Action Agenda Coordination Team – this sounds like bureaucracy, paperwork and bored people who make your life hard. However, this is not the case at all. AEGEE’s Action Agenda Coordination Team – or short: ACT – is a team of enthusiastic members that is there for you, helping antennae to create great activities. The Golden Times asked the new ACT speaker Joanna Incorvaja about the plans of her new team.

Joanna Incorvaja
Joanna Incorvaja

GT: Joanna, you met with your ACT team in Brussels a couple of weeks ago. How was the meeting, what did you do?
Joanna Incorvaja: Yes! Our ACT planning weekend at AEGEE-Europe in Brussels was from the 23rd to the 25th of October. It was an extremely productive weekend where we not only had the opportunity to plan our main aims and projects for the year but to also get to know each other. Our vision for this year is to be in closer communication with antennas and members, obviously continue the work of the previous team with spreading knowledge about the Action Agenda and to collaborate with European bodies for the best possible outcomes.

GT: What is the ACT doing exactly?
Joanna: The Action Agenda Coordination Committee aims to help the Network with the implementation of the Action Agenda – which changes every year – and to track the progress with it. We cooperate closely with the locals and European Level bodies of the network, meaning all committees, commissions, working groups and projects, and help to spread knowledge about the Action Agenda.

GT: How time-consuming is your job?
Joanna: ACT takes up quite a lot of time every day with answering to emails, filling reports and staying in contact with members. Luckily, we’re a very dedicated and hard working group!

GT: Who is in your ACT team?
Joanna: The ACT team is made up of eight members coming from all over Europe: Miljana Vulevic, Marcos Mato Gonzalez, Loes Rutten, Tugce Carpaz, Gabriele Scollo, Mara Signorelli, Teresa Oberhauser and me. At the end of the interview you can find their contact details as well as the locals they are in charge of!

GT: So how does it work? Do you approach locals with ideas for events? Or do you wait for them to approach you?
Joanna: This year we will be trying out a new tactic! Our aim is to contact all our assigned locals to let them know who we are, what we do, how we can help them and to encourage them to organize events which fulfil the Action Agenda. Antennas will therefore know beforehand who they can contact if they’re organizing an event. But yes, we will also be approaching locals and organizers!

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ACT at the Agora Kyiv

GT: In which fields are the locals very interested, in which less?
Joanna: I think that out of the four focus areas, Spreading Europtimism, Civic Education, Youth Employment and Youth Mobility, the one which is the most fulfilled is Civic Education. The topic is very broad and allows locals to go around it as they please. On the other hand the focus area which is least fulfilled is spreading Europtimism.

GT: How is the cooperation with the new Working Groups?
Joanna: In Agora Kyiv, ACT met up with representatives of the Working Groups as well as CD responsible Réka Salamon, to discuss further this new change and future collaborations. We are now in the process of discussion which will hopefully lead to a fruitful cooperation. The cooperation with the new Working Groups should be very positive as our functions will support each other.

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ACT meeting in Brussels

GT: What about the next EPM? What are you doing for it?
Joanna: For EPM Leiden, we are hoping that nearly all or most of the team will be there. We will continue working on strengthening the workshop which locals can benefit from by taking into consideration the feedback which we received from the Agora as well as including new ideas.

GT: Anything else we should know about ACT or you want to share?
Joanna: The Action Agenda is a very important document in our organization and unfortunately not everyone knows about its benefits. The ACT’s aims are to do specifically so. We’re a really great team with awesome personalities. We have a lot of great things in store so stay tuned and follow our Facebook page for updates: www.facebook.com/ACT.AEGEE/.

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Caught in the ACT

GT: A few words about you: where are you from, what do you study – and what was your motivation to become ACT speaker?
Joanna: I’m from the small island of Malta from AEGEE-Valletta and I’m studying European Studies at the University of Malta. I ran for ACT speaker because I believe that I’m very enthusiastic and passionate about our organization as well as dedicated to the work that ACT does. Luckily, Miljana – my right hand woman – is equally hardworking and creative and we make up a great Speaker Team. It’s been an hour not just to be chosen to be part of ACT but also to form part of the Speaker Team. I hope that together we will have a productive and successful year where everyone can benefit from the AA! Stay ACTive!

