Navidad Plans!!!

Navidad!!!
Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan.

Calling all extranjeros (and everyone) in Venezuela!

Christmas is an important time for a lot of us, and for some of us (myself included) this will be our first Christmas away from home and our families. So I think it's very important we make it awesome!

It's also important we have Christmas food from all different countries :-)

The master plan involves two elements:

• Merida for Navidad
  The whole MC are going and a few trainees (Diego, Can, Elina, Kasia).


• Morrocoy for New Year
  I am booking a house in Tucacas for the 31st to the 2nd. Everyone is welcome!! The more the merrier. So far me and my friend who's visiting are going, and probably Diego and his friend and Can. It costs 25 mil per person per night. I'm quite excited about new year on the beach!! Let me know if you want to come!

There's a super-organised spreadsheet here so people can put up their plans and we can try and do some stuff together. (Update: actually you can't update it but if you want to include your plans tell me!)

Hope to see loads of you over the holiday season!

Dan

Awesome days!

Hey guys!
We spent AWESOME days last week... We had a great visit here... Finally, after 2 years AI visitied us again, that means that ARAZ (our beautiful regional director) was here, for 10 days!

She arrived on friday 17th at 12 pm, Frank and Frank went to the airport to pick her up (he was a little bit late, shame on you!)... After that Araz and I came back to Caracas, in the office, our little but comfortable office :-) (as you can see we cleaned the office)... We prepared the agenda for her visit and went directly to the first meeting (TRS/IBS Conference team meeting), we were there 'till 12 am (my birthday was starting with an AIESEC meeting, uhu!)

Next two days... Saturday, the best ('cause of my birthday of course), the IBS/TRS started, the sessions, great!, people participating, Araz giving us knowledge to move faster with the Issue Based XPs and Ser Mas! implementation... and the best... The dances!

After some issues that we may solved and some others that we are still solving we had a great weekend. Full of energy and full of ideas and initiatives that the members want to implement ASAP! We were tired at 6 pm already wo we had a fast meeting to check the last feedbacks and go to celebrate my birthday (again)...

During the week... Meeting with Araz to review the identity and the purpose of what we are doing now with the Issue Based XPs and Ser Mas!, cool stories about José and Joel and their XPs had place there. And right after that individual meetings with the Director (coooool!). Long term planning, SN supply, revenue generation, competency model, ER goals, projects, etc. these were some of the topics during the individual meetings.

But it didnt end there... We had meetings with: Alianza Social, Transparencia Venezuela, Cadbury Adams, DHL, Alcatel, Ramón Sosa, Miguel Lascarov (Chair of the S.G.), Ambev (Brahma), Angloamerican and Opción Venezuela. All with different purposes but with really great outcomes, some for support projects, some others for develop projects. but at the end all of them are very interested in partnering with AIESEC somehow. They believe in the impact that we are having in each individual and in the impact that we may have in the society.

We finally have some awesome social moments, we enjoyed the international table with Araz, the same day that she ate an arepa. She had the chance to share with some of teh members and dance for a while Merengue :-). On friday we had the last meetings with Araz, and at the end of the day she had the chance to go to El Hatillo, where she spent a great time in the mountains having some wine.

On saturday morning we woke up early, was beach day!, we went to Higuerote to have our frist social activity as a team. We had a great time there, we slept on the sand and drank under the sun, play in the water and singed GAITAS!... And for the end of the day... funny drinking games prepared by Antje!

Sunday... last day with Araz... time to go back to Caracas... Everybody said goodbye to her and we went directly to the Airport with the former MCP (Ezequiel)... At 3 pm she was boarding the airplane that was taking her to Costa Rica... Right now we know that she's o.k. 'cause she have sent us 15 emails to each of us ;-)

Hopefully we'll have another visit soon :-)... I hope you've enjoyed this as we did... Awesome experience!

The Trainees! (and more CR)

The Trainees are blogging!

Frank is just back from a 3-day conference that the World Bank invited us too. Mario's been away coaching Barquisimeto and Maracaibo and Risho's had an XM weekend. LDS, led by super-woman Antje and her team of newly qualified and awesome facilitators, was apparently rather good at the weekend.

