History Book of BEST
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In fact – they = we, and we = BEST Kraków - are doing really well up till now:
•We are currently celebrating our LBG’s 15th establishment anniversary!
•There are about 300 people who have been involved in creating our history!
•We are proud of our current nearly 50 active members, students of one of the most prestigious technical universities in Poland
•Year by year, we’ve been successfully organizing Summer Courses
•Since 1998 we’ve been organizing Engineering Job Fairs, gathering more than
50 companies and 8 000 visitors yearly
•We are taking part in preparations to the Polish BEST Engineering Competition, and frankly, we do SO MUCH MORE!!!
•The key to our success is a perfectly developed recruitment system – thanks to it we can choose BESTies that feel the BEST Spirit from their first weeks in the organization
There is only one conclusion:
Come to Kraków and meet us: a fairy tale come true!
Story of LBG Leuven
It all started in September 2000, when a couple of students responded to a flyer which called for engineering students interested “in having beers with foreign students”. The next month, even before exactly knowing what BEST was, the newly formed group organized the Lowlands meeting. In November 2000, two members joined the Presidents’ Meeting in
Budapest, marking the official start of LBG Leuven as a part of BEST. GA 2002 in Paris was a memorable event for us: not only did LBG Leuven become a full member of BEST, Wim “Farry” Farasyn was also elected there as international president of BEST!
The biggest event organized by LBG Leuven was the 9th President’s meeting together with Louvain-La-Neuve in November 2003. 144 people joined the enthusiastic organisers in Natoye in the Ardennes and the dream of many of the original LBG Leuven BESTies became reality. After that, enthusiasm dropped a bit in LBG Leuven and most of the oldest BESTies graduated. This was the first generation switch, but after a year of hard work LBG Leuven became again the enthusiastic team like before. In 2006 we finally got our own office, called
‘BEST-hok’. A real house, without electricity and heating, but with wireless internet, a piano and a lot of humidity... In 2007 LBG Leuven took the challenge to organize the Final Round of the first Belgian BEST Engineering Competition (beBEC).
In the history of BEST Leuven we organized 7 summer courses about a wide variety of topics, but about one thing we are sure: All our participants had the time of their life and fell
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in love with our famous Stella, brewed in Leuven.
Now after 8 years of BEST Leuven we are still not the biggest LBG in BEST, we don’t have the most money on our account, we don’t have the fanciest BEST office but we are one group of real friends who enjoy every second we work and party with BEST.
Story of LBG Liege
Founded in 1988 by three students at the University of Liege, P.M.Durieux, M. Germain and T. Wiertz, the ‘Cercle Europe Ingenieur - Liege’ was a student union dealing with the organization of European congresses, cultural exchanges, and other travel-related activities. In the early 90’s when BEST was developing as a new European network; it seemed natural to integrate it in its activities.
That’s how, in 1991, a few students created LBG Liege: Baby member in Paris and Full member in Lisbon the same year. At the time, LBG Liege was only part of the ‘Cercle Europe Ingenieur’ which was itself part of a bigger Student Union called ‘AEES’. Year after year, we organized Summer Courses, Committee Meetings, and even General Assemblies under the well-known BEST motto: Work Hard, Party Harder!
Indeed, LBG Liege has had the great opportunity to organise the 8th General Assembly which was taking place on the same week as the 2nd European Congress and held in the same city. As a result, all social activities and parties were prepared together and brought together over a thousand students! In fact, most people remember it as the GA ‘Sandwiches’ in memory to the great diversity of meals offered during the event. As BEST was taking over most of the CEI’s activities, the latter was becoming obsolete and the group officially took the name of ‘Local BEST Group Liege’.
In January 2008, on the verge of its majority, LBG Liege left the AEES to become a ‘Non
Profit Organization’, BEST Liege asbl, and to stand on its own two feet! Up to now, this new legal status has given our group new sponsoring opportunities, better security, and a stronger position regarding our relationships with industrial partners; even if it has been far more demanding on an administrative point of view. Today, LBG Liege relies on over 20 years of experience, enjoys the advice of broad alumni network, and finally has a stable financial income.
The only thing our LBG is lacking is new projects. But that problem will certainly be solved by the unbridled imagination of its members!
