The President of the European Society Club | Veliyana Georgieva
A gloomy Monday morning, a hot cup of coffee, and several unread messages on social media, mark the beginning of the next three exhausting weeks for Veliyana Georgieva. Having finished the coffee, she grabs her phone and starts calling people to gather them for a meeting. The meeting takes place at the ABF Aspire workspace. Veliyana enters the room with a big smile on her face and soon after the brainstorming for the conference begins. Once ready, she sends the final idea to Professor Jean Crombois for approval. “Now, it is time to start organizing,” says Veliyana.
Veliyana Georgieva is the president of the European Society club at the American University in Bulgaria. The club works towards promoting the European Union’s ideas and values. The main event organized by the club is Model European Union, a three-day conference with over 100 participants from all over the world. During the conference participants, following the EU’s voting rules and procedures, engage in intense debates and negotiations on a topic that is highly related to the EU.
Veliyana, as the president of the European Society club and one of the organizers of the MEU conference, has to make sure that everything goes as planned. She is responsible for creating teams that can deal with various matters such as finding sponsors, booking venues, accommodating participants, and so on.
Apart from that, she has to make sure that the participants follow the rules during the conference. “I hate to be the bad cop, when people start breaking the rules. I have to be harsh, which is not like me at all,” says Veliyana with a disappointed look on her face.
Veliyana strongly believes that being persistent, having strong stamina, and a hard-working personality is what helps her remain as the president of the club. Veliyana was never keen on EU politics, but recently she has become extremely interested in it. “First and second MEU conferences was the time when I got into the EU politics,” says Veliyana. “Politics is important, because it is everywhere around us, even though we don’t always see it,” she adds.
Currently, Veliyana is preparing for an upcoming MEU conference where she is chairing Turkey, while also getting ready for the final week of the spring semester. “It’s really stressing me out,” says Veliyana. “The conference had to be in March, but they moved it and now it is so inconvenient for me,” she adds. Veliyana also notes that she spends the largest part of her day in front of her laptop. “I read the schedule and rules of the procedure for the MEU, and try to do my papers before the conference.” Despite stress and anxiety, Veliyana tries to stay optimistic. “I have such a wonderful opportunity to meet so many people and become friends with them, because having connections is the most important thing nowadays. Besides… I get to travel a lot,” says Veliyana with a smile on her face.
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Ruslan Sadretdinov is a sophomore at the American University in Bulgaria majoring in Political Science and Business Administration. Ruslan is extremely interested in Politics and Veliyana’s activities in the European Society Club were fascinating for him.
