This year’s Fall Agora was held in Struga, Macedonia, and organized by AEGEE-Skopje. Actually, there was some problem with the organization… but I’ll write more on that later.

First day (27 October 2011)

The trip from Copenhagen to Struga is quite a long one! First Margo and I reached Malmö Central Station, then took a bus to Malmö Airport. A Wizzair flight brought us to Belgrade, where we spent a few hours before taking a night train directed to Skopje. The trip was surprisingly comfortable, although with some small technical problems (quoting the stuart onthe train: “When train stop no light, but train fast light no problem!”) and 2 hours late. That was not a big deal fortunately, as it allowed to sleep a bit more and since we had a few hours to spend in the Macedonian capital before the bus to Struga would leave.

Statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje

After two hours and a half through wide and beautiful hilly autumn landscapes (and through crazy lateral accelerations caused by the… “enthusiast” driving style of the bus driver), we finally reached the Struga, a local lake resort.

The lodging for the Agora was supposed to be the big Euro Hotel, but… well, remember those organization problems?

Long story short, AEGEE-Skopje  couldn’t get any external funding and, risking to acquire a debt of about 10000 Euros,  asked the Comité Directeur (CD) to increase the participation fee to 50 Euros (to reduce the debt). Bad communication didn’t help to find an agreement with the CD caused the Agora to be on hold until 5 days before its start (the organizers were even considering it’s cancelation and the CD started looking for another host). In the end, the adopted solution was to increase the fee for the accomodation and the meals to 50 Euros and to make it optional, allowing participants to find their own accomodation. We opted for this second solution and looked for a room in downtown Struga (the Euro Hotel is a couple kilometers out of town). We found a conveniently located one for 30 Euros per night (for 4 people), closer to the Agora facilities than the other hotel. We even got a balcony on the canal!

Anyway, the opening plenary was scheduled to start at 20.00, but because of a delay at the border of the “Crazy Bus” coming from the pre-event in Belgrade (actually three buses transporting about one hundred people), to many people were absent and the start of the ceremony had to be posponed to more than two hours later. In these moments I feel really proud of the no-boarders policy of the EU!

Despite all the problems, the Agora was officially started, the opening plenary was closed successfully and the first party took place straight after in a club near by, until late in the night.

Second day (28 October 2011)

During the morning plenary the traditional call of the locals took place: The Chair of the Agora called all the locals in alphabetic order to check their presence at the assembly; many locals reply by singing some songs or by doing some funny stuff, and the participants usually appreciates that (at least when the songs don’t last for too long…).

In the following discussion, the old CD reported on their activities while the new CD (elected in the Spring Agora in Alicante) presented their plans for the coming months. Since the new Chair and other European positions will be elected here at Agora Skopje but some position hadn’t received a satisfying (for some) number of candidatures, it was proposed to re-open the candidatures list to allow some late candidates to participate to the elections. There were some objections to this, so the proposal had to be voted by row call, meaning that all locals were called one by one to express their vote. It took much time, but that’s democracy, baby! In the end the proposal was accepted and the list re-opened.

After the morning plenary we had some time to have lunch, walk around and enjoy Struga. Luckly, the weather was nice and we could take a nice walk on the beach. I guess that locals are not very used to tourists, as a group of young people asked us to be with them in a picture!

Ohrid Lake

In the afternoon the first sessions of Prytania, workshops and progress meetings took place and finally, in the evening, the “cowboy” themed party was held in the Euro Hotel hall. We didn’t have any “equipment”, so we explored all the town searching for plastic guns and sheriff badges! Luckly, our quest was successful

Third day (29 October 2011)

The morning plenary was opened the organizing team publicly exposed their view on the circumstances that led to their renouncement to provide accomodation and meals. In the afternoon the CD replied. It’s too bad that AEGEE-Skopje could not find any funding, but couldn’t they start looking for a different solution a bit earlier?

During this day, besides the plenary, prytania and workshops, the AEGEE-Fair and the Cultural European Night took place. We finally got to meet Patricia, one of our new enthusiastic members (currently an exchange student in Madrid), at her first Agora!

AEGEE-København @ European Night (what happened to my hair??)

Fourth day (30 October 2011)

Last day of the Agora, which unfortunately we could not attend fully because we had to catch the flight back to Scandinavia the day after, from Belgrade (not exactly around the corner)! Anyway, it was somewhat an important day for AEGEE-København, as we resigned the Convention d’Adhésion since the original documents were lost by both our local and AEGEE-Europe. Funnily enough, three Italians signed the document: yours truly, as president of AEGEE-København, Alfredo Sellitti, as president of AEGEE-Europe, and Ermanno Napolitano, on behalf of the Juridical Commission.

Resigning the CdA of AEGEE-København

AEGEE-København on stage

We left not long after the morning plenary, on the way back to Copenhagen. We were afraid to meet huge delays with transportations in the Balkans, but everything went smoothly! Ironically we had only one technical problem… in Sweden, where we had to change train in Hyllie because of some technical problem.

That’s pretty much it, the next statutory event will be the EBM in Izmir (Turkey) in February!