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Story of LBG Lisbon
BEST Lisbon (Lisbon Institute of Technology, Technical University of Lisbon) is one of the founding Local BEST Groups. In this 20-year period, we have accomplished many things. Just in 1991 we hosted the 6th General Assembly of BEST and in the same year we started preparing the first Summer Course, which took place the following year. Summer courses became a tradition in our LBG and adding to that we hosted international SITs (Short Intensive Training) and had Cultural Exchanges with other LBGs.
1998 was to BLAME with BEST Lisbon Alumni Meeting! In 1999 we were part of the group that decided to try something new: organizing a Winter Course. That year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of BEST and our LBG, bringing the General Assembly back to Lisbon. Innovation can be an addiction and the last year of the millennium brought something new: a Career WorkShop (which evolved into our current BEST Career Days).
In the first winter of this century we had an IBS (International BEST Symposium) and
2002 brought another international WorkShop. 2004 was a great year: Euro Cup was here in Portugal, but what really matters is that the Portuguese LBGs worked together to have the Presidents’ Meeting in our country. In the following years we kept trying new limits with different events: in 2006 Portuguese LBGs got together again to make the first BEST
National Engineering Competition come to life and in 2007 BEST Lisbon rode a new wave and hosted the first BEST Leisure event on surf!
Of course we could take a long time describing our history, like when we had 2 Summer Courses in the same year and our BESTies who were in the international scope ;) (both of which you can [check here|http://best.ist.utl.pt/history/] ), but we feel the best way to transmit who we are is by visiting us in this sunny place close to the Ocean, so see YOU in Lisbon soon!
Story of LBG Ljubljana
Students from Ljubljana were present on the first official statutory BEST meeting in Berlin in 1989. So we were there all along? Not quite so. Just as we were preparing to host our first and one of BESTs first summer courses in 1991 the borders of Slovenia close as the war for independence commences.
That was a blow that took us back for a couple of years, almost to be excluded from the organisation (as there simply were no members of BEST Ljubljana at this period). But luckily BEST did not give up on us. At GA Liege 1992 we were given another chance, some students in Ljubljana were contacted, found some old documents in the closet of the student union went to another GA and revived BEST in Ljubljana.
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BEST did not give up on Ljubljana and Ljubljana was thankful. So in 2001 we organised a General assembly, in 2005 a Presidents’ meeting, we nursed LBG Zagreb and LBG Maribor to become full members of the organisation and organised over 40 courses and internal events, among them the first regional meeting of our region making Ljubljana one of the most active local groups in BEST.
We cannot help it, we love BEST and what it stands for, the spirit just makes us do more and more and it seems we are not quite ready to let it go any time soon.
Story of LBG Lodz
BEST Łódź was found in 1997 by three students: Witold Pawlak, Przemysław Korona and
Dawid Solecki to become a full BEST Member in 1999.
You’re probably curious how our LBG was established. It was while studying in Denmark at
DTU - Michał Nowakowski, Nadia and Przemek came into contact with BEST and decided to set it up in Łódź, so they wrote these words on a small sheet of paper to their friend Witek: “We want to create BEST in Łódź, are you in?”. And of course the answer was “YES!” (This piece of paper is still exposed in our office as a remembrance of the beginning of the great adventure). During GA in Lisbon Michał and Nadia made a presentation which met the acceptance and BEST Family expanded one more time.
Because the name of our city is Łódź (which means ‘boat’) we are known as Pirates! And to prove it, every year we go on our own Mazury Cruise – many of us are sailors, therefore on GA we present everything in a pirate’s way ;)
One of our unique customs is that every new BEST member in our LBG needs to go through KwaKwa ritual. He has to dance like a duck and then drink specially made juice called
‘Gummiberry Juice alias mix Raspberry’. Believe it or not, but it’s quite tough nut to crack.
To make it all more freak, we give names to our IT hardware! Thus, a workstation is called Jacek, server is Marysia and virtual machine is Bobby.
Once upon a time, we were called LesBG. That’s because that time all members of our LBG were female. But now it’s changed... ;)
For a long time Ljubljana and Lisboa were teasing us that on GA we should be sitting next to Uppsala. Right - if you pronounce Łódź like /udʒ/ our place definitely should be with
Uppsala.
