The 4th Autumn Congress (AC) took place in Essen, Germany from 17 to 22 November. At an Autumn Congress, important matters of the association are discussed, which is why it is the most significant event of EESTEC besides the Spring Congress. This year, the event was organised as a collaboration between the branches LC Aachen, LC Karlsruhe, LC Munich and JLC Duisburg.
Every branch has the possibility to send a representative to the AC, which takes part at the official General Meetings (GMs) during the week. Besides the branch representatives also the internationally most active members and team leaders e.g. leader of the IT team or Education team can participate. In the end, around 70 EESTECers participated.
On Monday, the congress started with working sessions about diverse topics to improve our association. Some of the working sessions were about existing projects like the Regionalisation project or the EESTech Challenge while others were about our brand identity or possibilities to collaborate with projects within the IDEA League. These were quite interactive working sessions structured and held by EESTEC facilitators. In between a team fair was held where all teams inside of EESTEC presented themselves. There is a wide range of teams to join and if you would like to know more, contact one of our boardies. After the working sessions and dinner, we visited the student location of JLC Duisburg and socialised with the other participants.
On Tuesday the official part – the GMs – started. Every participant received a couple of days before all event reports and documents to prepare for the GMs and to speed up the whole process because there were over 30 bullet points on the agenda. The General Assembly (GA) was held professionally and after the election of the GA Chairperson, secretaries, scrutinizers, minutes-editors and the approval of the agenda the GMs could start. I’d like to mention some of the most interesting proposals and discussions because there were also many report presentations of diverse teams and the board. An innovative proposal from members of the IT team about electronic voting was rejected because of some security and legal concerns. We had two guests from the students’ associations BEST and ESTIEM which they presented. Also, EESTEC LC Zurich had to present their candidate for the Account Contact Person (ACP) who was fortunately also elected. After this long day of work, there was an international night. On an international night, everyone brings traditional food and drinks from their country and shares them with everyone.
On Wednesday the GMs were scheduled for the afternoon. The hottest topic today was who will organise the AC in 2020 as the organisers of congresses are usually elected a year in advance. LC Munich applied and after a presentation of the budget and their financial security, they were elected. After a dozen further reports the day was already over.
On Thursday the GMs came slowly to an end. The younger branches (Observers, JLCs) of the association presented their progress and Junior Local Committee (JLC) Duisburg traditionally announced at the GM that they will apply to become an LC. Also, the termination of inactive branches was announced. The facilitators of the working sessions worked hard on summarising the sessions and presenting them to the whole GM. In the end, the board thanked everyone for their work and gave certificates to the most honoured contributors of the associations.
With the end of the GMs the congress was officially over and the IMW “Best International Experience near the Ruhr” started. This was a hard week and everyone was ready to relax a bit. After the night out in Essen, we left for a monastery near the Ruhr. More people joined because the congress IMW is a great opportunity to meet up with old friends. The weekend had two theme parties which were lots of fun. On Saturday, a couple of guys organised a live-action CLUEDO in the monastery. To find out who was the murderer was truly shocking but it was satisfying to find the clues. On the second night, EESTEC LC Zurich organised Raclette and helped behind the bar to make it an (un)forgettable night. The weekend ended as fast as it started and soon we were on the way back home to continue studying.
