Hello all, this is the National Director ND of IAAS Belgium speaking (well writing actually). The board wanted to give you an update on what has happened this far into 2019-2020.
We got elected on the GA weekend (general assembly) on June 28th – 30th. Celine Callewaert is the National Director, belgium@iaasworld.org Jonathan Rixhon is the National Treasurer, belgium@iaasworld.org Kamiar Torabi is the National Exchange Coordinator, expro.belgium@iaasworld.org. Ann Vandeput Cugnon is the Local Director (LD) of IAAS Louvain-la-Neuve, iaaslln.presidence@gmail.com. Amber Theunissen is the LD of IAAS Leuven, iaas.verantwoordelijke@lbk.be . Celine Callewaert is the LD of IAAS Ghent, iaasghent@gmail.com. Our year starts on September 1st and ends on August 31st but we held our strategy meeting on July 27th to be well prepared for the year. We had asked one of our local trainers, Nina Stoop, to help us with our strategy meeting and she wrote us a super handy guide. Thank you Nina!
We started with the practicalities. How will we do feedback and when? How will we communicate with everyone? What’s everyone task and how do they relate to each other? Do the board members have other commitments?
The next topic was our Vision and Mission and we came up with the following: Vision: To inspire people to aim for a sustainable world working on global problems through local actions.
Mission: Inspiring and motivating agricultural and related sciences students to take up action for a sustainable world through the exchange of knowledge and ideas. By organising and partaking in global and local projects and events.
Now, to know how to fulfil our vision and mission we needed a swot analysis determining our internal strengths and weaknesses and our external opportunities and threats. We then used the SWOT analysis to write our smart goals.
Have more motivated and informed members
Find sponsors and partners
Organise national events
Update our official documents
Revamp the promotional materials and merch
Contact the alumni and organise an event
Increase our presence
This then all helped us to make our (extensive) to do list.
Now, what have we been doing so far?
Celine, the ND, has worked on this:
Motivated and informed members
Made a group chat for all active members of IAAS Belgium
Asked for feedback in the groupchat
Informed members through the groups, group chat and LD’s
Asked LLN to organise an International Weekend to motivate new members
Promoted organising team building so the teams are motivated
Sponsors and partners
Asked NT and local PR/ER to write the sponsorship document
Organise national events
Found participants for the International Weekend
Made them fill in the form
Created the Facebook event
Reminded the members of the dates for the Motivational Weekend
Official documents update
Helped Jonathan with the official documents for the court
Promo and merch
Update the website: new boards and LC pages, international and local event pages, home page, …
Writing blogs
Posted on the social media pages (Facebook pages, Facebook groups, Instagram)
Printed new flags for the LCs
Printed roll-up banners for the LCs
Printed stickers for the LCs
Revamped the flyers
Revamped the folders
Revamped the posters
Revamped the presentations
Alumni
Asked someone to help with the alumni working
Made a questionnaire and sent it to the alumni
Presence
Revamped the website
Asked LC’s to send in blogs
Wrote blogs
Revamped merch
Revamped promo materials
Repost IAAS World and Europe posts
Post our events and projects
Jonathan, the NT, has worked on this:
Sponsors and partners
Made a group chat for all members of IAAS Belgium involved in sponsoring
Started working on the sponsorship document
Organise national events
Summer GA in Ghent : followed-up on the payments of the participation fees
Tracked down any late payments for previous events and other irregularities and followed-up on those
Official documents update
Court : Filled in and submitted the proper documents in order to officially change our "Statuten" (constitution) and National Board of IAAS Belgium VZW
Taxes: filled in and submitted the tax declaration for IAAS Belgium VZW
Financial report: made the annual financial report and submitted to the court
Promo and merch
Followed-up on the payments for the IAAS Belgium T-shirts
Took care of the financial side for other merch : making, sending out and following-up on invoices
Other general tasks
Kept the books and managed the accounts of IAAS Belgium VZW
Provided financial- and accounting-related advice to LC’s
Kamiar, the NExCo, has worked on this:
Have more motivated and informed members
take two candidate members to the visit of pcFruit and let the involve a bit in a brainstorm about ExPro.