I was lost in the jungle at the weekend but am now back feeling reinvigorated and selling all our wonderful products! I'm extremely excited about the Valencia event - Nov 23-25. Liderazgo y Vision are an amazing organisation working towards change in Venezuela and they are added to the list of great partners we have for it! Also doing lots of research into Corporate Responsibility and realising the huge potential for this in Venezuela, as well as the huge potential for Social Entrepreneurship. Time to get the Exchange going so we have a massively diverse bunch of trainees to participate in these projects!

There's an incredible conference taking place in the US next week - Business as an Agent of World Benefit. AIESEC will have a strong presence there, with Maggie Fung from the CR drive team attending along with about 20 other AIESECers.

If you want to be part of this turning point in the perception and action of CSR, I really encourage you to participate on-line in their fantastic virtual conference environment (all the keynote speeches, discussions and loads more with thousands of people). It's $39 for students and starts this Sunday 22nd October.

We're all been very busy. Sorry for the lack of blogging! Come to International Table tonight and kick our asses.

Your MC 2006-2007!

The First Ever Photo of the MC 06/07
Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan.

We are here!

All of us.

On Thursday, Antje arrived from Germany, your MCVP People Development. The MC is now complete. We are all sitting right now in our cosy little office that is just buzzing with excitement!

Frank and Antje have been telling us everything that happened at IC - the connections they made, the things they learned, how it all applies to us in Venezuela. So tomorrow, we start (well, continue) putting together our MC plan - based on what we need to do to support you in your plans, input from IC and our national goals (159 baby!). Of course we've also been telling Frank and Antje about how awesomely hard you have all been working with us these last few weekends!

Today, Mario has been planning a proposal for sales training for the whole of AIESEC ER. He says:

"Trabajando con mucha pasion y mucha energia, recuerda que son 159 y cada cosa que hacemos nos a cerca más a nuestra meta."

Dan has been getting really excited about the Valencia event, forgetting his lunch at home and received (another) free book from a guy who's going to run an amazing session on Leadership at the event. He also almost killed Risho with a stapler. Dan's message is:

"Tenemos exactamente lo que las empresas quieren. Haciendo la coneccion es facil. Todos que podemos hacer es ser exitoso! Yo amo AIESEC y los amo a todos."

Risho has been getting trainees from all over the world from Procter & Gamble and working on a session for a learning weekend for USB. Yesterday he finished the format for ET TN segmentation (which is very special). He says:

"En febrero, esperamos 30 trainees in Caracas y el mismo numero en el MABATEC. (Risho's new word for 'interior'). Ya vale la pena crear una estructura para servicio."

Antje has been trying to steal the free books that companies have been giving me. ("borrow" she says, and I have to learn proper Spanish). She's also been all over AIESEC.net and has set the VP-PD Weekend date which is the 21-22 October in Valencia. She's also working on the Faci application for SDL so we can have some cool people from around the world there (hopefully). She says:

"Enforzamos el liderazgo en AIESEC Venezuela!"

Richard has just got back from a weekend a booze, girls and pole dancing on Margarita Island. He also lay on the beach. He didn't even wear any sunscreen. He's been checking the mountains of e-mail he received while he was away and planning our MC team days with Frank. He says:

"Ahorren y no malgasten su dinero, como dice un viejo refran chino, hay que comenzar a subir la montaña como un viejo para llegar como un joven."

Franky-Baby has been blogging (but not here, here), listening to Richard talk about the MC team days and get this, creating and changing communities. He's been having a positive impact on them. And he's been reviewing our ER stuff and planning MC team days. And he's got all the icons on his computer just where he wants. His message:

"Now, more than ever AIESEC could be more relevant to our communities and our country, we just need to focus our energy and our potential... So basically it's up to you!"

This was today in the MC. Thanks everyone!

You inspire us!

ER Weekend!
Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan.

I cannot tell you how excited I am about External Relations after this weekend. We have an absolutely awesome team. You are all so motivated and committed and I just know we are going to achieve amazing things together!

