History Book of BEST
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wasn’t a limit for those people - they wanted to prove the seriousness of this organization and therefore BEST-Riga was officially registered as a non-profit organization in Latvia’s Enterprise Register.
During the following years our LBG grew and developed! But as everyone we had our ups and downs. There was even a time when we almost disappeared from the map of BEST, but since GA 2002 in Paris with big thanks to all our friends we are happy to have Full Member status again (we’d like to think of this as our 2nd born).
2003 was an important turn-point for our LBG, since not only we celebrated our 10th anniversary, but also this was the year of the true reconnection with the BEST spirit ,we organized the first ever Nordic JAM and like that wasn’t enough - summer course “2nd Skin or From Hat Till Underwear”. Then LBG-Riga decided to get a bit more familiar with BEST on more international level - we hosted PRIME I (the first PR and IMage Event) and also the XVI BEST Board chose Riga as the place for their winter meeting. Although we haven’t organized any GMs so far, our members - back then better known as “Riga Girls” was the official Party
Team of GA 2004. They worked really hard to prepare all the social activities and parties for BESTies going to Copenhagen that year.
But come on – it’s impossible to name all the events we held during almost 16 years of our existence! We organized courses, leisure events and engineering competitions, as well as we held region and committee meetings, organized TRAP and TrainShops and did many, many other stuff. And surely - there are a ton of local events from seminars and local engineering competitions for the students of our university to all sorts of trainings to improve our own knowledge.
Now we are group of really dedicated people who are willing to work as hard as needed to carry out the proud name of BEST and then celebrate our success the way it can be done only in Riga!
Story of LBG Rome
Onceuponatime...thereweretwotwins,RomulusandRemus,whodrinkingmilkfromashewolf, fighting (or rather, killing) each other and kidnapping women from the neighbourhood, founded Rome, caput mundi (master of the world), and we all know how the all story was...
But is scientifically proven that after Roman Empire, the greatest achievement of Modern Age was the foundation of BEST Roma. Let’s go a bit through it!!! It was February 8th 1994: no twins this time, and no murders, but 8 brave boys looking for European girls to kidnap; they were: Franco Petrucci, Alfredo Gentili, Fabio Grossi Gondi, Luca Perugini, Fabrizio Romano, Andrea Masini, Fabrizio Monteleone, Rocco Laraia, our founder fathers.
Then followed GA 1994 in Turin: in the same event BEST Roma became full member, and six
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months later, at the GA in Timisoara, Michelangelo Calabresi, one of our guys, was elected President of the 7th Board of BEST.
After that, we run from success to success, always grounding on traditional good values: pasta and Italian culture. A great example of how we apply those values is Winter course 2005: Speak as you eat! - A tasty introduction to EATalian language. It seems that all Europe appreciated: we received 762 applications!!! What a record!
During our history we have nursed LBG Tor Vergata and LBG Naples, and we have got 5 Boardies:
•Michelangelo Calabresi, President of 7th Board •Alfredo Loreto, Treasurer of 8th Board
•Andrea Casamassima, Minerva Coordinator of 13th Board •Carlo Spellucci, Treasurer of 14th Board
•Giulio D’Aversa, VP for Local Group Support of 20th Board.
Every year, we use to organize a Cultural Exchange or a LBG Exchange, besides a Spring course.
As it usually is for the greatest cultures, we had our Middle Age period: during 2004/05 BEST Rome almost died, because of a lack of members, but then a bright Renaissance came and now we are growing bigger and bigger, both in number of members and in new ideas. We are more or less 20 active members, but most of all we are a group of friends, and we are proud of it! We rely on cooperation between members and with other LBGs. From this point of view, one of our biggest ongoing projects is iBEC, this year in its 2nd edition; in 2008 we hosted the final round and our Team won the competition, making us even prouder.
We have many traditions. For example we use to hand down strange objects for every charge in our Board of Administration: an axe for Presidents, a bottle for PR Responsible, madness for Secretaries and so on. We also act like a family: we have a mum, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and nephews, but you can’t imagine how complicated are the relationships between them! To join BEST Roma is very easy: you just have to find a family relationship, and then undergo a baptism, which consists of several secret tests, involving beer, imbutos, underwear... Our office is a touristic attraction for foreign friends visiting us: it is a glass cube in a corridor in Engineering Faculty, and that’s why we call it
Gabbiotto (funny cage). It can host up to 2 people sitting on a chair, but we filled it with 27 people just to establish a record!