Learning the art of being NExCo from Nastya→ more motivated myself.
Stay in touch with the local committees so that the don’t forget about ExPro and letting them make publicity for ExPro to students
Find sponsors and partners
getting pcFruit as a fixed internship place.
Keep contact with the farm Boer&compagnie and Versteynen dairy farm.
Organise national events
nada
Update our official documents
created a functional ExPro map in the IAAS Belgium team drive.
standardised the application procedure for internships.
created a more official internship contract
Created a short explanation form about ExPro for interested members/LExCo’s.
At last, I created a FAQ about ExPro, this form should stay updated
ordered a new IAAS Belgium stamp in Spain
Revamp the promotional materials and merch
Help Celine writing a new folder about ExPro for publicity
Contact the alumni and organise an event
nada
Increase our presence
Having contact with other NExCo’s around the world and guiding interested students in their application process
Apart from these three board members, the local directors are also a part of the national board. Here’s what they’ve been up to:
Ann, the LD of Louvain-la-Neuve and her team have worked on:
Have more motivated and informed members
Prepared a short presentation and presented it to students in their auditoria before the start of their classes
Organised an Open Meeting to explain IAAS to students
Organised a Teambuilding activity for the new members to bond
Find sponsors and partners
Had a meeting with the president of the student representatives of the faculty to organise an event together
Had a meeting with the dean in order to get financial help from the faculty
Organise events
Open Meeting on the 23rd of September, in order to present IAAS and let some alumni talk about their experiences
Team Building activity, together with our first meeting on the 30th of September
Second meeting the 10th of October
Third meeting on the 24th of October
The International Weekend (25-27 October)
Update our official documents
Checked the page of LLN on the IAAS Belgium website
Updated the membership list with our newest members
Wrote the activity report of August/September as asked by the VPER.
Revamp the promotional materials and merch
Updated the short and long presentation of IAAS
Received stickers, banner and new flag from NC to use in upcoming events
IAAS LLN Pulls are in the making.
Contact the alumni and organise an event
Contacted 5 alumni (with success) to come to our open meeting and to explain their own experiences within IAAS
Increase our social media presence
Posted about our activities
Took a group picture, but not an official one yet.
New posts about the International Weekend are in the making and will be posted on the facebook page, the IAAS Belgium blog and the local magazine “Le tracteur” of the student organisation AGRO.
Amber, the LD of Leuven and her team have worked on:
Have more motivated and informed members
Had a stand at the Orientation Days for the international students
Had presentations in the auditoria of 1st, 2nd and 3th year
Organised a Pancake Action to make IAAS great again (brand awareness)
Organised an Open Meeting
Had a teambuilding at Chouffe and Bitterballen
Find sponsors and partners
Replenished our lovely ER team who already started full speed ahead
Kept close contact with LBK, went to presidium weekend, PV-meetings,...
Had a meeting with LBK international to organise activities together
Discussed about having a collaboration with ASA and Thought For Food
Organise events
Had a booth at the Orientation Days, September 18th
Meeting 1 on October 1st
Pancake Action on October 9th
Team Building at Chouffe & Bitterballen on October 10th
Open Meeting on October 16th
Meeting 2 on October 30th
Update our official documents
Updated the info for the bank account
Re-applied for the LOKO recognition (Jeroen <3)
Updated and voted for local statutes
Re-organised the Leuven folder in the drive
Revamp the promotional materials and merch
Updated the presentations
Received stickers, banner and new flag from NB to use in upcoming events
Recovering old IAAS sweaters
Contact the alumni and organise an event
Contacted alumni for the Open Meeting, no-one was able to be there
In the process of organising an alumni cantus
Increase our social media presence
Created a Social Media Team
Took a group picture and pictures of all the members
Had a workshop to learn how to take good pictures
Regularly posted Instagram stories
Posted on the Facebook page and kept a small contest
Sent in blogs for on the website
Celine, the LD of Ghent has worked on this (together with her amazing team of course):
Motivation and new members
Had a stand on the Welcome Days
Presented on the Introduction day to all new first years and had a stand afterwards
Presented on the faculty to the new international students
Held an open meeting
Went ice skating with the team and new members for the team building
Sponsors and partners
Asked the PR team to help write the sponsorship document
Has a good relationship with StuBio (student council), the International Konvent (head of all international associations at UGent) and the VLK (local bio-engineer association) and will organise events together in the future.
