Monday, 26 November 2012

The Day After: Final thank you & public apology

My body and mind are still recovering from the awesome but very demanding and intense days of last week in Maribor during the European Youth Forum General Assembly as well as the preceding weeks and months of an electoral campaign.

At this point I want to give my sincere thanks to the following who made this GA possible: first and foremost the host city of Maribor and the entire team behind the European Youth Capital 2013, both those that have worked on this since two years ago and those who joined in recently: hvala! Second, a
huge thank you goes also to the team of the National Youth Council of Slovenia (MSS), especially Kamal and Tea who give it their absolute all to make this happen. Thanks also to predecessor Tine for helping build bridges between the past and present. Third, my deepest appreciation goes to the administrative team from our Secretariat, especially Luc who has been with us for several decades and never lost his energy and patience to support us in our cause: dank u wel! Of course a huge merci to all other Secretariat members for the brilliant job done, you truly are the best in-house team! Last but not least a big thanks to all the candidates, especially to those who didn't elected but contributed in making this GA an open and democratic contest offering the membership a choice between different approaches and visions and to Juha-Pekka for being an excellent example of how one should behave after not winning an election: kiitos!

It has been an exceptional event and I am very honoured and humbled by achieving the set goal of being re-elected as President of this wonderful platform. As President (re)elect I hereby promise that I will continue giving it my all to ensure that this platform remains the legitimate voice of young people and youth organisations in Europe offering solutions to the plentiful challenges European youth face by working with and for the young people. I promise that I will continue striving for even more openness, more inclusiveness and more transparency towards our member organisations and embed them into our work to the maximum extent. The members have decided on a more focused approach to the Forum's work already earlier this year with a set of new strategic priorities that will guide us for the coming six years. At the GA they have adopted a Work-Plan that defines the scope of policy and advocacy work for the coming two years. It is now up to the leadership of this platform to ensure this plan is fully realised.

I am ready to take on this work together with the professional support of our Secretariat but most of all with a dedicated and motivated team of volunteer Board members. I look forward to build on their enthusiasm expressed during their bid to become members of the Youth Forum Board for the period 2013-14 and the experience of two of my colleagues from the current Board that were given the recognition for their excellent work by being entrusted with the two Vice-President positions.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to offer my current Board members, especially the new Vice-President Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a public apology for some of the comments I have made during the final moments of the General Assembly. Improvisation is never an easy thing and in this case it backfired. In a moment of sheer exhaustion while thanking my outgoing Board members I tried to
be witty and use irony to highlight their strengths and contribution to the work completed, what is clear is this was not appropriate. I also apologise to Guoda for mentioning a nickname publicly I was
sometimes teasing her with but especially to Lloyd who I tried to joke about, mentioning things which were simply not true. In the first 7 months he completed an impressive 50 days plus of volunteering, away from home for the Youth Forum, not to mention the long nights reading papers and preparing reports. He achieved this whilst being an EVS for IFM-SEI, a student and Chairperson of his home organisation Woodcraft Folk, an admirable feat. I apologise for this and the other comments to all Board members which could have seemed derogatory and wish to re-enforce the praise that I have for the work of all the outgoing Board members.

I feel the need to also offer this public apology and clarification as, despite occasionally all of us
dropping the ball, my two new Vice-Presidents have been nothing but fully dedicated to the cause and an excellent advocates for youth-related issues and youth work in the last two years. I’m sure we look forward to another two successful years with the whole team.

I believe in accountability and I believe that nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. My strength has always been the ability to realise mine quickly and trying to rectify the consequences in an open manner. I'm fully confident that such moments offer me and others the opportunity to grow and become even better persons and help us move on.

I feel empowered after this GA but also confirmed in my conviction that I need to continue to focus more and better and to allow myself enough time to think of myself and my needs as well since this platform needs a healthy, sharp and determined leader with as little gaffs as possible. I promise I will work on this and try to live up to your expectations as well as my own.