The Latin Coordinators (mininum 2%)
The HUGE cakeSo with our company celebrating its 10th year of partnership with AIESEC in Germany, we re heading up north to Bielefeld for a national strategic conference called SAM (Strategic Alignment whatchaMacallit...dont really know what) where our company will once again celebrate the decade of cooperation, the key word being CELEBRATE. Like all great ideas, they would like to emulate our idea of a celebration held in Poland here too! So bring out the HUGE CAKE, balloons, party atmosphere and wait a minute...the confetti cannons wouldnt work here as they planned to have a chill out atmosphere with candles all around...and confettis might burn!
With Sandra helming this one now, i was merely the person in charge of music! It was way exciting than Segalas...he wasnt sure of his new role of Nothing To Do Executive! Oh yeah, i was in charge of navigation too...(thank God for Google maps!), whereas Segala would be driving! Wasnt that much to plan for this event, but did get into some unnecessary little debate of which sequence is better; Boss speech, cut huge birthday cake, birthday song (Sandra's) vs Boss speech, birthday song, cut huge birthday cake (could be anyone elses common sense idea). The debate went on till we re to confirm it during the dry run!
Cool thing bout events like this is that its considered a "businees trip"! So on with the company car (a sweet Audi wagon with a GPS). Turns out all my maps printed was a mere waste as we could make do with the GPS, even if its in German!
Trip was pleasant and it took us not more than 3 hours...we were put in a cute hotel (sigh...i cant complain) on some hills, akin to those cottage houses in Cameron Highlands! Short while later we had one of the OCs to transport us to the venue some 15minutes away.
After lunch and it was straight to the dry run, our session begins at 6. We ve decided not to go with Sandra's sequence (duhh!), plus also we could push the cake in...this time with sparklers and some fireworks! Awesome!! Although the cake didnt look that pleasing...it was rather plain. Huge yes...all yellow with our black logo on it. Hmmm...but well if its employer branding...that ll do the job!
As for the Nothing To Do Executive, i was introducing him the art of Corporate survival...a concept Sun Tzu wouldnt have thought of...the Art of LLB (Look Like Busy)! Well as we were there doing nothing, while the other people were arranging chairs and the plenary room, we decided to "help"...that is to just move around some chairs and act like its the most complicated thing to do. Note that if you do the facial expressions the wrong way...it might look as if you re constipating! So practise is all thats needed!
Dry runs over...where the heck is Boss? A few panicky moments later, she arrived half an hour before our start! A collective sigh of relief later...and it was our event.
Crowd with their yellow caps
Along with Segala, as we re both from the National Committee of our respective AIESEC countries, we were curious to see how conferences in Germany ran. Plus this was a strategic one...which means you ll have the executive boards of all local committees here. With that, let me just say how many local committees AIESEC in Germany has...over 30! Wasnt sure of the exact number...but this is heck a lot!
Venue of where the Celebration gonna take place and cake being rolled out
Anyways, our event went really well! Freebies like caps, notepads, memo pads and bags were given away, Sandras session went well (especially for the boys) plus I didnt screw up on the ppt clicks! On with the celebration, and you have to give it to German efficiency...they set the venue up in less than 30mins and when we came back, balloons were hung and candles were everywhere! The place was awesome! Had that pleasant, romantic feel to it as well...then the birthday cake rolled out after the short toast by the Boss, cake cutting, photo session...everyone loved it! Nice...!
Our "reserved" dinner table and one of the sessions we were observing.
Very cool AIESEC Promo materials
So...work was done! And its time for the "Red and Yellow" Party...which will happen close to midnight. We sent our boss back (shes got a MUST NOT MISSED appointment with her hairdresser in Koln the next morning!), we then headed back to the hotel for some shut eye before heading back to the venue again. In between my nap i got a disturbing call from a new trainee, who sounded exasperated on the phone. "....Bonnie, theres a spider in my house!"
'§$%§"!&!!!!
Its not like the spider is up there or what! Horny little spider!Anyways the party started slowly...turned up a few notch when the super cool dj (I'm being sarcastic!) played AIESEC dance songs! Sooo...it is the same as parties in Asia Pacific conferences after all! Well although you wont be surprised to see a few hooking up and making out in any avaiable (read: WARM) corners, but the party always never fail to live up when there are AIESEC songs played! Gosh...its either they dont know what PARTY means or they only know how to dance to pre determined dance steps!! Sigh...so when mine and Segala's fav office Monday song came up ("I Cant Wait for the Weekend to Begin"), we were the only ones dancing in the dance floor! How fantastic!?
No prizes for guessing what they re doing...and i didnt know George Michael was an AIESECer!?
Hmmm...looks similar?? Well thats cuz they're sisters! Anna's loving Mace(donia) and Kate's asking me whats 2+2. Small world...the one on the left is the LCP while the one on the right is the "Snickers Girl".
Oh by the way...surprise of the night came in the form of one of the AIESEC dance songs. Now the bhangra dance song (Tunak Tun) have been one of Europes favourites...which started during the 2001 Natl Leadership Development Seminar, now another Malaysian creation is gaining popularity, and i am puzzled at how! It was the "Si Swah Swah" song from AIESEC in UTM...and i wanted to make sure if this was the exact same moves (not that i remembered all), but i do remember the Washing-window-with-a-sponge-move"...so this must be the same one! PRetty awesome...despite me not liking AIESEC dances, you re still proud how dances from your own country are becoming favourites elsewhere in the world!
Oh and funny...when i was in the toilet there was a huge flipchart with marker pens tied to it for you to cast your vote of Most Prettiest! Sandra confirmed there was something similar in the girls loo too!
Creative...!
Of course the party was complete with FREE alcohol...although i was fine with apple juice! Looks like beer...tastes even better!
Me and Segala noted this sad observation though...not that we were desperate for friends, but in our own countries, when we see 2 random trainees in an AIESEC conference, we talk to them and make them feel welcomed! Well, except for 2 or 3 people, that wasnt the case here. We didnt want to conclude, but it was inevitable, at the end we were questioning the same thing we question countries with lots of trainees...Do you see your Trainees as mere numbers, or their country's ambassadors to your country? Well...its up to them!
Anyways we re back only at 4am! We had to get up at 10 for our breakfast and head to Munster, some random place near Bielefeld which i wiki'ed and thought it was nice to visit. Well, what we didnt anticipate was shitty weather and that pretty much spoilt our plans. To conclude, Munster was cute...we had lunch and coffee there (plus deelicious apfelstrudel!) then left for home! I wished we could stay longer at the conference...to understand how the local AIESEC conferences ran and would love to also interact and get into a few discussion with them. I am sure this wont be the last German AIESEC conference for me.
Colors and sights of Münster
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