Last but not least, we have a mascot: Colossus, gift from LBG Stockholm. He is a truly
Roman gladiator, who will protect and favour BEST Roma for the time being, giving us more and more events, fun, happiness and prosperity.
Story of LBG Rome Tor Vergata
Our Past...
It was a cold night of January 2002, a night that changed the history of Rome Tor Vergata University, a night that changed the lives of its students, the night in which LBG Rome Tor
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Vergata was born. That night, Roberto Spellucci found his house invaded by a group of BESTies visiting his brother, a member of LBG Rome Sapienza, and, experiencing for the first time what was BEST, immediately fell in love with it. After that experience, to be honest, the LBG existed only in Roberto’s head, who with the help of his brother and a group of brave fellow students decided to take the challenge and begin to work to bring BEST also in their university. It has not been easy, but after a lot of effort and work, on the 10 of
February 2003 LBG Rome Tor Vergata finally became an observer group of BEST and, a few months later, baby member. But it was only after many other days, many other nights spent discussing and working, many successes and also disappointments that the LBG Rome Tor Vergata finally became a full member of BEST.
...and our present and future...
Now, after six years of activity, LBG Rome Tor Vergata counts 30 active members and regularly organizes two international BEST events and one local engineering competition and, since last year, we also take part in the organization of the Italian BEST Engineering Competition. So far we organized the following events: 2 Winter Courses, 2 Summer Courses, 2 Internal Meetings, and 4 Engineering Competitions.
From that night of January many people joined our LBG, while other left, but each of them gave, in a way or in another, a contribution to turn what was just a dream into a strong tangible reality, through work and enthusiasm in the course of the years our group managed to extend his curriculum vitae, undertaking many projects and hosting many activities, always spreading the BEST spirit in our university and giving the chance to our colleagues to take part in this beautiful thing called BEST.
Story of LBG Saint Petersburg
About a year ago the historical moment has happened: lives of few people have been changed forever, one more university in Russia has got a bunch of energy and BEST obtained one more local group, Saint Petersburg aka SPBEST.
On the 18th of July 2008 we got the letter from the International Board and were invited to be the Observer of BEST and come to Presidents’ Meeting in Bucharest... That time we didn’t realize what all of it is going to be like but already were excited and inspired of upcoming future.
So? How to start?
•First, you get the right guidelines and the great Master: we got it - Nursing LBG
Tallinn!
•Second, you love your Master, take the advices and meet your Master face to face: we had three Motivations Weekends with our Estonian Nurses during this
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year; two of them were hosted by SPBEST.
•Third, you approach more and more people to what you love to do and make them love it too: we had little recruitment and now we’re about 25-30 members.
•Fourth, you entertain and involve the group into international BEST life: we made Local Engineering Competitions, sent our teams to Baltic BEC in Riga and one of them had won! Now we’re waiting for their participation in European BEC and international EC.
•Fifth, you combine Russian&BEST spirit and get lots of hard work, fun and partying!
After we did those steps the time has come to join BEST officially, we became Baby LBG (with 100% votes!) on General Assembly 2009 in Budapest! That was the precious moment of life when the dream became true.
We involve amazing city with white nights, drawbridges and architecture treasures into BEST. We are just one year old LBG. We are getting to know BEST life more and more. We are just getting used to the flow of e-mails, meetings and everyday thoughts about BEST.
But we do believe we are on the right way. We believe in BEST!
Story of LBG Skopje
The first idea for BEST came in 2001 by couple of IAESTE members, who heard about the BEST Spirit and saw in BEST an excellent opportunity for better student exchange, travelling, friendship and fun.
LBG Skopje had been founded on the 9th of March 2002, after one year’s effort of small group of students. In April 2002, LBG Skopje obtained the observer status. After accomplishing all the required conditions, LBG Skopje obtained the status ‘baby member’ on the 8th November 2002, on the President Meeting in Bucharest. LBG Skopje obtained the status ‘full member’ on 4th November 2003 on the President Meeting in Belgium. Since then, LBG Skopje is organizing academic courses every summer.
In 2003, LBG Skopje organized the first internal event - CASH Regional Meeting. Still, the event on which LBG Skopje is the most proud of is, of course, the biggest event in the whole BEST history - Jamboree 2005. It was an event with more than 600 BESTies from all parts of Europe, having incredible 4 days of trainings and parties on the beautiful Ohrid Lake.
