5-night, former president of AEGEE-Bielefeld and Chief-in-Editor of the popular Silver Times magazine Anna Pamplona will be running for the function of President of AEGEE-Europe to be elected during in the spring of 2020. She announced her candidature during a drunken night out in Dublin, wanting to visit the hometown of member of the Comité Directeur & Secretary General Monika for an upcoming report.

Pamplona’s candidature came as a surprise to many, including AEGEE-Aachen member Angelique: “This came as an even bigger surprise than Hemmo from AEGEE-Eindhoven (or Leuven or Tilburg, I actually have no clue) running for SecGen”. Honorary member of the Comité Directeur Gunnar Erth responds to the candidature as well: “Holy Shit, this might be one of the best candidate since the last time I ran for President!”.

Out editor made friends with the JC (alcohol ís a solution) and got them to send a few points from her program:

• Free Visa cards for everyone
• Open more European borders, except to France
• Keep Europe on track (Don’t let Europe derail)
• CD gets designated survivor during statutory events
• Extend Bus leaving deadline to 10 minutes
• Shut down the AEGEEan and Golden Times for spreading Fake News

Become a believer!

Believe in AEGEE. Believe in Europe. Believe in Anna.

Unique in AEGEE History: An Extraordinary Agora will most likely be held in January as part of the impeachment procedure called against AEGEE-Nijmegen member and European Citizenship Working Group Coordinator Maaike. In a recent and seemingly innocent interview about her new tasks as coordinator, Maaikes tongue slipped and she accidentally revealed that her ‘guilty pleasure’ is eating Pizza with Pineapple.

The network was outraged, to bring it subtly. Many people are angry at Maaike and feel disinformed about this important fact. Calvin (AEGEE-Sheffield) responds: “I thought I was running against a human being, but now I regret withdrawing my candidature”

Maaike herself responded cool at first: “Why are people so outraged? I’ve loved Pizza with Pineapple for years! Maybe I didn’t actually eat it during the Agora, but that was just not to offend the Italians. People complain I didn’t tell them about it and hey, it’s not like anyone asked?!”

Jorge (former coordinator of the Jorge Jorge Working Jorge) responded to our reporter: “How can this happen and how did this not come out during the Agora in Salerno? I will personally call in the Impeachment procedure to have her kicked out and hold new elections for a European Citizenship Working Group Coordinator”.

Several members of the Comité Directeur already showed first signs of support and told special reporter Anna Pamplona they are investigating the situation. According to the CIA, if during a CD meeting over half of the members of the Comité Directeur support an impeachment procedure, an extraordinary Agora must be held to vote on it. On this Agora, a super majority of two-thirds of the members of the Agora must vote in favour of the impeachment. If this happens, Maaike will be replaced by the Vice Coordinator of the European Citizenship Working Group.

AEGEE-Aachen has already showed their interest in organizing such an Aachora.

Dear participants of the Agora, Visitors, Delegates, members of European Bodies,

Thank you for reading the Silver Times during Autumn Agora Salerno! I am really glad that this silly project was a big success, and that so many people enjoyed reading it. I got so many positive and lovely comments about the articles I wrote, it really warmed me up. I absolutely love writing the utter utter bullshit that the Silver Times can sometimes be.

What I love even more is the instant smile I see on peoples faces in the seconds after I published a new article and push messages get sent out.

AEGEE is a great organisation, but sometimes arguments or discussions that are important to our whole network can get a bit heated. This is normal, and this is good, but AEGEE should above all be a place of fun. One of the most powerful ways of controlling the mood is humor, especially when things seem heated.

That is the exact reason why I founded the Silver Times. I hope that The Silver Times helped even a tiny bit to lighten moods at moments when things were though, long and boring, or just when you could use a good laugh. Agora Salerno was a though Agora. It was though for the participants and even more though for the organizers.

What I absolutely adore is the massive effort that the organizers put into organizing this Agora. No matter how much went wrong at the least predictable time, this Agora was amazing.

Enjoy your last moments in Salerno, and have a safe ride home.

See you somewhere in Europe!

With lots of love, Anna Pamplona
Member of AEGEE-Bielefeld

Hemmo de Vries
Chief-in-Editor of the Silver Times

Being a member of the Comité Directeur is hectic and hard. That’s why normally the members of the Comité Directeur have quite some team building activities. For example, the previous Comité Directeur regularly played minigolf and they also did some Escape Rooms. In one case, Matis took just under 5 hours to escape the cheapest ‘Budget Room’.

These activities become more difficult if not all the members of the Comité Directeur are able to live in the CD house in Bielefeld. Today, during the pyrtania about the Activity Plan 2019-2020 for the Comité Directeur, president Daniël revealed that they managed to adapt quite some activities to a format that works when not at the same location.

Aside from having shared “Skype Drinks”, where some members gather for drinks in the house and others join in from home through Skype, they are also doing “Escape Google Drive” where they tried to escape from within the deepest folders of the shared team Drive.

Another activity they participate in is Remote Bowling. Oksana became world champion in bowling after doing a strike from 2000km distance. Furthermore, in order to make the board meetings more interesting, they all join in on Skype while standing on an intersection.

Finally, the Comité Directeur are planning on doing a Christmas CD post crossing.