EUROPEAN YOUTH PARLIAMENT
IS Session Report Vilnius 2018 Report by the Governing Body on the 87 th International Session of the European Youth Parliament
INTRODUCTION This is the Governing Body’s report on the 87 th International Session of the European Youth Parliament in Vilnius. The main author is Anthony McKee, member of the Governing Body, who was the GB representative at the session. The purpose of this report is to review the successes of the session itself as well as identify potential areas for improvement or consideration at future International Sessions, and point out areas for discussion within the EYP community. International Sessions serve a strong purpose for our organisation, as they are the only events which aim to bring together participants from all the countries where the EYP is present, offering a chance to foster cohesion and cooperation within the network. As our flagship events, International Sessions highlight our work to partners and our position in European civil society. This report follows a new format which was being trialed for Vilnius, with future IS reports to follow the new structure. This restructuring aims to make IS reports less content heavy and focus on areas which future NOCs, leadership teams and the wider EYP network can learn from and use at their own events, whether it be an International Session or not. Head Organisers and the NOC of an IS are welcome to request an expanded report which goes into finer detail about the session. This report is structured as follows: I.
Overview
II.
Main report a. Successes b. Areas of improvement c. Further comments and concluding remarks
III.
Annex: evaluation results
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PART I - OVERVIEW The 87th International Session of the European Youth Parliament took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, between the 14th – 21st of July 2018. The President of the Session was Niall Murphy (IE), the session Editor was Klara Birchley (PL) and the session Head Organisers were Emilija Rakštelytė (LT), Vilius Paškevičius (LT) and Gintarė Valėnaitė (LT). The GB member in attendance for the full duration of the session was Anthony McKee (UK). Some guests in attendance at the session included Viktoras Pranckietis (Speaker of the Seimas), Henrik Nordentoft (Regional Representative of the UNHCR Regional Representation in Northern Europe), and André Schmitz-Schwarzkopf (Chairman of the Board of Schwarzkopf Stiftung).
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PART II - MAIN REPORT Vilnius 2018 had many highlights and successes, which we hope future NOCs can build on and develop where necessary. Below are a few areas that the GB alongside the session’s leadership team have noted were of particular importance towards the running of the session, as well as some constructive criticism on areas that can be learnt from for future ISes.
TOP The
BEST session
theme
and
its
PRACTICES use
throughout
the
event
The session theme, “Learning from the past, shaping the future” was a key concept for many of the activities and synergies present at Vilnius 2018. Not only did the session permeate in the topics and academic workings of the session, but also played a primary role in the cultural element aspects of the session, such as a lecture on Lithuanian history or the cultural programme that was weaved throughout different main elements of the Session (traditional Lithuanian song during Opening Ceremony, use of the Seimas for General Assembly etc.) Given that Lithuania was in the midst of celebrating the centenary of the Restoration of the State in 2018 also, this gave true gravitas to the theme, where opportunities were provided to participants to not just learn from the past and shape their future within EYP, but also witness how a country such as Lithuania continued to learn from its own past as it shaped the future ahead of it. However, the theme was also broad enough for participants to take their own interpretations from it.
The use of theme from Vilnius 2018 is a great example for future ISes in how to best cement the theme within the main programme, whilst also not making the theme hyper-specific and uninterpretable to both participants and external parties (partners, sponsors etc.)
Cultural
programme
The cultural element, with strong Lithuanian roots, was by EYP standards exemplary. The NOC clearly thought hard about what image of their country they wanted to portray and communicated this to Vilnius 2018’s participants. Regular programme elements such as Eurovillage and Euroconcert availed participants of the opportunity to share their own cultural diversity, but it was such elements as the Lithuanian Night, involving participants actively in the sights, tastes, and history of Lithuania, as well as the Cultural Day which offered a diverse range of cultural activities for delegates to partake in, which really brought a real sense of Lithuania to those attending the session. The embedding of Lithuanian culture in other parts of the programme also made a positive impact on all participants. Future NOCs should take note that while main IS programme elements are essential to the running of our flagship events, that they should consider how they portray their own culture and heritage, and in what ways across the session as opposed to limited to a single programme element. Such
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considerations can both add an additional enjoyable layer to the event, as well as bringing pride to the NOC in their own heritage.
