ESN MRU Vilnius

Over the weekend of 12-13th of April, delegates from all 12 ESN Lithuania sections, as well as representatives from ESN Alumni, gathered within the welcoming walls of Mykolas Romeris University in the capital Vilnius to attend already the second edition of ESN Lithuania’s National training programme – Survival KIT Vol. 2.

ESN is all about improving, motivating and aiming higher. That is why the second piece of training cake had to be bigger, better and with an international taste. ESN Lithuania HRC Tomas, who was nurturing the idea of National trainings for quite some time, remarks: “I was very happy to see such activeness among the sections: the number of applicants was increasing each day and every spot was taken”. Four ESN Eduk8 trainers from Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Czech Republic shared their knowledge on time planning, leadership, constructive feedback and conflict management. Let’s take a short look back over the things that inspired members of ESN Lithuania this past weekend.

Day 1, Saturday

After a short opening word, trainers took the initiative into their hands leading a series of vibrant and dynamic energizers and teambuilding activities that allowed us learn a thing or two about each other and feel more comfortable working together. Later on, for workshops to be more effective and productive, participants were divided into three smaller teams and from that very moment members of ESN Lithuania are better known as cherries, strawberries and watermelons. Three out of four fields were covered during the first day of trainings, involving a lot of practical assignments, role playing and discussion.

In leadership and time planning workshop, instructed by Ludo “the Lazy Lizard” Coudray from ESN Switzerland, participants learned how to recognize different types of leaders, what strategies to apply in order to ensure effective section-work and progress; how to prioritize and plan your schedule. Communication expert Robert Banet from ESN Poland performed valuable workshop on delivering and receiving constructive feedback, which is an essential part in maintaining an operative ESN work from local to international levels. Members were taught some methods of positively delivering criticism. At the end, everyone were only left craving for more.

The day was not over yet as OC from Mykolas Romeris University had prepared a challenging surprise. ESN’ers and trainers participated in a scavenger hunt and discovered the secrets of Vilnius. Afterwards everyone met up to have some refreshments.

Day 2, Sunday

Starting off the last day with some powerful energizers, participants headed to their last workshops. Working side by side, Lukas Oppermann from ESN Austria and Stanislav Stanek from ESN Czech Republic delivered crucially beneficial session on conflict management. Before starting, participants were asked to share their expectations on the upcoming workshop. Two hours of strategic actions, performances and analysis of real-life conflict situations both in daily and ESN life caused great discussions in the room. For most, expectations raised at the beginning were fulfilled or even exceeded as from now on everyone will keep in mind that avoiding conflicts is not an option.

It did not take long for the trainings to prove being worthy as towards the end of day 2, motivated, eager and fruitful with fresh ideas, ESNers brainstormed about the future projects of ESN Lithuania. Hoping that planted ideas will soon harvest into prosperous and large projects participants reviewed this notably productive weekend after which Eduk8 trainer Stanislav Stanek had this to say: “It was very inspiring to see how motivated the participants are after the Survival Kit training. As a trainer it is a best reward you can get. I hope that we encouraged them to be hungry for new knowledge and they will spread their enthusiasm in every section!”

And spread they will. There are already some new ideas pursued throughout the network. It is safe to say that everyone left with bigger baggage than they came with: knowledge of new fields, motivation, inspiration and promising new acquaintances once again ignited the spirit of ESN!

Huge thanks on behalf of ESN Lithuania to Živilė and the whole MRU team who courageously stepped up in organizing and hosting the Survival KIT Vol.2 National trainings!

P.S. People say, all of them took a good selfie...

by Karolis Kriuka, proud member of ESN LT PuRe Committee, [email protected]

The biggest... First time with guests from 4 universities of Vilnius and Kaunas. Great event took place in Mykolas Romeris university on 19th of April – traditional, already 8th time – „Erasmus Got Talent“, which was organized by ESN MRU Vilnius together with International Exchange Unit. It was also the last step of project Erasmus for Schools, which connected Erasmus students with a lot of pupils from three schools – Telšiai Žemaitės gymnasium, Jonas Basanavičius gymnasium from Vilnius and Kėdainiai Šviesioji gymnasium. During this project Erasmus students went to schools and became „one day teachers“, so in the end children arrived to our university to participate together with exchange students in Erasmus Got Talent.