From 2005, LBG Skopje organized the first Job Fair which continues till now and every year is getting bigger and bigger. Other interesting events for LBG Skopje are IPF 2007, International Board to Board training 2008, BEST Hot Chilly Peppers 2008 and many unforgettable motivation weekends! Another great experience for LBG Skopje is the nursing of LBG Nis. It was a great opportunity for us to return the favour - supporting a new BEST
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Group. It is also a great way to learn even more about BEST and big pleasure to see how they grow in strong and valuable LBG.
LBG Skopje is determined to spread the BEST spirit and offer quality services to the students in Macedonia and Europe; now and for the generations to come!
Story of LBG Sofia
Students from Technical University of Sofia got in touch with BEST for the first time nine years ago. Presently BEST Sofia consists of 38 active members, who are working for free for the organization, trying to promote the international activities of BEST among students. This is their story:
In the beginning was the word ... In the year 2000 two enthusiastic men. Petar Kraytchev and Veselin Genadiev, stated the strong wish of the small group in Sofia to become part of
BEST on the General Meeting in Stockholm. They were accepted in the big family with the statute of observers. Later that year they got the statute of a BEST baby member on the Presidents’ Meeting in Budapest.
In 2001 the fresh team of baby BEST Group Sofia lead by their first President Petar Kraytchev were “Silent before the storm” as they started building relations with companies, motivating new members and preparing for the next year and their first ever BEST event.
In the next year the proud members of baby BEST group Sofia organized their first external event “ACAISURE” shortening the distance between ACAdemic and leISURE events, in
March. After 2 years of diligent and dedicated work, headed by Irina Lulcheva they received full membership in BEST on the Presidents’ Meeting in Bucharest.
Under the guidance of president Petar Stoyanov in the spring of 2003 LBG Sofia organized its first Vivaldi course “Is the network a spider’ web, are you a fly?” With the kind support of LBG Bucharest the same year they organized their first Job Fair.
During the reign of the IV board with Vesela Lukarska as President, the LBG hosted its first Cultural Exchange in March 2004 between Sofia and Stockholm local groups. Another “First” was the Regional Meeting of ex-East Region that was held in Borovets – Bulgaria’s oldest mountain resort.
2005 was one of the most challenging and productive years of the LBG. Tzveta Dimitrova started her mandate as President with a Winter Course shortly followed (a week later) by the first ever in BEST history Engineering Competition organized by a single local group! But they didn’t stop there! September was marked with the hosting of their first TrainShopbePROUD’05.
In 2006 the tireless local group was proud to have its first international boardie - Tzveta
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Dimitrova as Vice-President for External Services. The VI local board, with Petya Lozanova to the lead continued the Vivaldi tradition with the spring course “Be Like GodControl Your Climate”.
President Ivaylo Nikolov marked 2007 with the spring course “Introduction to Business
Intelligence” and left a trace in the history of BEST Sofia with the first ever Event On
Education “Virtual MobilityEuropean Education and Beyond”, as well as numerous career events as Virtual Job Hunting and their first Companies’ Night.
In 2008 LBG Sofia decided to take the challenge of organizing for the first time a trilateral
Cultural Exchange with LBGs Ankara and Coimbra. President Vladimir Tsaklev and his VIII board continued their visionary mandate with the group’s first two-week eventthe Summer Course “Hitchhiking on the data highway? Get connected in Sofia!” It was followed shortly by the bePROUD5 TrainShop.
Story of LBG Stockholm
LBG Stockholm has such a long history that the creators of this page could not reach the old dinosaurs that created a Local BEST Group in Stockholm. :) But beside this mystery, there are some facts known by heart.
The idea of BEST was born in Stockholm in 1987 and LBG Stockholm is one of the 18 founding members of BEST and has been part of the organisation since 1989. And you know the rest; after 20 years we are still here and going on rocking... :)
LBG Stockholm has the tradition of organising courses in late spring/early summer as it is the end of exam period for LBG members and time to boost the BEST spirit in Stockholm. We organised courses more or less every year since the beginning with sauna parties, gossips and high BEST spirit included. From 1992 to 2008, LBG Stockholm organized 18 BEST courses (this corresponds to 350 students hosted by LBG Stockholm in 16 years).
The only time Stockholm broke the tradition and organised a winter course, (There was another course organised in the season autumn98 but it is not really counted as an official autumn season. :) ), was in the year 2006, when we organised a hilarious leisure event taking part in Stockholm and Kiruna (north of Sweden inside Northern Polar Circle).
