I’m back from a cold weekend in Berlin. I love the city, I’ve spent some 5 month living there in 2003, when I did the internship with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). I’ve previously also spent 2 weeks attending the summer school of DGAP in 2002. And work brought me to Berlin very often in the past years…every time I go there with pleasure.
But to the weekend. All the participants from the various Summer Schools, New Faces Conferences and people that have spent working at the DGAP, are tied into the Alumni Network that is being supported by the DGAP’s International Forum on Strategic Thinking. And we had a great Alumni meeting in 2005, now followed this weekend with its 2nd Edition. The concept is good and it provides both a bit of intellectual stimulus and some fun.
On Friday we had a nice dinner at the headquarters of EADS, one of the sponsors of the Alumni network. After a pleasant evening in the lobby of the hotel, catching up with all the colleagues, we then moved on Saturday into the conference part of the weekend. 4 panels with interesting speakers, but somehow not particularly coherent combination of topics. However, always good to hear opinions on climate change for example, from people with very diverse backgrounds – defence studies, business, EU specialists…Was good to see that the EU legislation in this field indeed receives a lot of attention. We finished the Saturday with a nice dinner and party. Sunday was reserved for the planning of the future Alumni activities. I got a nice responsibility – setting up the organisational page of the Alumni network on Facebook.
We also got the first snow, both in Berlin and Brussels. Winter, welcome.
Marko Bucik 