BEST Łódź as a flourishing and motivated LBG organises job fair (ATP), incredible BEC in cooperation with other Polish LBGs, memorable and extraordinary courses all year round (for instance in cooperation with ESA - European Space Agency), arranges many unforgettable events as TRAP (TRAiner camP) in 2001, Board Summer Meetings in 2003 and 2004, ITC Meeting in 2005, PRteam Meeting in 2006 or one of the biggest BEST events - Jamboree in 2003 in which participated about 500 BESTies. In 2005 we organised beRICHER3 TrainShop and hosted EduCo in 2007. One year later Jamaica RM took place in our city. We also took
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part in students’ exchanges with Liege, Leuven, Paris, Cluj - Napoca, Ekaterinburg, Rome and Lviv. It’s also worth mentioning that between 2003 and 2004 our two BESTies Aneta
Błaszczyk and Piotr Bryk were doing their BEST as members of the International Board. And the next year Michał Wojtera was a Board member as well! That’s not all! In 2007 Kasia
Sieklucka was a coordinator of markeTeam and Jakub Krzaczek of Knowledge Group.
Our current (the XI) Board: (2008 – 2009)
President: Agnieszka Jabłońska
Secretary: Katarzyna Mróz
Treasurer: Piotr Grzelak
Vice-President for PR: Kacper Durka
Vice-President for HR: Marta Borowska
Story of LBG Louvaine-la-Neuve
The Local BEST Group (LBG) of Louvain-la-Neuve was born in 1989, the same year as the BEST network. Ever since 1992, it organised at least one course a year. Each time, we tried to find new fields of technology with always the same goal: Welcoming over 20 students from all over Europe for 2 weeks... and have a wonderful experience together.
Our group became quickly more and more involved in the European contacts of our faculty by welcoming the ERASMUS students, taking part in the social part of the ATHENS week, helping in the CLUSTER symposium and finally taking in charge the European web site of the faculty. And we surely won’t stop here!
Apart from those ‘regular’ activities, our group has devoted itself to a number of ‘exceptional’ activities such as intensive training, WorkShops, organising international meetings... Most notable of these are the Presidents’ Meeting 2003 and General Assembly 1997.
Since March 14th 2002, five students associations of the Applied Science Faculty, including our LBG, were gathered in one big association called GCI or the “Grand Cercle Industriel”.
Therefore, in order to fulfil some common criteria, we had to change our identity into the
“Contact Europe Cercle Industriel - BEST Louvain-la-Neuve” Story of LBG Lyon
The beginning - a challenge of 5 years
The idea of BEST was brought to Lyon by Piotr Senator in 1999. We became observers at the GA in Lisbon 1999, but then Piotr had to leave for an exchange year. The work was continued during one year after the GA in Stockholm 2000 by Anna Nielsen from LBG Lund (who was exchange student at that time) and Cédric Bellanger, but at the end of the year none was there to continue the work.
In 2002, the students’ office of INSA was re-contacted by Nicolas Chauveau from LBG
Grenoble, boardie for the French region at that time, and so Clement Artaud and Vincent
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Buisson from the student’s office part for exchange students (Melt’INSA) went to the GA2002 in Paris. There the group became observer again, and at the following GA baby member.
Lyon organised an IBS about ERASMUS in 2003, and the first Summer Course took place in summer 2004 (at that time Sophie Moreau was the president of the LBG). At the PM in
Portugal in 2004, Lyon finally became Full member of BEST! After this moment, LBG Lyon had lots of enthusiasm and motivation to offer students its support and organize several events for the French and foreign students of technology.
A minor step-back
After 10 years and lots of struggle, LBG Lyon is facing a rough period due to HR issues. In
GA2009 Budapest, Lyon was suspended and was nursed by LBG Grenoble.
With more than 40 alumni and only 7 active members, Lyon is proud to be a part of BEST.
It will find new strengths to overcome this situation and with the help of its nurse, Lyon will become full member again.
Story of LBG Lulea
email by Maria Hakkanson, alumni BEST Lulea
Hi,
Seeing so many LBG histories dropping in I feel a little bit obliged to write a few words about an LBG that does not exist today.
The history of LBG Lulea, in short
Lulea is a town far up north in Sweden, close to the polar circle. It is a town with a technical university, very attractive for students who like outdoor activities. It was the student union board who sent an application to BEST. Lulea University of Technology, through the ViceChancellor, was always very supportive towards the LBG.