Organise events
Welcome days for international students on 19th and 20th of September with the International Konvent. We had a booth the 19th and organised a city rally both afternoons.
Welcome days/introduction day on the 20th of September
Meeting nr 1 on 23rd of September
Open meeting on September 30th. The LD presented IAAS and afterwards everyone got free fries. 26 people came to the meeting and 13 people joined IAAS Gent.
Meeting nr 2 on the 30th of September
Teambuilding with the team and new and interested members on October 10th. We went ice skating all together.
Belgium 101 on October 17th. We organised an event for the students of Campus Korea where we let them taste our Belgian food and beers and taught them how to make waffles, our songs and dances and how to pre party like a Belgian.
Meeting nr 3 on October 29th, done by Aurélie.
Update the official documents
Together with the LT, Eline, the bank account has been updated
The information form, bank form and statutes have been filled in and sent to the DSA
Updated the contact information and membership list
Revamp the promotional materials and merch
The welcome days presentation was updated
The open meeting presentation was updated
The roll-up banner, stickers, flyers, posters from IAAS Belgium have been used on our events
New name tags were made for all members
Contact the alumni and organise an event
Some alumni were invited to our local events but so far nothing yet
Increase our presence
Reposting IAAS Belgium’s posts and posting our own
Post our events on Instagram
Writing in the local booklet (the Groei)
What will we do in the future?
Celine, the ND, wants to:
Organise a successful motivational weekend
Organise a successful international event
Motivate members more
Have successful elections
Have meetings with the LD’s when necessary
Organise a successful breakfast action
Have sponsors for the National and Local committee(s)
Write an extensive handover for the next ND
Have more contact with the Alumni
Jonathan, the NT, wants to:
Organise a successful motivational weekend
Work further on official issues that needs to be taken care of.
Motivate members and train them through soft-skills trainings
Help LT's with financial issues and budgets
Coordinate sponsoring with Local teams in order to find sponsors on National and Local level
Write a proper handover for the next NT and update the Drive with necessary documents
Kamiar, the NExCo, wants to:
be happy
Have at least a Lexco in every LC, an ExPro team would be a natte droom
Find new internship spots that offer food and accomodation, because until now, nobody applied for the famous plant lab at KUL for example → specific: Having every LC finding one extra internship spot.
Find a way to make publicity about our internships in the rest of the world
teach every member of IAAS at least the beauty of ExPro and to get to the point that non members of IAAS at least know that ExPro exists
Ann, the LD of LLN, wants to:
Make some IAAS LLN Sweaters
Find older interested members
Have an active FB page
Keep all members active and happy by organising some chill and nice team building events
Organise successful events in the second semester (open meeting, an international party w/ the local students representatives, a big conference, breakfast action)
Hand over more work to the members by training them for it and trust them to do a great job
Amber, the LD of Leuven, wants to:
Organise a bigger conference
Organise more, more IAAS related and informative events
Find younger interested members
Celine, the LD of Ghent, wants to:
Organise a successful Oehoescoop (cinema evening) on November 5th
Organise a Secret Santa dinner to increase motivation and thank the members at the end of the semester
Organise successful events in the second semester (open meeting, cocktail party, symposium, breakfast action, international event (partly))
Hand over more work to the members and trust them to do a great job
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