I finally pushed myself to write something about one of the coolest experiences from this year. And yes … it’s the NPS (National Preparation Seminar).

First Impressions
I don’t know where to begin. I applied, I got selected. I wasn’t quite sure this will happen. The moment I got selected, pressure started to build up, emotions, days passed, we got to know the faci team, chatted on the community, exchanged files, finalized the agenda. I couldn’t wait to get there, to be there, to start the experience. I was to excited the moment I arrived at the conference site.

I was determined to be the best faci I possibly could be, to keep on smiling, to bring my knowledge and support for the guys in the team. I was somehow disturbed by some of the tired and long faces that greeted me in the pre-meeting. I was thinking (and saying it sometimes), hey guys, you choose this, and you choose to be here, why the long faces? I tried to keep my spirit and attitude up till the end of the conference, I don’t know if I managed, but I tried although it was very, very hard sometimes :D.

The Site
It’s funny. Last time I facilitated at this conference was 2 years ago, in the same hotel, the same pre-meeting and faci rooms, the same plenaries, the same food and cold rooms :D. The only difference is that I facilitated for the oldies agenda. The coolest thing was that we got a computer room with Internet access.

Faci Team
I’ve shared the room with Dani 4, Dan from Timisoara and his very cool girlfriend Alis :D (She’s a sweetie! PS: Don’t tell Dan I said that!). It’s a pity to realize that you need such an event to get to know some people.

The faci team was one of the best teams I’ve facilitated with. I think I had something to give and to receive to and from these people. I’ve also worked with some internationals like Milan and Viktor and some people I already knew like Mugur, Nico, Alis, Janina. We had lots of quality time together. Every one of them had some unique quality that brought the added value to the conference. They were great!

Not everything went as planned, we actually changed the whole agenda at the middle of the conference, stripped some sessions, build new ones, everybody was running back and forth … I especially liked when Gioni or one of the chairs came in front in the faci meeting asking “Are you worried guys?”, we always answered “No” regardless of the size of the tasks before us. I think all facis contributed to a very relaxed and fun atmosphere. At least on the NTS side.

The only regret I have is that the 2 faci teams (oldies and newies agendas) didn’t quite interact with each other.

Funny Moment
One of the funniest moments in the pre-meeting was when we first received our personalized faci t-shirts. We bursted in laughter when we saw them and we laughed even harder when we put them on. Why well imagine … a boy wearing a M size t-shirt … only thing that they were girl t-shirts :D. Yes, actually as we tried them on we realized that we should rename the SuperNPS to SuperGayPS :). All boys looked somewhat gayish in those t-shirts that were so tight if we stretched a little bit we would have teared them up. Not to mention that the lower part of the t-shirt was ending right bellow the belly-line (gimme some skin! :D ). One other thing was that they messed up our names on the t-shirt. We submitted our first name, last name, and nickname when ordering them. They were supposed to print only the nickname … which they did … adding the last name to it. So, some of the facis had printed “Sh Teiosanu” or “Ciuci Alexe” or “GRR Janina”. Fun extended till we had to pay for them :P … which we did.

Faci Dance
I volunteered to make up a facilitators dance along with some other facis from Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara with Janina as the problem solver. We wanted to build up a dance on Hung Up from Madonna, and we worked like hell from 12AM till 3AM to achieve it. Mugur was working on his session PowerPoint but came up with some of the basic ideas.

We actually had to cut down some moves because they were to difficult, not for us that trained for 4 hours but for the other facis, which had to learn it in 20 minutes. We gave up around 3:30 AM and decided to finish it on Tuesday morning. We got lucky with the lunch break, when under a huge time pressure got the final moves ready. Although we’ve practiced it for so long, 2 people were actually needed to synchronize the moves. We presented the dance spitted in 2 groups and guess what … no one knew the dance well enough in my group and we messed it a bit up in the opening plenary.

One nasty thing happened at the end of our faci dance: thanks to AIESEC Bucharest and people I really LOVE :) I got to do it solo … I’ve been facilitating to their LTS one year ago and since then they’ve got this sadistic shout at every conference: “Zeno solo, Zeno solo!”, even if I’m not there!

The People
Well, the people … I don’t know what to say. I would say that this year recruitment has brought a nice generation of new members. I’ve had one home group throughout the conference. I was responsible for their learning and development during the conference. “Home groups” is a new concept that aroused last NPS.

In my opinion, they were quite challenging. I had to sweat a bit to get them going. I don’t know how I managed. I had some doubts at one point. I felt I can’t really connect to them. This was really one of my hardest moments in one of the evenings. Made me think of what I was doing wrong. I think it turned out fine in the end; the only problem was that we didn’t have enough time together to get together as a team. I’m planning to try to keep contact, at least with some of them.

One of the other groups I facilitated was formed of the AIESEC Constanta newies. This was a really challenging group. They were discussing their organizational culture in a session held by Pode (AIESEC Alumnus from HumanInvest). I was their punching bag for their internal issues they had with each other. I tried to make them realize how little importance the things they were fighting on had, and pushed them to work together as a team, discuss the issues they had in the LC and try to overcome them. Again it’s their judgment about how well I performed. But I really did my best and at the end they were there as a team performing a role call :). I also made an output of our discussions (didn’t throw away the flip charts as I first intended) and I will send it to them in the next days.

I’ve had also several other discussion groups and some other tasks within the conference, that, put together got really exhausting at the final days.

The coolest thing for a faci is when one person steps up to you saying these words ” … well we didn’t talk much at this conference but I really enjoyed how you facilitated the discussion. I would really want to keep in touch with you.” It happened once or twice during the conference, for sessions that I really thought I didn’t do such a great job. Obviously one cannot be objective in regards of its own performance ;).

Delegation Meetings
At this NPS I didn’t quite had the time to attend my LC delegations meetings. I was feeling quite bad about this, but the delegation meetings were overlapping with the faci meetings … I managed to get to the last of them. The newies induction period was ending, so I tried to prepare them for the next period (I actually thought of making a nice PowerPoint for the last LC Meeting) and try to keep their motivation high :). They don’t realize it but for us the old members in Sibiu, they are worth everything, and we tried our best to keep them in AIESEC and offer them the best of what AIESEC can offer.

Other Stuff
I was impressed as some people came to me asking for advice in different issues. I’m not in EB anymore and I don’t have the connections I had one year before. These people don’t even know me. I’m not really that old to give advise! Well actually I found out that I’m among the last 7 people from my generation still in AIESEC. It kind of struck me: most of the people I knew are no longer in AIESEC. It’s unpleasant to be called as a fossil. :P

End
As I said a couple of times in this post, the NPS experience was one of the coolest experiences this year. I got to work with fine people, got new friends and things to think about, and got challenged to my limits. I really loved it. Life’s all about challenging yourself.

Photos
Sorry for the picture quality guys. I just don’t have the popper equipment.

More Photos (Quality is higher)

Over and out,
The Lion.