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.

Great news! You will soon be able to follow all the drama happening in the board of AEGEE-London on Netflix in the new series ‘Law & Ordeeeer’.

AEGEE-London member John B. is really enthousiastic about it: “Law is my field of studies and I really love the concept of order. I even named my cat ‘Order’. He listens really well when I call him out loud. In my previous job as secretary of the local Agora, I had to shout out loud to remain order in the local plenary hall”.

As you may know the British antenna and their members are struggling on wether or not to leave the AEGEE Network, and countless amounts of board meetings are devoted to working out a deal with the members of the Comité Directeur on a Soft AExit.

Boris J., member of the aexit-commission and also executive producer of Law & Ordeeeer believes in a solid future for the TV-show: “No matter how close the AExit may seem, there is always room for an extension. We had several ‘No AExit’-days, most recently on the 31st of October, and I strongly . believe those days are perfect for having Law & Ordeeeer viewing parties.”

The first two seasons of the hit-series to be are available from now on, and are not the only AEGEE-related shows on Netflix. Depending on the succes of Law & Ordeeeer, a spin-off called ‘Belgian Law & Ordeeeer’ might be made as well.

The partnerships officer of AEGEE-Europe is currently working with the streaming agency to see if they can offer a discounted Netflix & Chill package deal.

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.

Breaking News from Bielefeld: The wall between the CD house and their neighbours (The main office of BEST) has been torn down! After the inauguration of BEST within AEGEE earlier this year, rumors of the wall being taken down have been in the air for quite a while.

Recently, a speech by president of board of ASU (the American Student Union) with the phrase “Mister Daniel, Tear down this wall!” gained international popularity and caused many protests among members of BEST.

Side note: This is quite ironic as the president of the board of ASU himself is now working on a garden fence between the headoffices of ASU and BoMex (the Board of Mexican Students). The reason it’s not there yet is because BoMex is not willing to pay for it.

Many young Europeans have been waiting for years to cross over to AEGEE and hope that the now defunct borders between the two associations will finally allow them to pass through.

The members of the Comité Directeur of AEGEE-Europe and the Democratic Dictatorial Rulers of BEST-Europe (which is their board) celebrated this great event by sitting on the remaining parts of the wall and celebrating together, while many members of both AEGEE & BEST pass freely from one headoffice garden to another.

Herzlich Mauerfall! Today, 30 years ago the Berlin Wall was torn down. This meant a lot for the network of AEGEE, because now antennae in cities behind the Iron Curtain could be founded.

Hemmo de Vries, member of AEGEE-Eindhoven, AEGEE-Aachen & AEGEE-Düsseldorf is currently in Berlin and wrote an article about the day the wall came down on his personal website.

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.

All the people talking and Veva’s remark about it inspired the local organizers to a way to still have a fun night alltogether!

The closing plenary and therefore the agora, will not be closed until 4AM. The plenary will continue with several added agenda topics:

• Normally during the opening plenary, the Statement of Principles is read, but during the Plenary Night, the whole CIA will be read by the members of the Comité Directeur.

• Chris from AEGEE-Delft will give a speech called “Points and Comma’s, a personal story”.

• President of AEGEE-Europe Daniel will read a few chapters from his recently released fan fiction book “Harry Potter and the Vote of Confidence”.

• Several games will be played, like “Random Roll Call”, where all antennae are announced in a random order and the antenna who responds the fastest will receive a free trip to the CD House in Bielefeld.

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During the signing of the Twin Antenna Agreement between AEGEE-Delft and AEGEE-Passau, the signatures of AEGEE-Delft and the Comité Directeur were switched. This means that AEGEE-Passau and the Comité Directeur are now officially Twins!

Quentin from the Juridical Commission confirmed it: “According to Belgian Law, when a signature has been placed, it’s final and cannot be changed anymore.”.

Secretary General of the Comité Directeur Monika was shocked at first, but looks forward to the new possibilities: “It’s going to be a bit complex, but CD meetings can be held in Passau, and the Social Drinks of AEGEE-Passau can now be held in Brussels.”