Board
structure
Although having non-chairing VPs have become relatively commonplace at most recent ISes, it is important to emphasise how well the board structure at Vilnius worked and the ways in which it operated for best output. Freeing up VPs allowed the President to delegate tasks and to other members of the board, giving them more ownership over the session and spreading the often growing list of responsibilities across three other capable officials – as the proverb goes, a job shared is a job halved. In addition, by giving the three board members areas of “expertise” to focus on (welfare, academia etc.) iIt also meant that the President themselves got a much wider picture at what was happening at the session rather than struggling to be omnipresent at every waking moment to understand the session in greater detail. The GB recommends to all leadership teams to consider this structure of delegating responsibilities across the board, rather than have one person be the main “do-er” of the team.
Media
Team
output
and
use
of
Communication
Strategy
Given some unfortunate circumstances that were posed before and during the session to the Media Team, Klara and her team powered on through and produced some great output. The team should be commended particularly for the mini-doc they produced on the theme of independence, which was striking and from someone who works in the media industry, at a very high calibre as a product. The Media Team also produced content for an internal Facebook group for participants, as well as for general EYP channels, such as EYP’s Facebook and Instagram. Whilst the Media Team has been criticised in the evaluation(s) for a lack of visibility on the ground level, the GB would like to point out that this is understandable given the ratio of Media Team Members available to committees. If media output is something NOCs desire during a session, we would urge them to consider that a reasonable amount of fundraising is acquired pre-session to ensure that enough Media Team members are present to deal with the needs of the session, partners and its participants. The GB would also like to commend the Media Team’s use and scrutinisation of the relatively newly published Communication Manual. While the manual is meant to act as guidelines for interpretation for NCs and NOCs in how EYP is communicated to our external partners, we highly appreciated the Media Team in using this as their guidebook in producing content for the session. This alone provided discussion for the Media Team and raised questions about interpretations of the Manual. We would encourage future Editorial leadership and Media Teams generally to continue to scrutinise the document and consult the GB and/or International Office should they take any issue with sections of the Communication Manual, as it is a developing tool in the EYP network, much like many of our guides and policies.
Delegate
wellbeing
(Ambassador
meetings)
It was clear throughout the majority of the session that delegate welfare was a major priority, from all teams. One great success was the ambassador meetings (meetings with representatives of each committee and of leadership teams), which took place every day between Sunday to Wednesday of the session and allowed delegates to ask questions and communicate any frustrations they had
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with the current running of the programme, whilst also letting members of the officials’ teams (organisers, chairs, GB representative) to respond where necessary, giving delegates a chance to have their voice heard in how the session ran. Whilst not all issues could be resolved, the communication of these alone allowed for problems to be alleviated and solutions to be raised. It also provided a wider insight to leadership teams to how the session was going, which can be extremely difficult to get at times if you are working in one role/area throughout the session. The concept of delegate ambassadors has now been used with highly positive results in Tampere, Trondheim and Brno ISs and the GB recommends all future IS teams to include it in the program as a standard concept.1 Furthermore, the organising team in particular took great care for delegates for the majority of the session, but also illustrated flexibility in response to feedback from participants. The GB representative felt this was a really welcome development as it showed both an understanding of keeping to the law of the country but also giving delegates some ownership over their own experience at Vilnius 2018.
Venues
for
General
Assembly
and
Opening
Ceremony
The venues chosen for both General Assembly and Opening Ceremony made a huge impact on participants and added to the session greatly. Both steeped in huge cultural and historic importance, the Seimas and the Church of St. John’s were great venues for the International Session and really brought the session theme to the heart of the event.
CAT
and
pre-session
preparation/trainings
In discussion with the leadership teams, both the Editor and the Board pointed out the importance of having trainings and preparation well in advance of the session, which helped members within the team to bond and prepare thoroughly for the event ahead. Evaluations from the CAT (Chairs Academic Training) illustrated that it was a positive experience for chairs; over 90% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that they knew more about their topic and were more confident chairing it and preparing for their delegates. The chairs’ team also came up with novel ideas to deal with trainings, such as Vilnius Academy2 and ‘workstreams’3.
