President: Nadina Busuioc - Bucharest
Treasurer: Jihad R'baiti - ENSTA
Secretary: Susan Langer - Copenhagen
VP for External Services: Elina Seppänen - Tampere
VP for Internal Support: Michal Wojtera - Lodz
VP for Local Group Support: Xavier Ronde-Oustau - Helsinki
The XVIII board of BEST a.k.a. the Jazzers. From left to right: Michal, Elina, Jihad, Susan, Nadina and Xavier
Once upon a time six very different people were brought together to form the XVIII Board of BEST. These six people soon found out that they shared one common passion: their love for Jazz (and their love of Minttu). Hence, the team called Jazzers was born.
Since then many things have happened and the organisation has changed in many ways. We hope that some of these developments are due to the work and dedication we gave that year. When our mandate started, the structure of the board had just been changed and in the beginning we spent a lot of time creating new ways of working suitable for this structure to be more efficient than the old. One of the things we saw as a clear benefit was the possibility of making BEST international more efficient and more LBG oriented. Among the steps we took to achieve this was changing the biggest international working meeting (IPF), from being committee based to being project based, yielding a significant improvement in the concrete work achieved during this meeting. This change also gave room to focus more on inter-committee projects i.e. working on External Relations.
The Jazzers are building trust with each other during their Board Training
Some of the other structures needed rearranging due to new ways of working. After a long and hard evaluation of our Career Support Service at the time we realised that it needed a new clean start. This meant dissolving the Career Support committee, which was working on it at the time. At the same time Financial Team changed status from working group to committee and were given control of the BEST Career Centre. We introduced during our mandate the "à la carte" cooperation agreements for career and financial partners of BEST, hence reviewing our approach and getting it closer to the market reality.
Another new body was born in BEST. Regional Advisors used to be people chosen by boardies to help them, if they existed at all. For the first time in summer 2005 they were elected by LBGs and from then on they have worked more actively and independently for the benefit of their region. The new Vice Presidents for Local Group Support and the Regional Advisors worked then together to better organize and coordinate regional events and improve information flow from/to LBGs.
The XVIII managment of BEST: Jazzers and Ones
During the General Meetings steps were taken towards making the meeting more efficient, i.e. implement identifiers for all proposals proved to save lots of time, which could then be used for more LBG oriented elements i.e. LBG sharing sessions on LBG hot topic such as HR, international involvement, FR etc. Another new idea was to host a Gala at the GA with awards for LBGs that went the extra mile that year. Also outside the GMs we worked to get LBGs more involved, launching a huge project called the international newsletter aiming to make BEST international more transparent towards all BEST members.
But what we are most likely known for is for getting a new Identity statement approved and thereby removing our old statement of purpose. A mission which seemed as impossible as agreeing on a new logo at the time ;)
This was for sure a busy year for all of us, but it was also a great year with a lot of fun and bullshitting (a small technical remark: The Bullshit (BS) comment has been invented by our board and spread in BEST very quickly!). This year of hard work made us friends for life and we still visit each other as often as possible or go together on holidays. Some of us have also been fortunate enough to continue working together on other BEST projects after our mandate i.e. when developing the first regional board training (the Joint Nordic Board training), the concept has afterwards been adopted by many regions and helped making the work in the local groups more efficient from the beginning.
This is the end of our story and as a tradition, since this was they way we ended all our mails to the LBGs, we will give you a small quote from a famous jazz song. The song is about how dreams really can come true, because this is in fact the opportunity that BEST gives you, the possibility of self development and making your wildest dreams come to life.
Love and Kisses, The Jazzers
Elina, Jiji, Michal, Nadina, Susan, Xavier
"Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are reb and blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true."
Treasurer: Jihad R'baiti - ENSTA
Secretary: Susan Langer - Copenhagen
VP for External Services: Elina Seppänen - Tampere
VP for Internal Support: Michal Wojtera - Lodz
VP for Local Group Support: Xavier Ronde-Oustau - Helsinki
The XVIII board of BEST a.k.a. the Jazzers. From left to right: Michal, Elina, Jihad, Susan, Nadina and Xavier
Once upon a time six very different people were brought together to form the XVIII Board of BEST. These six people soon found out that they shared one common passion: their love for Jazz (and their love of Minttu). Hence, the team called Jazzers was born.
Since then many things have happened and the organisation has changed in many ways. We hope that some of these developments are due to the work and dedication we gave that year. When our mandate started, the structure of the board had just been changed and in the beginning we spent a lot of time creating new ways of working suitable for this structure to be more efficient than the old. One of the things we saw as a clear benefit was the possibility of making BEST international more efficient and more LBG oriented. Among the steps we took to achieve this was changing the biggest international working meeting (IPF), from being committee based to being project based, yielding a significant improvement in the concrete work achieved during this meeting. This change also gave room to focus more on inter-committee projects i.e. working on External Relations.
The Jazzers are building trust with each other during their Board Training
Some of the other structures needed rearranging due to new ways of working. After a long and hard evaluation of our Career Support Service at the time we realised that it needed a new clean start. This meant dissolving the Career Support committee, which was working on it at the time. At the same time Financial Team changed status from working group to committee and were given control of the BEST Career Centre. We introduced during our mandate the "à la carte" cooperation agreements for career and financial partners of BEST, hence reviewing our approach and getting it closer to the market reality.
Another new body was born in BEST. Regional Advisors used to be people chosen by boardies to help them, if they existed at all. For the first time in summer 2005 they were elected by LBGs and from then on they have worked more actively and independently for the benefit of their region. The new Vice Presidents for Local Group Support and the Regional Advisors worked then together to better organize and coordinate regional events and improve information flow from/to LBGs.
The XVIII managment of BEST: Jazzers and Ones
During the General Meetings steps were taken towards making the meeting more efficient, i.e. implement identifiers for all proposals proved to save lots of time, which could then be used for more LBG oriented elements i.e. LBG sharing sessions on LBG hot topic such as HR, international involvement, FR etc. Another new idea was to host a Gala at the GA with awards for LBGs that went the extra mile that year. Also outside the GMs we worked to get LBGs more involved, launching a huge project called the international newsletter aiming to make BEST international more transparent towards all BEST members.
But what we are most likely known for is for getting a new Identity statement approved and thereby removing our old statement of purpose. A mission which seemed as impossible as agreeing on a new logo at the time ;)
This was for sure a busy year for all of us, but it was also a great year with a lot of fun and bullshitting (a small technical remark: The Bullshit (BS) comment has been invented by our board and spread in BEST very quickly!). This year of hard work made us friends for life and we still visit each other as often as possible or go together on holidays. Some of us have also been fortunate enough to continue working together on other BEST projects after our mandate i.e. when developing the first regional board training (the Joint Nordic Board training), the concept has afterwards been adopted by many regions and helped making the work in the local groups more efficient from the beginning.
This is the end of our story and as a tradition, since this was they way we ended all our mails to the LBGs, we will give you a small quote from a famous jazz song. The song is about how dreams really can come true, because this is in fact the opportunity that BEST gives you, the possibility of self development and making your wildest dreams come to life.
Love and Kisses, The Jazzers
Elina, Jiji, Michal, Nadina, Susan, Xavier
"Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are reb and blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true."