Who is Who in the new ACT

Joanna Incorvaja (AEGEE-Valletta)
Speaker of ACT and ACTie responsible for the following locals: Banja Luka, Beograd, Grodno, Kragujevac, Ljubljana, Maribor, Moskva, Niš, Novi Sad, Podgorica, Rostov-na-Donu, Ryazan, Samara, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Split, Tbilisi, Tiranë, Tyumen, Voronezh, Yaroslavl, Yekaterinburg, Yerevan, Zadar, Zagreb.
Contact: joanna.incorvaja@aegee.org

Miljana Vulevic (AEGEE-Beograd)
Vice speaker of ACT and ACTie responsible for the following locals: Aachen, Bamberg, Berlin, Darmstadt, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Erfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Heidelberg, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Köln, Konstanz, Leipzig, Maastricht, Mainz-Wiesbaden, Mannheim, München, Osnabrück, Passau, Stuttgart.
Contact: miljana.vulevic@aegee.org

Marcos Mato Gonzalez (AEGEE-Leon)
PR Responsible and ACTie responsible for the following locals: A Coruña, Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Burgos, Castelló, Las Palmas, León, Lille, Lyon, Madrid, Oviedo, Paris, Porto-Invicta, Santander, Sevilla, Tarragona, Tenerife, Toulouse, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza
Contact: marcos.mato.gonzalez@aegee.org

Loes Rutten (AEGEE-Utrecht)
Netcom and ACTie responsible for the following locals: Amsterdam, Brussel-Bruxelles, Delft, Eindhoven, Enschede, Groningen, Leiden, Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, Luxembourg, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Utrecht.
Contact: loes.rutten@aegee.org

Tugce Carpaz (AEGEE-Eskişehir)
Active Local of the Month Co-ordinator and ACTie responsible for the following locals: Adana, Ankara, Athina, Bakı, Çanakkale, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Gəncə, Hatay, Heraklio, Ioannina, Istanbul, Izmir, Kastoria, Lənkəran, Mağusa, Naxçıvan, Pátra, Peiraiás, Sumqayit, Tekirdağ, Thessaloniki.
Contact: tugce.carpaz@aegee.org

Gabriele Scollo (AEGEE-Firenze)
Guidelines Co-ordinator and ACTie responsible for the following locals: Agrigento, Bari, Bergamo, Bologna, Brescia, Cagliari, Catania, Cosenza, Ferrara, Firenze, Foggia, Genova, Messina, Milano, Napoli, Padova, Palermo, Pisa, Reggio Calabria, Roma, Salerno, Siena, Torino, Treviso, Udine, Valletta, Venezia, Verona.
Contact: gabriele.scollo@aegee.org

Mara Signorelli (AEGEE-Bergamo)
ACTie responsible for the following locals: Bratislava, Brno, București, Budapest, Chişinău, Cluj-Napoca, Debrecen, Iaşi, Pécs, Piliscsaba, Ploiesti, Plzen, Praha, Sibiu, Wien.
Contact: mara.signorelli@aegee.org

Teresa Oberhauser (AEGEE-Passau)
ACTie responsible for the following locals: Aberdeen, Białystok, Canterbury, Dnipropetrovsk, Gdańsk, Gliwice, Hamburg, Helsinki, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Katowice, Kaunas, Kiel, Kharkiv, Kraków, Kyiv, L’viv, London, Lublin, Manchester, Minsk, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Odessa, Poznań, Rīga, Sankt-Peterburg, Tallinn, Tartu, Toruń, Vinnytsia, Warszawa, Wrocław, Zielona Góra.
Contact: teresa.oberhauser@aegee.org