Why the word responsibility means so much to me!

Hey! Let me shortly introduce myself to all the readers from cities with less bikes than two per inhabitant (i.e. not from Münster, Germany): My name is Nicolas and since March 2009 I am the Local Committee President of the lovely LC Münster. This is me and parts of my local committee at our small conference (the MOMS, together with lovely LC Osnabrueck) in May. I study Politics and Economics in the fourth semester; originally I come from Bochum and Berlin, so I somehow feel connected to these cities, and I have lived a few month in Jyväsykylä and have of course.friends there. I want to write a few entries here around the topic "what is that guy actually doing all the time we see him in the office" :). So here goes the first one.

A major part of the LCP-position as I see it is responsibility. This is not someting that you do, but something that you take on and live. And it is a very rewarding experience.

You may know, that in AIESEC Germany the LCP is partly financially liable for actions of the LC. In practise that means for me to sign a lot of stuff - e.g. all the project calculations or reimbursement sheets my great Finance team is putting together. If something went wrong, then I would be the person to blame. This is not always easy: Sometimes it means stopping people from fulfilling great ideas because legally or financially they are too risky. Luckily, AIESEC has a great system of checks and a cool supporters; so it´s not that hard :).

Responsibility also mean always standing behind and supporting your LC. When I visit a member of our Board of Advisors, they sometimes give me a hard time - because the love our LC and want to see it performing, they may ask: "Why did you drop that project?", "Why are your number in that area so bad?", "Somebody from AIESEC promised me this or that two years ago and did not deliver!". I would never blame the respective member or company for that, but have to do my best to explain. I learned a lot that way.

Why is this still so rewarding? Well, because 95% of the time great things happen. And as LCP you get a lot of acclaim for that. I often get called by people from all over Germany about small things, about a small project they heard went well and they want to know more. Standing up for my LC, I somehow really started to identify myself with all those people. (You realize I always say my LC :)). When I hear from our Incoming Exchange Team that they closed a deal, when I get the notification from google news about a new press article that got published, see a new member lead the Local Committee Meeting and speak in front of fifty people, when a girl from France asks where she can apply to chair our local conference - in those moments I am extremely proud of my members and happy to have taken on this responsibility.

Yours, Nicolas

This is a video on the topic of responsibility, shot at the LCP-Conference SMV in June. It is in German, I am sorry.

Internationality... in your daily life!

I wanna share two experience with you which I made during the last week:

On our last LC Meeting we had a Global Village organized by our Trainee Coordinator Andreea and our Resort Leader Internal Marketing (OGX) Mo. There, members, trainees and returnees presented 14 countries with food, drinks, pictures and music. For me it was a very great night because I really saw the internationality that we can live here every day. And I know that this cool Global Village is a direct outcome of our daily AIESEC-work.

The other event was Saturday night: Together with members and trainees from India, Norway, Taiwan, Egypt, etc. we went to see a great fireworks at Olympiapark. So we were sitting on a hill, watching the sunset and the fireworks and enjoying some drinks. Afterwards we went to a club where we danced like crazy until the morning. Again this was an event with people from very diffrent countries and backgrounds and it was so much fun.

Why do I tell you this?
I just wanna show you that being engaged in AIESEC is basically about internationality, fun and cool experiences - things that you can have every day! It´s up to you to take part in that.
For me these are the best experiences in my Leadership Role and this makes the job so amazing. We do have an outcome and an impact with our work as I can see at all the great events in my LC and the more time and power you invest in AIESEC the more you get out of it!

Kick-Off

Some days ago I realized that I am having a really intense experience in AIESEC, in my Local Committee here in Münster. I am learning so much and there are so many great moments, but I am not sharing them with that many people.

Talking to other LCPs, we noticed that we all had had similiar thoughts: How can we share our experiences? How can we increase transparency, so that the people who elected us see what we are doing? How can we raise awareness for leadership, apart from exchange probably the best thing you can do in AIESEC? How we can we strengthen our network and better explain to other people what other people are doing?

Well, this blog is supposed the be one part of our answer. Of course, personal communication is much more important and you can always approach us. You are also invited to use the other communication channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Xing, Homepages or our intranet.
We love to hear your opinion!

We - that is Ariane from Jena, Betti from Munich, Ken from Bielefeld and Nicolas from Muenster - formed as a group quite randomly, just because we wanted to represent different cities.

Now... let´s begin!