Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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The BIG National Platform of ESN CZ

Author: Jan Lukačevič

Date: May 1st – May 4th

Place: Vizovice

OC: Buddy System Zlín

In the beginning of May was held our biggest National Platform in the history of ESN CZ. We had nearly

150 participants who made this event revolutionary in every aspect: We had the Responsible Party at our

NP, we radically decreased the amount of time at plenaries and spent more time on small sessions, “meet

your colleagues” sessions, workshops and teambuilding activities. Also, we completed our National Board.

Let’s have a look!

This time, the theme was “Tomas Bata, the shoe maker”

Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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1. Major achievements of this National Platform:

Our new PR responsible was elected, thus the NB is finally complete!

It’s Veronika Tomášová (third from the right) from the section ESC VŠB TUO. She filled the vacant position

of the PR responsible after resignation of her predecessor. We hope that our PR will revive and start

working properly!

Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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We had the highest attendance of the NP in the history of ESN CZ

We had almost 150 enthusiastic ESNers present, so we offered them three different tracks: Newbies,

Advanced and Local Representatives, so everybody could get the most out of this event. All participants

joined the teambuilding game with a theme of the Bata Company, since the NP took a place very close

from Zlin, the hometown of Tomas Bata. The programme was indeed very interesting, and I’ll talk about

it later.

“What you want, you can.”

“If you want to build a big organisation, you have to build yourself first.”

-Tomas Bata

Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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We had guests (not just) from the university

From the left:

MUDr. Olga Sehnalová – a member of the European Parliament and one of the people who designed the

Erasmus+ programme;

Prof. Ing. Petr Sáha, CSc. – the rector of Tomas Bata University of Zlin, where’s the OC section present

doc. PhDr. Ing. Aleš Gregar, CSc. – the vice-rector for International Relations of the respective university

All these guests had a short speech and answered a few questions (especially those about European

Parliament and Erasmus+ were interesting). We also had guests from the National Agency and a

representative of Pernod Ricard.

Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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Our Local Representatives started working together

LR Working Groups – we facilitated a small session where we divided our LRs into several groups and let

them discuss following topics:

Future of ESN CZ – quality x quantity of sections? LRs say quality! They also worked on the concept

of an NP.

LR Checklist & Cook book – revision of a list of tasks and deadlines every LR should keep in mind.

Elaborating on a concept of LR buddies.

HR of ESN CZ – how to motivate people to apply for positions in the NB, committees?

Section requirements – setting up a list of basic requirements that every good section should

meet.

I’m very glad we had this amazing, 3 hour long session. Finally, our LRs are active again and we are very

happy about that. I hope they will keep up the good work! If you have any questions about the outcomes

of their work, feel free to contact me ;)

Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic o.s.

Žerotínovo náměstí 9 - 60177 Brno – Czech Republic www.esn-cz.cz

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2. Agenda

We had a very stuffed agenda, so I’ll simply make a list of all topics regardless the chronological order and

I focus on the most important ones:

Updates & Reports – such as National Board updates, AGM Milano report, ESN STAR Awards, TPM

Meeting in Brussels and Int. Partners, Erasmus+ launch event, Budget update.

Presentations & Projects – Responsible Party, Mov’in Europe by Jan Hrubý (the first time we could see

the awesome Mov’in Europe template!) and NA presentation of Erasmus+ grant opportunities, European

Voluntarily Service, History of ESN CZ, International Committees (brace yourself, Czech ESNers are

coming!)

New ideas – we presented a few of new ideas we would like to implement and open a discussion about

them. We talked about:

Phone operators, bank partnerships, CRM, financial contribution of universities to NPs, e-shop of

ESN CZ gadgets

Possible change of restructuralisation of the NB (to get a Vice-president position instead of the

Knowledge Manager), Section Quality Assessment, Czech Network and Events Committee,

Country Delegate selection procedure (a new, better one, yaaay!)

Elections – we elected the OC for the next “small” NP (basically a CLR), it’s ESN Buddy VŠTE (3rd in the

STARter award this year, by the way) and as it was mentioned, we finally have our new PR responsible.

North Bohemian Platform – such an interesting event that it made it to this report! In April, ESN TUL

Liberec organised the very first national regional platform of sections (not just) from Northern Bohemia.

A perfect example of a bottoms-up approach since the NB wasn’t involved in organising nor initiating of

such event. We as an NB were very glad to attend and see all these interesting workshops and active

section cooperation!

International Guests – we had several international guests present from ESN Germany, ESN Austria and

ESN Slovakia, namely: Silke, Lukas, Stefan, Michal (Sabooo!), Simona and Patricia.

Workshops – we had so many of them! Held by external trainers, by experienced ESNers, by our

international guests.

To sum it up, our National Platform was awesome. We started so many new things and improvements of

our network. I’m proud I could be there and see all these awesome people.

Our next “Big” National Platform will be held in November and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t miss out the

chance to join in!