LEAP - AIESEC Research Initiative to Palestine 2006-2008

Motion that Germany is officially allowed to explore the xpansion in Israel and Palestine, voted in block.
Result: 50 pro, 4 against, 4 abstentions - more than 2/3-majority!!! :)

Over here it is 5:45am now and still going on with some more extension initiatives. One is initiative to Iran that was approved as well with 56 pro, 0 against and 2 abstention votes!!

Morning Plenary comes soon. :)

Slowly we're coming to an end. :)

A decision that is interesting because Germany as well handed in a bid on hosting is about IPM 2009.
Countries willing to host IPM 2009 were Malaysia, Tunisia, Colombia, Lithuania, Italy and Germany of course. The Bidding Subcommittee revised the plans and gave an advice thus voting for Italy.
After some discussions and questions to the Subcommittee the GP decided to be Italy to host IPM 2009. Congratulations! It's not that far away and beautiful as well.

The upcoming decisions will be about extensions... aahh...

These people are crazy. We're still on page 5, in the middle of a short break after discussing for almost one hour about a new fund that will cost the countries a lot of money, e.g. Germany 12T more than now...
If we go on that "fast" we will still sit here when breakfast will be served...
Thus take a little rest, you guys out there, and await the votings on the extensions (might be treated around 4 or 5 o'clock...). :)

After some motions about finance stuff that was not related to our project the GP is now discussing about a Global Expansion Fund. Content is e.g. that expanding countries who are willing, have the people but not the money can apply for support once per expansion initiative. Since we have a lack of money this fund will help executing our plans and we do not depend that much on corporate support from Berlin. Good for us. :)

The decision by the Global Plenary about this point is 58 for , 0 against - it was legislated!! :)
(You will find full explanations in the updated compendium after the IPM.)
(We are now at page 5 of 21...)

We are in the Global Legislation now. It started at 20:15h (19:15h in Germany), but was supposed to start at 19:30h... We had a 5 minute break now already - it will be a long long evening...
The first decision taken is that Taco Bosman became Internal Auditor.
The extension decisions will be at the very end - so you have to stay awake :)

Keep you informed. Check out MSN and ICQ. :)

This evening Global Legislation will take place. It will start at 19:30h. As I have just seen the motion of Germany to become officially allowed to start expanding to Middle East countries will voted at the very end, besides a lot of extension motions.
Thus be prepared to receive news from the legislation soonest around 22h/23h. Tension rises. :)

For now you will find some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58628859@N00/

After the announcement of the new directors - 6 out of around 20 - the atmosphere at the Official Dinner was quite emotional, therefore we postponed the meeting with the MENA countries in order to get to know to their perspective on the extensions to this evening.

We met today right between dinner and Legislation Talks where we offered the delegates to ask us in a more structured environment about the extension initiatives. In the run-up to this meeting we had been provided with some questions from MENA they would like to discuss, as well as we handed in some questions we had to them. In short the questions were about how we will cooperate with MENA, what our approaches are to build up AIESEC in Palestine and Israel as well as what is the general time line and if MENA will be the proposed GN the countries will be part of; media presence and how to communicate the difficulties with these countries for parts of the AIESEC network were also points we talked about.
It was a very good meeting, many questions were raised and the atmosphere was frank and open. E.g. Iran will get the support of most of the MENA countries.

In the Legislation Talks that just came to an end I really felt relaxed and smiled the whole time
like I didn't do for days. I guess the Legislation tomorrow will go well - at least we will have a good time. I will tell you right after the Legislation what decision was taken - so be onlien and stay tuned!
CU, good night - Africa/MENA-party this evening/night.

Yesterday (23rd) evening Official Dinner took place. It was our - the extension's - first day at the conference. many people approached us to know more about why, why now, what problems - or challenges :) - may occur, what MENA says to that etc.
Thus for the dinner everybody dressed up formally. And ING led us through a nice evening with a frank speech about our future as "Global Leaders" and four awards for great work.

And a big surprise - at least for the German delegation - happened. The ING award "First Choice for Activating Leadership" was given to Germany!!!
Even Lara, our MCP, was surprised since she didn't know that the MC team had applied for this award. Therefore on stage she was almost crying when she was handed over the award.

The other event that was executed was the announcement of the new AI directors. Tamer who led the MENA GN (=Growth Network) last year only as MENA coordinator was selected as well - good for us I would say. :)

Jonas and I had waited at Cairo airport yesterday until Kathrin arrived at 19:05h as well. We took a taxi to Ain Sokhna where we were along around 21:30h.
A lot of familiar faces I knew from last year's IC (International Conference) in Poland welcomed us throughout the whole evening. Especially the MENA delegates who I had been with at the IC were very happy to meet us three. Therefore we had a lot of talks to country representatives who wanted to now how the extensions were going, what our plans are and why everything is so complicated. In-between we had a short coordination meeting with Lara and Hajo, our MCPs current resp. elect. At around 3 o'clock in the morning I was dismissed to go to bed after Kathrin, Jonas and I had discussed some questions the MENA countries had accorded us. In return we wrote down our questions we have to them.

Today started like yesterday had finished. After Morning Plenary I had the chance to rest while everybody else was attending some kind of company workshops - I was totally tired. But since around lunch we are having conversations with several people again.
this evening will be Official Dinner, so we will get dressed. ;) And then afterwards we will have THE big meeting with the MENA MCPs, Lara, Hajo, Tamer as proposed MENA director, and us as extension leaders. Depending on this discussion we will present the motion of extending to Israel and Palestine in tomorrow's Legislation Talks; this is kind of Matrix talks where all motions present themselves to persuade the delegates to support their applications.

I will try to take some pictures later on - be patient, it is quite nice over here. :)

This blog is reanimated!! The next days I will tell you about my adventurous stay in Egypt at this year's International President's Meeting.

I had a good flight with Swiss Airlines from Berlin via Zurich to Cairo. I have just arrived and already met Jonas, leader of the AIESEC extension to Iran-initiative, at the airport. We will now wait for Kathrin (Israel-extension initiative). She will arrive this evening.

Pass by this blog the next days - at least Sunday we will know how this project may continue...