In 2000, LBG Stockholm had the honour of organising General Assembly of BEST. After GA 2000, most of the Swedish members organised this great event graduated or went abroad for studies and in a moment, the LBG almost lost its Swedish identity. That is when the international students studying in KTH became the majority and English became the spoken language in the meetings. Since then, LBG Stockholm is also called as LBG Erasmus. Today
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the Erasmus spirit is still going on as presently we only have 4 Swedish members. :)
Story of LBG Supelec
The team
Our organization, called Cercle Europe, was created in 1988 (yes, before BEST!) in Supélec. It joined BEST in 1992 as baby member and became full member in 1993. The campus of Supélec is located in the suburbs of Paris and the studies are mainly about electric energy and information sciences.
Activities
We are about 50 motivated students in the team and the board changes each year. LBG Supélec was co-organiser of the GA in 2007 in Paris.
We have organized courses for 16 years, our traditional European Weeks. The next one is about alternative energies and happens ... this week. It is gathering 50 BESTies for a crazy week including discussions with experts, a job fair with international companies but also amazing parties, sightseeing (Eiffel tower, Versailles, etc...) and typical French food.
We have also planned two Cultural Exchanges this year with Maribor and Skopje.
As many foreign students arrived in the school each year, we help them to meet other people by organizing activities and giving much information about the schooling in Supélec.
Story of LBG Tallinn
LBG Tallinn - time goes on, but spirit stays.
LBG Tallinn was founded in 1991, when eight Tallinn University of Technology students decided to do something memorable, not just to ease their way through the university years.
The first meeting was held on 8th of January 1991. Tallinn was elected to become a full member at BEST General Assembly’91 in Paris. Since then LBG has grown fast and today it has more than 100 members, including 50 active members, who deal with BEST on a daily basis.
From beginning they have organised every year a career days called Võti Tulevikku and also a traditional summer course. LBG Tallinn is really proud of two international BEST General Assemblies organised in Estonia in years 1996 and 2008. They are not afraid to take ideas from sky and to make extreme thoughts real; it can be an attempt to break Guinness
Record in the biggest number of blind dates or it can be restarting the radio of TUT in
1995. LBG Tallinn likes to keep traditions like the Winter Days at Mõedaku, the biggest party called Viitna to celebrate the new board of BEST-Estonia and Survival Game which includes orienteering in forest in the night with BESTies.
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Year to year people change, events grow bigger and the goals get higher. But the spirit of members stays. Emotions from seeing a European friend after a year on following BEST event, satisfaction after achieving goals by hard work with good team or pushing yourself to get a maximum result in every action - the few of numerous feelings that make members to come to BEST office from day to day. BEST gives a lifetime experience!
Story of LBG Tampere
It all began when Riku Aho was elected as an international responsible the board of Tampere
University of Technology (TUT). The co-operation between Technical Universities was quite significant at that time and so Riku got to know international responsible Anne Nummila and international secretary Laura Heikkuri from Helsinki University of Technology. After that it wasn’t long that Riku got invited to participate in a WorkShop organized by LBG Helsinki in January of 1994. It was quite cold outside, at least minus 20 degrees centigrade but the atmosphere inside was warm. The same year Riku got invited to GA in Turin and there
Tampere became a baby member of BEST and Helsinki agreed to be the Nurse for just born
LBG Tampere. After the GA Riku returned to Tampere and told what had happened and that the LBG Tampere would have to be organized.
In the beginning it was a small group consisting of a few people. LBG Tampere participated also the GA 1994 in Timisoara and organized the first summer course on its own in August of 1995. The Course was about Digital Media. LBG Tampere became a full member in that same year in PM that was held in Trondheim. The weather wasn’t the most pleasant in PM but Tampere had a lot to celebrate and a little rain wasn’t going to stop that. After that LBG Tampere has arranged summer courses when it could and at the same time tried to maintain high academic level for courses. LBG Tampere has also arranged internal BEST events such as TrainShops, Cultural Exchanges and Regional Meetings. In recent years LBG Tampere has tried to offer more events to TUT students as well. The Snow Football tournament is one of these and it has been arranged in the past three years.
Story of LBG Timisoara
Timisoara started the BEST path in 1990. The General Assembly in Budapest welcomed us as observers, and Warsaw started taking care of us. It is amazing to see that students from Timisoara were already opening up towards Europe, after only a few months of changing a long lasting and hard weighing regime. In 1991, the students’ organization registered legally, celebrating its birthday on the 27th of May. The General Assembly in Paris in 1991 and in Helsinki/Tallinn in 1992 saw the group become baby member and then full member of BEST, as it stayed until now.
