Adriana's Blog

By this point you know already a lot of things what FEJS is about. You are familiar with its meetings, you knoe who is doin what job and what are the funtions of local groups. But there is one thing I was not talking about so far. It is called fun Beeing active FEJS member brings a lot of work, sometimes stress and arrguments but it brings also a lot of fun. People from all over the Europe gather in one place, doing some group work during the day and having a great time at partys on evening. There are theme partys, auction partys, “normal” everyday parties. If I gather all these memories I can say they are pretty close to be the memories when I had a best time in my life so far. You can find some photos which are the prove I am talking the trueth. There are also videos which are result of one week work on TV Lab in Ljubljana in 2007 and a video on fejs.si  how is Slovenian organizing commitee presenting their AC. As said attending FEJS events in a life experience which can really widen your point of view. You meet friends from different countries, different cultures but with similar wishes and expectations – to be or become a good journalist. Without smallest doubt I can say FEJS gave me a lot, from the most practical things such is traveling to big cities and getting know their public transport and on the other hand there are things that helped grow personaly.  I got new aspects of journalism, new knowledge about their way of work, new people.

I was writting a lot already about FEJS International but I realized I wasn’t using important thing – links I still did’t figure it out completely how it is working so I will give you links from the sites directly.

What I wanted to say in this blog is again something more about FEJS International and to be sprecific I want to tell you who is who in our forum. http://fejs.org/who-is-who/

This year FEJS International is in historial changes. Until now we have been unoficial organisation but from January on we will be registrated as FEJS International in Brussel. That is why we have to make some changes also in organization. Prevoious Suppervisory board now has to be called Exacutive board but it’s obligations remain the same. The Exacutive board (EB) is supervising the work of the FEJS. It consists of five members who are not from the same school, university nor country. All members of the EB have a mandate of one year. They are elected during the General Assembly and start their mandate in January the following year. EB members are allowed to rerun for another mandate.

SECRETARIAT
The Secretariat is the executive body of the FEJS. It is elected by the General Assembly for an official term of two years, starting its mandate in January the following year. Therefore, each new Secretariat has an experience period from the GA until January, when the official term starts. During this period, the newly elected Secretariat will work together with the ruling Secretariat. The members of the Secretariat are students of journalism from the same school/university. A group of students from the same journalism teaching institution or country cannot run for the Secretariat for more than two consecutive terms.

And important role have local groups and their contact persons. (http://fejs.si/)

 Local groups are created by students from the same country and they decide who is going to be their contact person who will inform them about informations and happening in FEJS international.

More informations you find here: http://fejs.org/about-fejs/organisation/

Last time I have already mentioned something about Solidarity found. It is a found which helps students to come and join FEJS event which othervise would not be able to come. Everybody can apply for Solidarity found but Secretariat decides who gets it and how much. Secretariat is an FEJS body which is responsible for FEJS International finances and a lot of other stuff. Perhaps in future blog I will explain a little bit more of it also. So, as said they decide who gets the SF. From the last GA on SF covers only until 70 % of travel costs, participations has to everybody. Until now there was a rule that participants who applied for SF could get back 70 % of all costs they have by comming to the FEJS event. But then people started abused it and more and more people start to apply for it. SF is an amount of money that participants gather on the last evening of an event when there is an auction of thinkgs participants bring with them and represents their country. On last evening participants are buying things from other participants and the amount of money they gather goes to the Solidarity found for next FEJS event. So acctually we all together help people who could not afford to travel and participante at the event to come and to widen their knowledge and experiences.

FEJS events do not stop there. Task Force Meetings, TV labs, Radio labs, Photo labs and other, are organised by the local groups though out the year and invite a small number of participants to join. A small number of participants (20) meet in a country and have a 4-5 day meeting with workshop sessions and discussions concerning the future of FEJS, but also projects in the various media facilities of the place where the event is being hosted. In 2009 the Task Force Meting is being held in Bulgaria from 12th until 15th of February and the theme is Financing and Webpage. Participation fee will be a maximum of 70€ covering accommodation and three meal a day. TFM is usually gathering of older member of FEJS that are members of Executive board and Secretary to talk about issues concerning future of the FEJS International. On this TFM there will be discussed about Solidarity Found which is slowly loosing it’s purpose – to able people to take part at FEJS even which other wise because of the financial issues would not be able to come. But as said SF is loosing its purpose because some people are starting to use it as a funding which finances their trip to European cities. They do not show up at the workshops on the other hand they are first ready to go out have a party and spent a lot of money. But this is already a subject for another blog.
See you.

Beside AC I was writting about in previous blog FEJS has some other events also. Few weeks ago we just got back from General Assembly that took place in Ede in Netherlands. We were there for five days discussing in workshops and changing what had to be changed.

As said FEJS is a forum organised by students that either study journalism or have some connection to journalism (writing, photography, reviews etc) and the main goal is to connect young journalists, or students interested in journalism, which live or study in Europe. For 22 years students have connected and experienced media and communication as it works in other parts of the world, apart from the own.

Organising – GA (General Assembly)

The GA takes place usually towards the year and is for a smaller number of participants, in order to discuss the current issues that are troubling FEJS, solutions and ideas and of course elections of new SB members (Board Members), Secretariat, the next country to host the AC and it’s O.C. (Organising Committee) and its theme.

This GA connected 30 young journalists from Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Bolgaria, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Finland and Latvia. We voted upon new Exacutive board which constist of five member from different countries. We voted also upon new Secretariat which takes care of finances and some other paper work – it consist from at least three members from the same country. This year it is gona be Greece.

You can check out also FEJS website www.fejs.org which is about t go under some changes.

Društvo študentov novinarstva FEJS Slovenija is the national group of Forum for European Journalism Students (FEJS). It is an organization with the seat in Brussels, Belgium. FEJS has been organizing international meetings for journalism students and young journalists annually since 1986. It includes congresses, labs, panel debates, bilateral meetings, etc. Annual Congresses have taken place in lots of different European countriesi, in 2010 it will be for the second time in Slovenia. Congress will take place in Ljubljana from 6th until 11th of April.

Although I love to write it is not always easy to find a right theme for writting. Specially when you have to find it for your work or school. I was looking for some topic I like and I also know something about it. That is why I would like to introduce you to FEJS International- Forum for European Journalism Students International.

FEJS is a forum organised by students that either study journalism or have some connection to journalism – writing, photography, reviews etc – and the main goal is to connect young journalists, or students interested in journalism, which live or study in Europe. For 22 years students have connected and experienced media and communication as it works in other parts of the world, apart from the own. FEJS’s main events are Annual Congress which is going to be organized in Slovenia in April, General Assembly and Task Force Meeting. Few weeks ago there was a GA in Ede in Netherlands where we were talking about last details of AC which will take place in Ljubljana. Participants gave us some tips how to collect money, improve the programm and warned us abouth the risks we have to be aware of.

At AC’s gathers about 100 people from all over the Europe. The topic of our Congress is going to be Global journalism so we will have an excellent possibility to exchange experiences and knowledge about it.

To be continued …

Online schreiben is one of the lessons I am taking at the FH JOANNEUM in Graz. We are learning about twitter and blogging and I would be supposed to write in German but I am not so sure in my German writting yet. Maybe later on I will try it.

Das ist nähmlich auch mein Ziel – mein Deutsch zu verbessern und fließend sprechen. Vielleicht nächstes Mal

Bis bald