Miss President's address.

The Gerbert Euro Club is a Junior Association. We, the pupils in the Section Euro of the Ensemble Scolaire Gerbert, set up this club in 2009, and I was really enthusiastic about it.

At the start, it was simply an informal group. We decided to create it because we are keen on foreign languages and we wanted to discover more about Europe. It was also a challenge; we wanted to show that we were capable of setting up and running a “club” by ourselves. On the advice of our Euro teacher we decided to become a Junior Association.

I don’t remember how and why, but the shy girl that I was (especially when I had to speak English), became the president of this association… It meant that I would have responsibilities; I loved it because I felt useful, even if sometimes it was really difficult!

Of course there was a Treasurer and a Secretary to help me in the Management Committee. And, thanks to the active participation of all the members of the GEC, we managed to set up several projects: weekly picnics and discussions, cinema evenings, barbecues for the foreign pupils, Europe Day, photo and art exhibitions, the EYP, a blog or two, etc.

The Friday picnics were good fun; we interviewed guests, mostly foreign pupils, and the terminal pupils livened things up with gossip and news.

This year, our “meetings” have taken place between 12h30 and 13h40 every Friday. Our activities have been varied. My best friend Virginie and I decided to do an interview of two fantastic people: Coralie and David, who are actors. On another Friday, I organized some games, but it was a bit of a mess because it was just before the holidays so all the members were really excited and didn’t listen to what I had to say! At the end of February, I gave a version in English of the speech I made for the Lyon’s Club public speaking contest. The theme was: “Your difference does not injure me, brother; on the contrary you bring me much”.

The major activities and projects of our club have been:

Cinema evenings: these were fun because the movies were shown in the original versions with subtitles, so we both learnt new words in English and understand the story. Most of us had never seen these films in black and white so we discovered something new. Themes were “autobiographies” and “monsters”. We saw, among other masterpieces: Frieda Kahlo, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Kes, Elephant Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster.

Europe Day 2009 and Europe Day 2010 were a great success. Last year, I gave a speech about Robert Schuman, and then there was a buffet, a rather boring conference on an important topic (poverty in Europe), and finally we launched one of our projects: email postcards to all our partner schools throughout Europe.

EYP: Last year we were selected to participate in the 28^th national session of the European Youth Parliament (10 schools were selected), in Puy-en-Velay. It was a really rewarding experience. I learnt to become more self-confident, and to speak my mind and defend my ideas. I had to work with pupils from other French schools on the following topic : Europe’s reunification has not led to a reunification of European peoples’ memories. There is no single European memory but memories according to one’s country and people. So as to reinforce its identity, how can Europe make its citizens’ memory the base of its future construction while respecting everyone’s experiences?

I learned lots of things: what European cultural routes are, how the Parliament works, etc.

Even if we have not succeeded every time in reaching our aims through our various crazy projects, we have at least improved our organizing skills. We have, too, I hope, become a little more open-minded, and every day we discover new things. . . I will just added one thing: “little by little one ends up going far”. A bit like Europe itself, don’t you think!?

Article by Lidwine Spire