Lulea was invited as an observer to the PM in Veszprem in 1996 and became baby member at GA in Belgium 1997. LBG Stockholm was the new group’s nurse and the members of LBG Stockholm came up to Lulea in the autumn of 1997 to get to know the new LBG and train them in BEST knowledge.
In the beginning of 1998, LBG Lulea organised its first event: a Workshop. The ski trip in the forest next to the university, with blueberry soup served by the path, was an unforgettable experience.
LBG Lulea became full member at the GA in Romania 1998.
In August 1998 the first Summer Course was organised in Lulea on the topic: “Recycling of
Minerals and Metals”. Many thought it was funny that the organising LBG consisted of nine girls and one guy.
Cultural exchange: 16 members of LBG Chania were playing in the snow in Lulea in February
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1999 and 16 members of LBG Lulea became pink as lobsters under the Greek sun in May the same year. We all loved it!
In August 1999 the second Summer course was organised in Lulea on the topic: Hydropower - the Power of Water. 25 participants, plus organisers, followed the Lulea river upstream; visiting hydropower plants, walking in the forest, having a snowball fight on a mountain and falling in love with polar bread.
At the PM in Chania 1999 LBG Lulea became the nurse of the new baby LBG Uppsala.
The GA 2000 was organised by the five Swedish LBGs together - Gothenburg, Lund, Lulea,
Stockholm and Uppsala. The location of the GA was Stockholm, but before the GA the organisers had met twice at each university.
In August 2000 the first non-academic course was organised in Lulea “Wilderness Week in Vassijaure” and in the autumn of 2000 LBG Lulea had a Cultural Exchange with LBG Riga. In September 2001 LBG Lulea organised the Nordic Regional Meeting with delegates from
Aalborg, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Lund, Lulea, Stockholm, Tallinn, Trondheim, Uppsala and representatives from the board and TIGro.
In February 2002 the first Winter Course was organised by LBG Lulea: “Snowledge -
Understanding Snow and Ice”. In February 2003 the second Winter Course was organised by LBG Lulea: “Space Physics at the Edge of the Arctic”. It became the last event the LBG organised.
In 2000 the LBG started to face problems recruiting new members and after the Winter Course in 2003 it looked so bad that Zoltan Bartalis and Maria Hakansson talked about going to the GA in Slovakia and say “Thank you for the party”. But before the GA we had found a new member - new hope - and in June 2003 a BEST training was held in Lulea for a handful new members.
The last President of LBG Lulea, Pia Mammioja, sent a letter of resignation to the board which was presented at the PM in Portugal 2004. She was at the time the last active member of the LBG.
BEST regards,
Maria Hakansson
LBG Lulea alumna
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Story of LBG Lund
The saga about fluffy Lund started in 1991 when we became baby members at General
Assembly in Lisbon, much thanks to Anders Berglund who later became president of the 3rd
Board of BEST (92/93).
One year later, at General Assembly 1992 in Helsinki/Tallinn, we were proposed for full membership by LBG Stockholm after organizing two courses. After the voting with 17 votes for and 0 against we were in the game and nothing could stop us!
During the summer of 1993 we organized 3 parallel summer courses at the same time, and since then we have had another 19 summer courses (2009) and two General Assemblies
(2000 & 2004). The first was together with all the Swedish LBGs in Stockholm and the latter together with LBG Copenhagen.
Ever heard the expression “Je suis une fraise, mange moi!”, no? How about “I’m a strawberry, eat me!” sounds familiar?
This genius expression was once said by a BESTie from LBG Lund, Busse Pettersson, on a ski trip in the Alps trying to learn French.
Story of LBG Lviv
The idea to join some European students’ organization was born in 2002. Once, two students of one of the biggest universities in Ukraine - Lviv Polytechnic, Maxym Fedorov and Roman Palianycya while surfing the Internet, accidentally ran into BEST web site. They haven’t slept few nights filling in the application. Then came to GA in Paris, and were accepted!
We became an observer group Lviv. Our nurse became LBG Krakow. At that time there were only 6 interested students. They had problems in getting visas and prices for goods in Europe were too high for Ukrainians. But thanks to persistence and willing to become part of BEST they organized a Regional Meeting and Cultural Exchange with LBG Liege.
The number of active members increased to 20 people and in the next GA in Slovakia BEST
Lviv ran for the position of baby member. Till 2005 we had organized one RM, two leisure events and our first course. At PM 2005 in Ljubljana we became Full member.
