Goals, Effort and Success!
Thanks to the insistent effort this year is extremely successful for all ESN CR sections and namely for Buddy System – student organization of the University of Economics which is part of ESN. A member of Buddy System was elected as a president of ESN and the ESN CR got a price as STARland.
As you probably know, Erasmus Student Network (ESN) is one of the biggest interdisciplinary student associations in Europe, which was founded 20 years ago for supporting and developing student exchange and where the Annual General Meeting (AGM) is the most important event for us. AGM is organized every March and sections of all ESN member countries come together to take decisions about the future of the network.
And why are we so delighted? The reason is that during the last AGM which was held on 26.-30.3.2009 in Utrecht, the executives of ESN for the next year were elected and it is our honour to announce that a member of Buddy System and a student of VSE – Markéta Ťoková – was named as a new president of the whole ESN! It is the 1st time when the president of ESN International is from the Czech Republic and even directly from our Buddy System. Markéta Ťoková was elected by 97 %, what is a well earned award for her work during the previous year when she was an ESN Vicepresident and spent a whole year in Brussels. Now we can be proud how great people Buddy System has been bringing up. And as the old proverb says: “No pain, no gain.”
Markétka is a student of 4th year of International trade with minor specialization Logistics – international transport and forwarding. However, she has interrupted her studies in order to be able to work for ESN. Before this international success she had worked as a member of International Relations in Buddy System. To her new president´s duties belong e.g. to finish projects connected with the celebration of 20th anniversary of ESN like Postcard campaign, Birthday book and Give 20 (http://www.give20.eu/). The more difficult part will be to finish the project ESNtrain which had to be unfortunately cancelled.
But it is not all! We can also be proud of the fact that the ESN CR was nominated and also won the prestigious ESN price STARland for the biggest improvement during the last year. The five-member jury chose the Czech Republic from the group of strong candidates as Finland, Poland, Germany and Turkey. But this success is not only by chance. Czech Republic section is now much more seen than during last years, we organized the 1st meeting of presidents of national level (Prague, September 2008), then ESN CR Olympic games (Olomouc, May 2009), and thanks to the hard work of Tomáš Bort (the recent president of ESN Czech Republic and the previous president of Buddy System) and Robert Jiřík (National Representative) are our sections more and more visible on the international level! Tomáš Bort was also the coordinator of the 2nd biggest meeting ESN-CND (Council of National Delegates, in Gdansk, December 2008).
At the end, a few words of our national president Tomáš: „ I am very happy, that we won this price. It is a great satisfaction for the whole year of hard work and it is a big motivation not only for me, but I hope, for the whole Czech Republic. On the other hand, it is a commitment for us – to keep up is sometimes more difficult than to win. “
So, do not lose your passion for the ESN work and do not forget that you are never alone. You are among the ESN International, a great team of all of us – of buddies. 🙂
Barbora Ondejčíková
Public Relations Consultant
mobile: 775 165 237 e-mail: barbora.ondejcikova@buddysystem.cz