Dear Alumni and Alumnae of AIESEC in Switzerland
I’m hereby addressing myself as the President of AIESEC in Switzerland for the term 2015/2016. It is with big pleasure that I am writing this letter to all of you. My name is Rebecca Weimann, I’m originally from Bern, Switzerland and I joined AIESEC in fall 2012 in Fribourg. Being currently on the national level of in the current MC I’m holding the position of the Vice President for Talent Management and Organizational Development and am more than excited to do my part of re-establishing a strong bond between the Alumni Association and AIESEC in Switzerland.
Firstly I want to thank those of this Alumni network who have supported my team and me a lot throughout the current term. First of all, thanks to Corinne Binkert who has been our main contact person, coordinator, representative during our National Conferences (Do It and Kick Off), and Alumni representative during the review boards for the election process of the president of AIESEC in Switzerland 15/16 (MCP) and the ones for the member committee (MC) for the same term. I am more than grateful to have her by my side. Nextly I want to mention Joselyn Lauritzen who has – together with Sarah Gloor – started the mentoring program for interested members in our entity as well as the MC. I myself got a mentor, Yvonne Fischer and call myself fortunate to have a professional by my side whom I can have bi-weekly mentoring meetings. And thirdly, many thanks to Szabolcs „Sabi“ Mihalyi, Maria Hooper, Patrick Siffert, Iuliia Palamarchuk and Fabian Tschan who have been supporting us either during conferences in terms of delivering workshops and educating our members or being conference photographer and participating at review boards for the national level. There are many of you that I don’t know personally yet, that are in touch with the local levels (LC), especially in Geneva and Bern and so far I only received positive positive feedback from the LCs that get your support. We are very happy and fortunate to have you.
However, this letter is not only here to cherish the ones we are currently working with us, but to go one step further and revive the relation between the AIESEC Alumni Switzerland Association and AIESEC in Switzerland. It is my high interest to connect those two bodies and build up stronger network for the future. The reason behind is that every year we make it as our core to develop leadership in youg people, either through our member and team leader program or our exchange programs. However, the true impact we strive for to have can only be made visible if we stay in touch with you, our Alumni and Alumnae, as you are the true outcome of what this organization did in the past and to be there for the future generation.
As I’ve mentioned before I joined AIESEC in 2012 and ever since members of the Alumni Association have been people we occasionally worked with and maybe got to know during our National Conferences. In my opinion – and I’m on the same page with the Alumni/Alumnae I talked to – our bond can be stronger than this.
The way how AIESEC in Switzerland approached you in the past was often concerning delivering a workshop or a presentation during National Conferences, a lot of times last minute even. This is not only an unprofessional approach but doesn’t value who you are. On the other hand the Alumni network doesn’t attract a lot of recent members that left the organization. After talking to the board of AAS last week, both out expectations were set straight: There are a lot of Alumni in the network that are happy to support, however the first step needs to come from our side which means more concretely the projects we are working on and could imagine to get your support with. On the other hand AAS can provide us with attractive options for outgoing members to join your network which we can then promote. There are a lot of opportunities a relation between the two associations can bring and I’m highly motivated to invest the resources needed to make a revival happen. And as you will all know by now there is the 5 years Alumni reunion coming up at Do It in November. I am looking forward to meet and work with as many of you as possible starting from now, during my term as the next President and afterwards as an Alumna myself. Let’s make this year a turning point!
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me in case you have questions or inputs regarding the content of this letter.
Sincerely yours,
Rebecca Weimann
President, AIESEC in Switzerland 15/16