Now, when we are 7 years old we have 80 active members. We are the biggest organization in our University. Our most significant annual events are:
•Computer Festival DE:CODED, what started in 2006. It is an Ukrainian festival that become more and more popular to students interested in IT technologies
•Engineering Job Fair, which helps students to find good job on their profession and realize their ability
•Academic courses and symposiums on education, where European students can learn something on their technical specialty
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But we don’t stop and always do our best to be the BEST and now we are preparing to organize the first BEST General Meeting in Ukraine - PM 2009 in Lviv.
Welcome to Lviv!
Story of LBG Madrid
LBG Madrid was established in 1996, being elected as Observer group in GA Tallinn. Growing up without fears by the hand of LBG Valladolid, we moved to Baby member in PM Veszprem 1996, and reached Full membership in PM Warsaw 1997.
With the support of the University, more people and more money, LBG Madrid was able to organize up to two external events per year, doing our BEST when organizing PM 2001.
In 2003, after having problems with the Student Union, we split up and established as independent, youth association. After the rebirth, LBG Madrid has grown by organizing a wide range of events, covering from Cultural Exchanges, BEST Symposiums in Education and BEST Courses, to BEST Engineering Competitions, a JAMboree, Local Engineering Competitions, National Engineering Competitions, and much more.
In 2006 we celebrated our X Anniversary with a great party, and LBG Madrid Carlos III was born and grew at our side. The strong collaboration and good mood between all the Spanish LBGs have given its outcomes as the BESTspain project.
Nowadays, with the dedicated support of the University, full of energy, full of motivation, the Great LBG Madrid is ready to take any challenge. Nobody can stop us!
Story of LBG Madrid Carlos III
Carlinho!!! That’s the word which defines our group, LBG MADRID CARLOS III. That word contains in itself the magic of our small but powerful history. We are still young in BEST, just four years ago one crazy man (this year we voted him as our honorary president), came with an idea and started this dream. We attended some events and learnt how to get the
“Excellence”, and since our first event, a Regional Meeting in 2006, every year we improved our courses and we started doing different kind of events; that’s why BEST made us Baby Member in PM06 Ghent and Full Member in PM07 Valladolid.
But let’s come back to that strange word: Carlinho!!! It is the name of our mascot, but, actually, it’s something greater, it’s a sincere smile, it’s pure friendship, it’s a warm hug, it’s our definition, our dream, our spirit. Maybe that’s the reason we became so famous in
BEST, and when someone in a party meets you and discover you have a friend in common, he usually says: “Ey, you are Carlinho!” and we answer smiling so proud of belong to that dream we helped to raise up: “Yes, I am!”
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Story of LBG Maribor
In year 2000, a group of students heard about BEST, they liked the idea, so they decided to establish LBG Maribor. With help of BESTies from LBG Ljubljana, they managed to go on GA in April 2001 in a town called Rogla, where they were accepted as observer group. That is how the idea of LBG group Maribor started to realize, with support of student organisation called ŠOUM (Student organisation of university Maribor). The first members were: Plešnik Silvo, Markočič Marjan, Kos Matija, Krajnc Urška, »Krty«, Juršič Igor, Arsič Petra, Jovanovič Sandra, Gregorčič Andrej…
In order to become Baby members they had to fulfil some tasks. They did all of them, and some more by making most of the work for the first summer course, which was in august 2002. On GA 2002 they became Baby members and few months later the first participants came.
That was not enough for Maribor. Their goal was to become Full members. That was achieved at PM in Belgium year 2003.
After that members became very motivated and active, so they organized one academic event every year.
We are now spreading the idea of BEST not only between our students, but also to all the participants that are coming to our courses. A lot of them joined their LBG after our course.
Over the years our organisation became stronger and more experienced with around 30 members.
Story of LBG Messina
It started some years ago in the summer of 2005, when a Sicilian guy, named Antonio
Bellitto, engineering student at University of Messina, surfing on internet found the website of a European association: it was BEST.
He didn’t know anything about it before but it seemed interesting, so he began to speak with his friends. Then he decided to contact the BEST Secretary to have more information and to receive the application-form!
In Messina the time was right to start working, gathering information and contacting the University that was happy to help them and support the request.
In the BEST map there was not a group in Sicily and it was the time to have one! They were very enthusiast and in July of 2006 they applied as observers but the results were not good.
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