In the begining the mix of moderators – Erasmus student and mentor introduced our beloved judges – Rihanna, Adele and Enrique Iglesias, who also made their own shows. Then Coordinator of incoming students Ieva Tondrykaitė of International Exchange Unit welcomed everyone and our superb event got speed. What was interesting enough – this time we had quite many mixed shows – Erasmus students invited their mentors to join. We were absolutelly amazed with dance show of ESN MRU Vilnius mentors and their mentees, who worth to point out were awarded even in two categories – got sympathies of audience in „Public Vote“ and „Judges favorite“. 

Most of the performances we had were connected with songs, dances and playing instruments. But it is worth to mention great comedy guy from Greece – Stefanos Antypas, who got a lot of applause and made all audience to die from laughing. He was so into attending our show that after performance he just ran straight to the airport, such a high desire to participate everywhere!

Our great guests from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) – duet Emil and Gintarė were singing few songs and made their own mini concert, which was really worth to get „The best duet“ nomination. We also welcomed two piano players from ISM (International school of management) and Vilnius university (VU). This time we had quite many dance shows, but one of them was really exclusive - two salsa dancers from Vilnius university (VU) and Vilnius Gediminas Technical university (VGTU) made excited everyone with such a passionate and energetic dance show – of course it was clear – they were the best in category of „The best dance“.

During the event everyone was highly surprised we have so many talented Erasmus students. They were playing guitars, piano, violin, drums even self-made instruments. Two erasmus students – Peter and Camille together with their mentor Gabrielė created really nice band and performed two different shows – classical and modern one, for their perfect musicians skills they were nominated as „The best band“ of Erasmus Got Talent. One more band sang few their own created songs and won in the category of „The most creative“.

On the same participants‘ rights were competing children from Erasmus for Schools project. One music band with charming girl ahead from Telšiai Žemaitės gymnasium sang really cheerful song and won in category of „The best song“. Big team of dancers from Jonas Basanavičius gymnasium performed two dances – classical and modern – and proved that they deserved to win Erasmus Got Talents and got „The best of the bests“ nomination.

All audience had a pleasure to watch, applause and support all participants, everyone had really great time. We want to say thank you to everyone who performed and showed their talents, creativity, amazing dancing and singing skills, it was really nice show! You proved once again – Erasmus really got talents!

With love,

ESN MRU Vilnius

Usually it takes a long time to get there. Once you do that, there is never enough: of ESN, of people you meet and spirit you feel. Official description tells you that it is the main decision-making body of ESN International. Well, it is. And it is much more at the same time: future cooperations, knowledge transfer, gathering information, sharing experiences, developing ideas, creating personal long-lasting relations, simply having fun and believing in ideas of the network. 

The idea of AGM is to gather together around 600 current and former members of ESN from international, national and local levels. 36 countries – numbers only prove how broad our organization is. And while wearing different colors and realizing slightly different projects we manage to keep unity in diversity. 

ESN Lithuania also was a part of it – 12 delegates representing 9 sections of ESN Lithuania together with NB delegates and NR in front of. Great purple cloud took over the city of Maribor for 4 days starting from 11th continuing to 14th of April. 

Thursday, 11th of April

While our NR Simona Patašiūtė was catching a breath after intensive and productive pre-CNR delegation of Lithuania was slowly starting to appear from different corners of Europe. The fastest ones were invited to explore Maribor – former European Capital of Culture 2012 during guided sightseeing tours, which invited to share “Brez objemov” or “Free Hugs” with the citizens. Surprised, smiling faces and a bit scared ones from too high dose of Love, but after all – socially aware ESN greeting for the city, which hosted the biggest event of the network. 

Opening ceremony of the event was soon to come so after making few more circles in the city time for preparations to meet Mr. President of Slovenia Borut Pahor. After his speech even more greetings followed by ESN AISLB president Emanuel Alfranseder, partnerts of the network and even Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. Ceremony was opened and closed by Slovenian singer performing anthem of ESN SB – “Don’t You Worry Child”.