For institutional memory, the concept of Delegate Ambassadors has been introduced in EYP at the D-Day Caen International Forum by Chris Tripp. 2 The concept for the Vilnius Academy was that chairpersons and board members could suggest trainings they would be willing to lead over video that would take between 10 -15 minutes. These “bite-sized” trainings were recorded and uploaded on alternate days and chairpersons could watch them in their own time prior to the session. The trainings can be accessed here. 3 The concept of workstreams were essentially session projects which allowed for cross team cooperation as well as helping the chairs team to deliver more than would normally be possible at a session. However a lot of thought has to be put into their execution and purpose. The President notes that, “ideally, the workstreams should be set up at CAT with clear objectives, deadlines and deliverables.” 1
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PART II - MAIN REPORT AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT Lack of cohesion between officials’ teams At times it was quite clear, particularly in leadership meetings and generally across different programme elements that the officials team as a whole at Vilnius 2018 had not bonded together as would have been liked or expected. This lack of cohesion led to miscommunications and a general decline of morale over the length of the session. This was also not helped by the fact that not all officials could be present for the teambuilding before the session began for all participants. The possibility of gaining any cohesion over the session was additionally hampered by the fact that there were very few opportunities, other than main programme elements, where all three officials’ teams were together in a social setting. The GB would recommend to NOCs to take the cohesion of the whole officials’ team as a priority at a session rather than an outcome of the session, and it may also be good to consider a social programme for the officials, where possible – after all, the session should be enjoyable for all participants rather than just delegates.
Struggles with communication Communication was a major area on which things could have been greatly improved - both within teams and to other teams and participants generally. The GB representative found at times there were miscommunications between teams who often pieced things together themselves. Most miscommunications were then only ironed out at leadership meetings, which then themselves became long and often areas to vent frustrations to each other rather than constructive discussions on how to solve issues thus bridging gaps in the lack of communication. The communication issues also affected teams’ ability to share information and knowledge internally this was clear from the organising team, where delegates’ evaluation illustrated regular disparity between the orders/information organisers had received from the Head Organisers, and what was passed on to delegates. However, such instances of miscommunication was seen in the other two official’s teams at times (Resolution typing; distribution of tasks in Media Team etc.) Such miscommunication within teams became apparent to other participants, which resulted in a further break down of cohesion between teams and frustration for all participants involved. Before the session, there also seemed to be a notable lack of clear communication between the leadership team(s) and external parties such as the IO at times; the Editor and Head Organisers 6
both note miscommunications between their teams and the IO, which often resulted in requests being misunderstood or given to them at the last minute. Delegates also noted in their feedback that at times they received differing information or a lack thereof from organisers which created confusion during the programme.
In terms of communications, there are several things that both the leadership teams and the NOC of future ISes can consider; firstly, that leadership teams take into account how they communicate and what strategies to use, especially in working out what to do when miscommunications happen and how to resolve them, rather than on the platforms/channels they use - this goes for both cross-team communication and internal communications. By doing so, leadership teams can better communicate to each other and to other participants, thus improving general workings of the programme. Secondly, the NOC and IO should carefully consider and strategise what is important to communicate to participants prior to the session, to avoid “overwhelming” them with too much information, or making it hard to find the information in the first place.
Organising team structure Although throughout the session the organising team pulled off a massive feat which included some difficult situations, there were times where it was observable that the structure of the organising team could have been built upon better. Whilst it was understandable that there may have been difficulties due to the fact that the Head Organisers had changed hands prior to the IS, there were signs that a minority of organisers were not fully engaged in the programme and their duties, and proving difficult for the leadership to deal with. The lack of time for teambuilding for the organisers and general social programme for them added to this dischord amongst the group, which coming to the end of the event seemed to create small splinter groups of organisers (particularly between Lithuanian and ‘international’ officials) rather than a cohesive team. The leadership did provide some opportunities to try and bridge gaps in the team, such as having daily organisational meetings, buddy groups and a masterplan, but it would have been really welcome to have seen the team come together as one. Future organising teams could consider the structuring of their team - for example, ensuring there are layers to the leadership through the establishment of core organisers focused on certain areas of programme (chairs, academic, media etc.) This allows for a clear structure for the organising team to fall into, but also for other officials to be aware of responsibilities and not bombard the Head Organisers with all the information/requests etc.
