Wonderful to me

Okay, I think I might post pictures of Christmas some other day. All the pictures are on my computer and I usually write my blog posts with my laptop - I'm too lazy to put them on my laptop also - so I guess you're just going to have to wait :D

However I really wanted to post about this:

Yesterday I went to a YFU - Youth For Understanding - meeting (of members). Here in Germany YFU separates the whole country into different groups (national committees) and I'm part of the one called 'Westfalen'. On this map, you can see where the different committees are. The meeting lasted about 10 hours and we had a lot of different things to talk about. We also voted for a new head of our group :) Since YFU is a non-profit organization/association almost all of the people working for it are volunteers. I think there are about 30 people working in the main office full-time but the rest is volunteering :)

We also have various representatives for different aspect. For example there is one representative for publicity. That person's job is to organize presentations about YFU (e.g.: in schools,...).

Then there are also representatives for:

• cooperation (keeps members motivated and helps wherever he/she can) 
• publication (responsible for the yearbook and some other stuff that is released by YFU during the year)
• interviews (has to find rooms, team members, etc. for the interviews of the applicants who want to go do an exchange year)
• preparation (organizes the orientations for the students that are going to leave)
• follow-up (organizes the orientations for the students that just got back)

We voted for all of those and a couple other ones - it's hard to find the right translation so I just didn't list them. Anyway I was voted to be representative too and I will take care of the parents :) Meaning I will organize meetings/orientations for the parents of the students that will leave to go abroad this summer. It's my job to be available to them in case they have problems and I will have to find a location and team for the meetings. I'm really excited for that even though I thought it would take up too much time in the beginning. I was asked if I was willing to do it a few weeks before the meeting yesterday and after I thought about it for a while I really wanted to do it! I think it's a great way to get more involved with my exchange organization :)

I'm going to take some pictures now for my art project ;)

Wonderful to me