Seeing the results of those local target sheets, seeing people writing "159" on their arms, seeing you all discussing things with such intensity and passion. We all love AIESEC and I can tell you are all ready to work hard to achieve these goals. We as an MC are ready too. Together, we have started things here. All we need to do is keep this fantastic momentum going and we will get to where we want to be.

For those who weren't at ER weekend, 159 is AIESEC Venezuela's national target for realised exchanges 2006/2007. That's 77 TNs and 82 SNs - around 11 of each for each LC.

Sounds like a lot? It may be, but it is doable. At ER Weekend we worked out exactly what needs to be done to get there. And it is achievable. Market segmentation will give us a huge head-start in selling exchange. We will be going to companies knowing that they are going to say yes. That is where the difference is. With this, plus the committment of the ER teams, every LC will be attending around 5 meetings per week and we can hit the target of 77 TNs by Christmas, let alone June!

So that is what we are going to do. 77 people experiencing Venezuela for the very first time. 82 people gaining international experience abroad.

159 life-changing experiences!

We can do it!
We will do it!

Sustainability Project

Hey everyone,

I had a really exciting meeting today with an organisation called CEVEDES. They are the Venezuelan chapter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Their focus is on helping Venezuelan businesses to become more environmentally sustainable.

This is a really hot topic in business today. People are realising that we cannot continue the way we have for years. Businesses must understand their impact on the world and the environment and work actively to minimise or correct any potential damage. People really care about this. From a purely public relations point of view, showing responsibility in this area is vital. From a commercial viewpoint, sustainability means efficiency, which is what companies want. Their bottom-line improving. From the perspective of human resources, employees are happier if they know their company is doing good. There are so many reasons for companies to develop strong sustainability policies and to act on them.

The question is, how can they do this?

This is where CEVEDES and AIESEC come in. We can work together to educate young people about this topic, create a platform for dialogue between businesses and students, and bring tangible results to business through projects and issue-based exchange.

Please read more about this topic on the WBC web site. If there is a group of members interested in this issue, there is a huge potential here to form a PBoX. CEVEDES and AIESEC are working together. They will be playing a big part in our event in Valencia in October. And we have several more ideas in the pipeline.

The question is now, just how far do you want this to go?

Please get in touch with me if you want to learn some more about how we can work with CEVEDES this year and into the future.

This cannot happen without you.

ER Weekend!!!

Well, Mario and I have been working round the clock preparing things for ER Weekend - presentations, sessions, workshops, role calls :-)

We will be doing lots of exciting things, including discussing our national exchange targets (think AIESEC Jaipur!), working out how issue-based exchange fits into and can help us gain results in ER, talking about ALL of our products, national support team roles, and the system and process that is going to revelotionise account management in AIESEC Venezuela, built around a customised version of SalesForce.com. Check out that web site for some really American training videos to get yourself acquainted with what that's all about.

It is certainly going to be a fully-packed weekend! I am so excited about ER this year. You will see why in just 2 days time!!!

After this huge amount of work we will all do at the weekend, our idea is, on Monday, to go up El Avila. Shout our exchange goals from the top of the mountain for all of Caracas to hear, that sort of thing. So if anybody is free on Monday please join me Risho and Mario for our first trip to Avila Magica. I hear there is a special student price for weekdays.

There weren't enough of you at International Table tonight. I know MCBO, UNITEC and BQTO would all be there if they were here. More next week please.

See you at the weekend ER!! Everyone else, be sure to ask your ER people about all the excitement after they return.

I love ER. If anyone else loves ER, please comment on this blog!

Hello AIESEC Venezuela!

Hola todos!!

I've just been reading the amazing IC Live! web site. One session was all about Freedom-Centred Organisations - a new paradigm for how to structure and manage organisations, based on transparency, communication and giving every person choice wherever possible. The basic premise is to give everyone a voice, and to lead rather than control. I for one am all for this, especially after spending the weekend discussing rules for our national compendium :-)

So, my first act as making AIESEC Venezuela more freedom-centred - here it is - the MC Blog!

Here you will be able to read about all we've been up to, just how we've managed to squeeze ourselves into the office, what is going on in each functional area and exactly how much (or how little) Risho has spent on his lunch. There will be photos of Richard too, smiling.

Welcome to the MC office everyone!