Afterwards delegations were invited to enjoy traditional Slovenian dinner together with songs and dances followed by Responsible Party where RP ambassadors were taking a great care of ESNers while providing them water and other goods.

Friday, 12th of April

From 7am in the morning participants were invited to enjoy the breakfast and so prepare for the following sessions when procedures of AGM were presented, chairs were elected, agenda approved and presentations of the candidates for 2013-2014 IB were heard. 

Later the action was moved to the Technical Faculties, where local Slovenian people together with the members of ESN were invited to participate in the Uni-market which has lasted for 3 hours and has invited to get to know more than 300 universities across entire Europe. 

After the market was finished ESNers were invited to attend the variety of workshops starting with the diplomacy lessons taught by Slovenian Foreign Affairs Minister ending up with project management and team building. Impressions and lessons which were learnt were shared during the National Platforms, which invited to talk about candidates for the IB, about AGM itself and to prepare for the loud and colorful flag-parade. 

Parade which took for more than few hours and was captured by various media representatives ended up in Festival Hall Lent where the Eurodinner took place. Crazy night with loud music, various goods from different countries of the world leaded to the one of the most important days of AGM.

 

Saturday, 13th of April

The 3rd day of AGM invited to the sessions where the most important decisions were made. OCs for the future international events were elected:

• AGM Milano 2014;
• CEP Košice 2014;
• CND Lodz 2014.

Later on budgets were discussed and presentation about the work done by IB 2012-2013 was given. As well as standing orders were changed with the biggest innovation – bringing the chairing team to the CNR meetings, which from now one will be made of CNR Administrator, Secretary and Technical Assistant. 

44Changes for the Visual Identity Manual were also introduced with a suggestion to allow the use of ESN logo in full solid ESN Colors, including ESN Pink/Cyan/Orange/Green/Dark Blue. The next day proposal was approved by AGM, so from now on we have even more colorful and flexible visual identity of the network! 

AGM was continued by presentation of the Board Action Plan for 2013 – 2014 with concrete actions how to improve the structure, budget, work of secretariat and strengthen up ESN Brand. Promotion of the mobility, concentration on the projects as ESNSurvey, PRIME, Erasmus Impact Study will remain. Will be working on strengthening up the Eduk8, Alumni network, working with facilitation of international jobs, traineeships and volunteer opportunities for ESN members.

During the rest of the day international ESN projects were presented: ESNWiki, Responsible Party, where ESN Lithuania takes the first place by the number of RP parties organized! Time for the session was coming to an end so lots of discussion points were delayed to the coming day. 

UV Youngle Party followed afterwards, where with the help with OC, IB and NewYorker everyone was dressed the same – T-shirts of ESN, which later on were covered by the layers of ultraviolet sensitive paints. 

Sunday, 14th of April

New day, new challenges and huge amounts of information! Projects as ESN Satellite was presented with having a first look to the new version of it and promise for it soon to come. ESN Survey was analyzed, recent results of Eduk8 were presented continuing with the presentation with the rest of projects as Erasmus in Schools as a Flagship Project for this year, Social Erasmus as the latter Flagship Project of ESN, Section Quality Development, Section Cooperation, ESN Galaxy, ESN Card, Ride for Your Rights, ExchangeAbility presentations. 

Reports of CNR, CND, Committees, Liaison Office and Network itself followed together with presentation of commercial, institutional partners.

Alumni were also invited to the stage to present their new work done during the recent year, attempts to gather all national Alumni coordinators to one place and to share their knowledge and possibilities between each other. More information about Alumni network might be found HERE. Also traditional Alumni grant was given. This time it was ESN Rijeka which was awarded by 500eu for the innovative trainings for ESN members of their section. 

Also that day IB for the next cadency was elected:

• President – Stefan Jahnke;

• Vice-president – Dominique Montagnese;

• Treasurer – Jonathan Jelves;

• Communication Manager – Robert Klimacki;

• Web Project Administrator – Salih Odabasi.

After the reports of the auditors and vote of AGM event was officially closed. Only Gala-prom was waiting for the participants.

Gala this year was different. The idea was to have a prom date like in the times of finishing high school. That was the reason why everyone that night came by two. High heels and ties, dresses and suits – that night we’ve proved  how different we can be – from dirty t-shirts to fancy look, from crazy parties to Social Erasmus. That’s what ESN is about.

