What does it take to be a Vice President of ESN?
Good question 
Even for me, it is still a bit difficult to answer as I am discovering the secrets of it every day. It is definitely very challenging, exciting and fun, but also time and energy consuming… you need quite a good deal of motivation and determination but it is rewarding to see the results of your work.
So let’s start with the basics – what are the tasks of the Vice President?
1. Network care
After the position of the Network Administrator was abolished at AGM 2008 in Besançon, it is up to me to take care of the network – to be in contact with the current sections, with National Representatives and National Boards. Also, I am the first contact person for new countries interested to join ESN.
2. ESN Survey
Together with the ESN Survey team, we develop, promote, evaluate the survey, and write the final analysis. The survey is one of the biggest annual projects of ESN, valued by many universities and European institutions as a good source of information on students’ needs.
3. 20th Anniversary of ESN Project
In October 2009, ESN will celebrate its 20th anniversary – and we want to make it big and make ESN even more known and recognised around Europe. The whole project will include 5 main pillars – AGM, ESN Train, Give20, Birthday Book and Postcard Campaign. I am the coordinator of 20th anniversary project team – at the moment preparing the kick-off of the celebrations exactly one year before THE day – on 16 October 2008! Watch out!!
4. Administrative Grant
I am responsible for applying for this grant and writing the final report of the last year’s one. This grant comes from the European Commission and provides ESN with funds to have the headquarters in Brussels and 5 Board members working full time.
5. Working groups
a. Statutory meetings
I am mainly in touch with the OCs of various ESN events (such as AGM, CND or regional platforms), providing them with advice, support and feedback.
b. Country development
This is to provide help to ESN sections and countries that face difficult situation – i.e. there is no National Representative, problems in communication etc. Also, we are in regular contact with organizations interested to join ESN.
c. Procedural matters
The aim of this working group is to improve the way our organization is working – mainly on the international level to make the meetings as productive and efficient as possible.
6. Sections’ questionnaire
This task is a little bit connected to the network care – this annually prepared questionnaire is to provide us with information about what ESN sections like, what they do, what they would like to change etc. My responsibility is to make sure that all the sections fill it in so then it could be analysed by the Knowledge Management working group.
These are the main big areas I work on, but there is of course much more – such as representation of ESN at conferences and other events, support to all the other Board members and…. yes, replying hundreds of emails per week 
Should you have any questions or if you just want to know a bit more, write me an email to vicepresident@esn.org.