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After the Romanian 1989 Revolution, which started in December in Timisoara, Romanians often say “Today in Timisoara, tomorrow in the whole country”. To stick by this, Timisoara nursed the groups in Bucharest (1994), Cluj-Napoca (1995) and Iasi (2000) to also become active members of BEST.
As the years passed, many events were organised in the Roses City. A total number of
26 courses for students, with topics ranging from Information services in computer networks, Food Industry Technologies and Nourishment, Interaction Design, to History and Archaeology or Medieval Castles Architecture; more than 30 local events, exhibits, conferences, engineering competitions, training weeks. Timisoara started another tradition in Romania, being the first ever to organise a job fair for students (at that time, together with AIESEC). Jobshop is now a registered trademark and a well known and respected brand in Romania, organised by all Romanian groups.
The contribution of the group in Timisoara to the welfare of BEST is also significant. First of all, our greatest pride, Cristian Bogdan and Ovidiu Sandor, who have been starters of big parts in the structure of BEST (our IT systems, our external events committee). 19 internal events were hosted by Timisoara. Out of these, 2 were General Assemblies (one together with all Romanian groups), 5 WorkShops, 2 TrainShops and several committee meetings.
4 persons from Timisoara were members of the international board of BEST in different times.
On the less serious side, we need to mention the BIG working group (Beer Interested
Group), very hard working, and very fast drinking. The first ever 100% feminine board of Timisoara was in 2003/2004. The worst financial year was 2002/2003, when, in order to feed summer course participants, the members had to go to the green market and exchange detergent (they had received 100kg from P&G) for tomatoes and cheese... Life in Timisoara is for sure adventurous, and therefore thrilling and fun!
Story of LBG Thessaloniki
Nobody can easily narrate the history of our group. Even if it is not one of the oldest, it will soon be 10 years old. The history of LBG Thessaloniki is on the one hand the stories, the thoughts, the ideas and the innovations of its members through time and on the other hand the relationships formed between them and between their European friends.
Ever since our foundation in November of 1999 the character of the team has changed several times, following the personality of each generation, but what never changed is the enthusiasm and the determination of the people that constitute BEST Thessaloniki to learn, travel, have fun and evolve as a group.
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The excitement of the founding members, back in 1999, about BEST was supported by the academic community of the Engineering Faculty, which contributed in the establishment of the new born team that lead to the organization of our first international public event in the Spring of 2001 and Thessaloniki to become a full of member of BEST in November of 2001.
In the following years, as the team was growing and its needs became larger, we inevitably had to search for support outside the university. The challenge of organizing the General Assembly of 2005 in co-operation with other Greek teams was a major chance for us to create relationships between the group and the social and productive organizations of the city.
Shortly after BEST Thessaloniki was recognized as a strong and developing organization by the Faculty of Engineering and the whole Aristotle University and the Authorities of the city as well. New activities such as local events were introduced and the continuous upgrade of the quality of our events has always been our main goal.
The years past, smaller or bigger goals were met in order to reach today, when LBG Thessaloniki is a very strong and active group organizing several public, internal and local events in order to provide the BEST experience to as many students as possible.
Thessaloniki is well known for its hospitality, LBG wouldn’t be an exception: BEST Hospitality award 2005-2006
Story of LBG Trondheim
Once upon a time, Ida Lau Borch was invited on behalf of the Student Council at NTH, later the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, together with Espen Volden from IAESTE, to the first BEST-meeting in Grenoble in March, 1988. As vice president of the
Student Council the invitation from Grenoble intrigued her and the thought of an international student organisation and exchange of summer jobs, which the invitation proposed, made Espen Volden attend as well. IAESTE in Trondheim had exchange of summer jobs as their main activity, but it turned out that this was not the case in Grenoble. When it was clear that BEST was not being founded to compete with IAESTE, Ida went back to NTH and wondered if it was possible to make a Local BEST Group (LBG) at our university.
The Student Council was really positive and BEST was allowed to use the same facilities as them, where the key ingredient was the Student Council’s great secretary and consultant, Kari, who has supported LBG Trondheim from the beginning and is still helping us today. Full of anticipation Ida put up an advertisement in the main square at campus Gløshaugen and managed to recruit two enthusiastic and motivated people, Morten Fjeld and Jan Erik
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