15th of April

Then the sun started to appear in the morning of 15th AGM came to an end. Lots of goodbyes were told during the breakfast, many free hugs made to each other hoping to see each other again. Once more hundreds of people from different parts of Europe spread apart to work for the same ideas and values only through different projects and venues. Work for the local, national and international community. Spread responsible and socially aware ideas.

Every time we meet, something changes. In statutes, standing orders, VMI, but the wish to ESN your life always remains.

Pallomeri, dear members of ESN!

More photos HERE!

Although it‘s already spring time and you can see just cold and frozen things through the window, it‘s always possible to find some people who are moving, creating and keeping themself in action in order not to be frozen like that Lithuanian never-ending-winter, called spring. These always moving people can be easily found here – in ESN MRU Vilnius. Our section met spring with full month of activities, so we didn‘t have time to complain about cold temperature outside.

First days of spring were welcomed by City Quiz – orientation game in Vilnius city center. It took place during Casimir‘s fair, so it was like double celebration for our students. Even it was so so so cold outside and we don‘t remember if we have ever had such a freezing City Quiz, but all Erasmus students were still full of energy, positive mood and seeking to beat another competitors during the game. So in conclusion – even we had the coldest City Quiz ever, Erasmus students were so happy and excited that despite wind, snow and coldness everyone was talking what a great day they had! And it was just the begining of month...

On the same weekend we started Erasmus for Schools project in spring semester. During the March we already had two visits to lithuanian schools – in Telšiai and Kėdainiai. Erasmus students from Greece, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, Slovenia, France, Poland were theachers of subjects like history, language lessons, religion, ethics, biology, music. They represented history and traditions of their countries, explained differences between religions, teached some their national language sentences and even sang their national anthems together with lithuanian pupils. After lessons children said thank you with some really nice performances of dances and songs and later on all together with Erasmus students participated in Brain Battle game. Of course, children from schools were excited and admired by possibility to meet and know another cultures and foreign students, so all together they had some great conversations, got to know each other, made an excursions in their school towns and promised to come and show up in our another event Erasmus got talent in April.

And it‘s not the end! In the evening of International Women’s day our section organized one more funny and full of laughs matching event “Dare to date me”. Since the event was dedicated for International Women’s day, so the main idea was to let the girl to choose a boy for the date. Even it didn’t have the purpose to make a real couple, everyone had great time watching funny performances of competitors.

Later on one more weekend of March was filled with local ESN Olympics elimination and Mentor’s day events. We already chose our teams for ESN Olympics national tournament and next day all together we had great Mentor’s day, when our lovely Erasmus people said thank you to their helpful mentors and organized private evening at Universiteto pub with a lot of games, best wishes and nice performances.

To sum up, when you have so much things to do and always can enjoy your Erasmus friends and mentors company, there is no time to be sad about cold weather outside. Full of activities March just cheered up everyone and rumours are already about starting to organize big projects like Erasmus Got Talent, ESN Olympics national tournament, National Platform and many other smaller events, so it seems that we are going to continue our “be-always-in-action” tradition.

by ESN MRU Vilnius

On 10th January Vilnius sections of ESN Lithuania wellcomed all ERASMUS students by organizing them a huge Welcome party. According to organizators, there should have been around 450 ERASMUS students from Vilnius, Vilnius Gediminas Technical and  Mykolas Romeris universities, International School of Business and Law as well as mentors and their friends. The party took place in Pramogų Bankas, Vilnius.

The topic of the event was BLING BLING, so girls had to wear cocktail dresses while guys were in their suits and shirts. Despite the bad weather and Lithuanian cold, there were lots of people who prepared and shined all night long. The party lasted until 6 am.

This welcome party was one of the first events organized by several sections of ESN in Vilnius. After success like this there will certainly be more unforgettable events organized so follow the news!

Mykolas Romeris University community members were amazed by Erasmus students’ talents already for the fifth time. On Friday evening, 11th of November was held one of the most popular events among students – Erasmus Got Talent, which have already become traditional.

The event has expanded this semester – many talented people gathered to share their creativity and originality not only fromMykolas Romeris University, but also from Vilnius Universityand European Humanitarian University.