Resolution typing process The resolution typing process (both typing up and formatting) at Vilnius 2018 created many issues for the officials’ teams across the board and which the author considers emphasises the point in
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which EYP must rethink how it produces the resolution booklet for participants. The board had decided upon a structure on which to base resolution typing on, which amended the regular “selfbuddy-VP-President” check and instead allowed for resolutions to be fast tracked directly to the President when needed. The responsibility of organising the typing process fell on one VP and again, was a great example of task delegation within the board. However, as well-thought out the new check system was and how clear the board were in implementing it, the process fell once again into the all too familiar pitfalls seen at most, if not all, our events, such as bottlenecks and long periods of time where chairs had to wait on their next check. It clearly highlights the importance of reviewing the resolution typing process and raises several questions which need to be discussed by the wider EYP community; is it worth hurting our participants’ welfare by holding the process overnight, or would it be better to shift timings so the process can be more enjoyable and developmental to the informal educational aspect of the EYP? Also, does the President have to check every single resolution, or can this responsibility of “rubber stamping” resolutions be shared out amongst other board members, or even other officials in presence (e.g. GB member, Editor etc.)? The second major issue in the resolution process was the formatting, which the Editor volunteered to take responsibility for, however in the end no templates were made available to undertake this task. Further miscommunications between teams led to two teams separately formatting the document, and therefore spending huge amounts of time on this one task and creating frustration between teams in the process. As well as being a participant welfare issue with several individuals working more than 18 hours straight on formatting, it is clear that the actual process of resolution formatting is not clear enough for leadership teams. As a recommendation, the author would ask the wider EYP network, including the GB, to consider revisiting the way in which we treat the resolution typing process - as a creative, young organisation, there should be an innovative solution to what constantly returns as a hurdle within our network events. As an additional point, NOCs should try to ensure there is an appropriate facility provided for the chairs team for resolution typing; in this scenario, the chairs had to make use of the hostel lobby/kitchen space area and eventually share the space with the Media Team, due to the fact there was neither a proper resolution typing space or breakout/”after-hours” space provided to the teams.
Logistics within venues (incl. breakout spaces) The author of the report has already mentioned the highlight which were the GA and OC venues, which added a lot of value to the event as a whole. Generally, the venues were a great choice and mainly practical – for example, the school used for Eurovillage and part of Lithuanian Night, and having all committees in close proximity to each other in the Faculty of Philosophy at Vilnius University. However – some other logistical decisions were slightly more questionable, for example with some of the committee rooms with fixed/unmovable seating and not enough
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facilities for committees to undergo their committee work in peace and quiet. Whilst this may have been unavoidable and all was done to make the situation more favourable for chairs and their delegates, NOCs should carefully consider and plan ahead where possible to ensure that facilities are best suited to all participants, and not just the majority. This extends as well to ensuring that breakout rooms and spaces can be provided where possible for teams; this was not the case for the Media Team, who had no breakout/”after-hours” space from the beginning, and not a Media Team room during GA. Feedback from delegates touched on the fact all participants were split across 5 accomodation venues. Ideally, it would be great to have all participants in one venue or split across 2 to 3, however in this case we understand that this may not be possible. NOCs should consider how having this amount of accommodation venues for just one event may play into their own logistical plans (transfers etc.) far in advance and how external events/holidays may skew the amount of accomodation available to such a large group. Specifically, NOCs should also be aware that they have responsibility for all their participants, including chaperones. Whilst due to recent policy change, chaperones are no longer required at ISes, some NCs are legally obliged to send a chaperone with their delegation – they too should be provided an acceptable quality of accommodation throughout the event, even if they are not technically “as present” at the event compared to other participants.