University also had an honour to be visited by schoolchildren from Vilnius region Pagiriai gymnasium and Utena Dauniškis gymnasium, who equally competed with university students to win the prize. The audience was astonished by the energy and courage they showed.

Strict but fair jury consisted of mentors dressed as Britney Spears (Justina Kozlovska), Bruno Mars(Robertas Šumskis) and Lady Gaga (Viktorija Kašlėjūtė) had to do the most difficult work – make a decision who are worthiest to win.

Although it wasn’t easy to choose from so many good dancers, singers and musicians, the jury came to a conclusion that in category of originality The Erasmus Boys made the most memorable performance. 4 guys showed the audience what Erasmus studies are really about while using exclusive dance moves.

Pagiriai gymnasium schoolchildren didn’t bother just to be average as well – they won prize for the best dance.

Svetlana Jaraud was awarded for Lithuanian Patriotism. Audience was stunned by the French girl who came up on the stage carrying huge Lithuanian flag and sang Trys milijonai by heart.

Andrea Amadeo and Ineta Kairytė set the dance floor on fire with their performance, considered by jury as the most romantic. Everyone enjoyed their dance divided into three parts: unprofessional tango, pop dance and Lithuanian national dance. According to lovely couple, this mixture of Italian and Lithuanian is a symbol of world’s integration.

Thibaut Noel gave everyone a warm overwhelming feeling with an outstanding guitar loop jam he composed few months ago and played it in front of people for the first time. He won not only in category of public choice but also earned the jury’s sympathy which gave him the first prize. As Thibaut said, Erasmus Got Talent definitely completes its goal: enjoying and having fun between Erasmus students, mentors and officials from MRU together. He claims that this night will definitely be a good memory from Lithuania.

Mykolas Romeris University International Exchange Unit together with ESN MRU Vilnius, that organized the event, are very proud they had an opportunity to gather so many talented people together and believe that such a nice tradition will continue.

Milda Porutytė, ESN MRU Vilnius

The 22nd October is now written into history of ESN Lithuania as the day of PRIME conference, which was first of this scale event in ESN Lithuania, as the first PRIME conference, which was held some time ago, did not have so many attendants, including Representative from European Commision, Ministry of Education and Science and many Higher education institutions. It needs to be mentioned that we were proud to welcome ESN AISBL Treasurer Damien Lamy-Preto and the main ESN PRIME coordinator Justyna Pisera.

The conference was hosted by ESN MRU Vilnius and covered the results of PRIME project. Both international and national results were presented. As we know, academic exchange is a multilevel process and the principle of integrity must be kept discussing future strategies of students mobility. Organizers were glad to see that after presenting the material of the conference, quite a huge discussion evolved. Participants were expressing their opinions on the results of PRIME project, discussing success and failure stories and suggesting some improvements. So, hopefully, each of the participants got something valuable from this event.

The good news are that the general results of PRIME are much better than the previous year. The worst situation is considered to be in Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, while Lithuania is in the 8th place. So, our situation is comparably not bad, but there are still things to improve.

To mention shortly, here is the index of recognition in Lithuania:

Full recognition: 79,78 %

Not full recognition: 20,22 %

More results are coming soon as a separate edition.

During the NP of ESN Lithuania on 26th February, 2011 new event was held - GO PUBLIC! The idea of this was to encourage sections to share their ideas with each other and let others know more about what they are doing. And now we are proud to announce the winners of the event!

Congratulations go to:

Best event: ESN VU - Wild Dates. The ideas of blind dating and wild dating were connected. Both Erasmus and Lithuanians could participate and show their best. It was fun, it was new, interesting, it was WILD!

Best social event: ESN MRU Vilnius - Erasmus Fundraising. It was initiated by Erasmus students themselves. During the whole term, they collected empty bottles, white cents and in the end of the term used all the received money for buying presents, games, candies and so on for children sick with tuberculosis. When visiting children, Erasmus also presented their countries, so children could learn more about different cultures.
 
Best new idea: ESN VGTU - ESN MAN. The idea of ESN MAN is to make a plastic man to promote ESN. The artificial man would be situated in several places, which are quite visible to the public, e.g. entrance of university.