Participant welfare and Code of Conduct – issues As mentioned previously, all leadership teams, especially organisers, took great care of delegates throughout the majority of the event and this was clear in both the feedback as well as ambassador meetings throughout the session. Unfortunately, this did not pan out to the “Farewell Vilnius” party, where it was clear that even though a “age bracelet” system was in place, the hosts of the venue were either not aware or ignoring the Alcohol Policy EYP enforces at all events. Additionally, since neither the designated Welfare Officer was present, nor had there been a delegation of the role to someone present - and that had been communicated to others, it meant that the GB members (the majority of which were only in attendance due to the fact that GB Meeting III took place at the same time) had to try and enforce the policy, which was essentially an uphill struggle. The author would like to remind all of those in leadership positions that both our policies and the Code of Conduct should be enforced from beginning to end of the session – that is, from the point the first participant (official or delegate) arrives at the session to when the last participant leaves – not only until Closing Ceremony. We should take seriously our participant welfare and it should not be treated as a tick box exercise when it suits us best. In addition, due to an individual breaking the Code of Conduct during the session, the author would like to bring to the attention that, while we have policies and the Code of Conduct that are accessible and easy to interpret when someone has gone against are policies and/or broken a rule
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– when a decision is made to take action on an individual in response, there is very little guidance on how this action should take place, the protocols and how to follow through with such action(s). In this case, an official deviated from the Code of Conduct by having inappropriate relations with a delegate, and following the guidance set out in the Code of Conduct, a discussion was had between the GB member and the official, who was then asked to leave for the duration of the session. The author recommends that the GB consider cementing further guidelines for future GB/Welfare Officers and making it transparent to the EYP network why we take the actions we do, as opposed to forcing representatives and/or Welfare Officers to take actions without little guidance available to them.
FURTHER COMMENTS The author has decided to make a seperate section which addresses certain areas of the IS which did necessarily affect the operation of the event as a whole, but still are important for future leadership teams and NOCs to consider in relation to the session. Fundraising The author, as already pointed out in the highlights, commends the NOC in being able to find really appropriate and impactful venues for elements of the programme, some of these through in-kind sponsorship. However, it should be noted that running up to the session, the NOC in question had many difficulties in raising funding for the session. This left it that the majority of the session had to be funded by the International Office and partners of the Office, rather than partners sought directly by the NOC. We would like to remind future NOCs that fundraising is a key strategic element of the organising of International Sessions – and all events the EYP holds – and that those who wish to host such events should carefully consider fundraising strategies in their plans.
Evaluations As of the 30th of December 2018, not all evaluations had been completed by the leadership team, with Media Team Members still awaiting evaluations. The GB
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would like to remind all leadership teams that under the Policy on Evaluation and Feedback, they are required to submit all evaluations to the Members’ Platform within the 6 week deadline to avoid being flagged with a history of late/no submission and also to ensure participants receive timely evaluations which they can use for their own personal development. The GB would also like to remind that evaluations should also be fair and written in a constructive manner – it was noted that some individuals from the organising team were unhappy with evaluations they received.
The GB would like to thank the Head Organisers Emilija, Vilius and Gintarė and the entire NOC, as well as all the leadership teams for their hard work throughout the session and for delivering what was in general an enjoyable and memorable session.
PART III - ANNEX The following information below has been lifted from the evaluations written by delegates of Vilnius 2018. The data was collected and processed by the International Office. The data below is a snapshot of the opinions of delegates, and includes some quotes that help contextualise some of the quantitative data below. For more information on how this survey was conducted, please contact the International Office at info@eyp.org
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“I was constantly using the travel booklet and academic preparation kit to find out about some minor details before the session. How happy I was when I was actually able to find everything there without any needs to contact the organising team!” “I didn’t receive the Preparation Kit before the session started, I wanted to register on the Members Platform but it didn’t work so I contacted the organisers... but never got an answer” “Academic prep gave great overview of all topics and the issues around them. Welcome book gave a good idea of what was going to happen at the event.”
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What did you find most valuable during the exchange with key speakers and/or experts? “The experts provided us with a unique insight into our topics and guided us to search into parts of it that we had not previously considered. They were there to give us realistic feedback about information that we had gathered through our research and clarify various concepts that we came across.” “All we know, most of the times, are the statistics and interests of our own governments. The experts gave us insight into real situations and the interests of that affected people.” “I didn't get as much out of the expert talk, as I wanted to, due to the expert talking to us over phone, ue to technical difficulties, but what I got was very useful.”
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“Our committee was not easy to chair as we lacked efficiency. Nevertheless, our chair was patient, motivated us and managed to keep a friendly welcoming atmosphere despite the additional stress.” “During TB she has been the best chair I have had, she made it so we all bonded with each other and felt comfortable telling our opinion in the group. In CW even though we had a really difficult topic and had to decide if we build or not NS II, we all thought differently and no one agreed with each other, she helped us figure it out without influencing our opinions. In GA she helped people speak out and make points for the first time in the sessions they had been to. She was there all the time to help us out and motivate us.” “Chair had a pretty stand off approach. Works well for some, not so good for other. Would mostly just leave us to get the work done ourselves with little input unless asked for or we seemed to stagnate. Didn't get involved with energisers and we didn't get them unless asked (more begged) for them. Would always be lead by someone else in the committee”
Please share any recommendation(s) you have to further improve the work of the media, chairs, organisers teams. 15
“Rethink involving first-time organizers. Some of them were very hectic, and not helpful.” “Make sure that the media team members are taking enough pictures of the committees they were allocated to.” “The journalist allocated to my committee showed up very rarely in the committee room.” “However, media team’s projects, unfortunately, were of a low quality and not all of them reflected the concept of a session, in my opinion. Media output was not posted on time as well, which needs improvement.”
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“The theme of the session kept coming up both in the session's topics but also through speakers” “The theme was well integrated into most, if not all of the topics and it was explained clearly a handful of times (by the session’s president)” Please share one insight/piece of knowledge which you gained through Committee Work: “It really allows you to understand people, how different we are from eachother, how we can learn from eachother and, despite our differences, we can successfully cooperate and see the amazing results from our hard work.” “Because of the nature of my topic ( statelessness ), CW made me realise how much information we know about it, yet how little we are able to understand and feel it's effects on humans. We debated, came up with solutions and measures to combat it, still all our arguments fell short in front of stateless people's real-life stories. This session's CW taught me how hard is to solve problems when the well being of people is at stake.” “I gained far better knowledge for my topic that is not being talked about in my country. It was great to hear others opinion and about their experiences in order to understand the importance of it.”
Please share any recommendation(s) you have to further improve the preparation and/or the event itself (with regards to programme, content, or other aspects): “Just try to have hotels/hostels closer together, it is a big loss that you don't get to know many people who live 2.8 km away from you. I believe that social life is a major important factor of EYP and during this session not having the opportunity to know so many other people is a big loss” “To improve the communication and tasks’ distribution inside the organizing team - not all the organisers were able to answer simple organizational questions or sometimes gave completely different information. Transfers must be improved as well, there was no control of time and overall presence of people during some transfers” 17
“The preparation itself was done brilliantly and I may only recommend a choice of another platform when communicating since slack tends to snooze notifications by itself randomly.”
“Indeed matters changed while the session unfolded (the feedback wall was a good idea!). Instead of simply discussing issues, questions (printed or forms) could have been handed to the ambassador regarding other issues or things to improve.” “From my point of view delegate ambassador meetings were useful for expressing my concerns because the one and only issue I expressed was resolved thanks to these meetings.” “Honestly, I didn't even know there was a delegate ambassador... although I thought the little poster that was up in the university where you put on a sticky note any issues/problems you have was so great.” “The idea itself is perfect - organisers truly improved everything that was questioned by the delegates. However, not all the “ambassador” delegates seemed to understand the purpose of those meetings and complained about useless things, which was not worth any attention.” “Especially at the beginning, when food and catering seemed to be a problem, it was good to know that there was a possibility for delegates to give feedback and receive a reaction to it.” Please write one sentence that best describes your EYP experience: “Visiting country on the other side of Europe, exploring its culture and learning new things are the best ways to stay productive over summer.” “EYP never fails to humble me down, lift me up and create an amazing discussion at the same time. If I feel lost, I will always find my way to a session and carry on from there.” “It gave me great insight in other cultures, the history behind them, and the worth of new perspectives.”
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“A crazy mix of sleep deprivation, excess caffeine consumption, complex committee topics and some of the best people you will ever meet.” “EYP is a family which accepts me the way I am.” “EYP is my runaway place, my reflection place, and the place where I can challenge and grow myself in just a few days.”
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