Posts Tagged ‘youthnetworks’

Since 2004 YouthNetworks provides services to make international youth work and communication easier and more efficient. The number of users of YouthNetworks has increased over the years. These users requested a more effective and modern community in order to keep the services up-to-date. After one year of dedicated and hard working we are proud to announce a new version of YouthNetworks! The new version will be launched at the end of the summer 2010.

 What has been improved?

• Possibility to add more information to promote your vacancies and events (photos/videos)
• Available EVS-vacancies are shown on Google Maps
• Efficient and effective communication between users (filter by country/type of organisation etc.)
• Improved search functionality
• Easy user interface
• Integration of social community tools like Twitter/blogs/YouTube
• Option to translate into your own language

The effectiveness of YouthNetworks largely depends on the quantity of users and the quality of their input. It would be great if you can help us test our new version of YouthNetworks. Are you interested? Please contact Robert Smit (robert@noborders.eu) for more information.

Do you want to share your experiences with us on our blog? YouthNetworks is looking for European youngsters who want to report about their EVS experiences or about their participation in a youth- related project, such as youth exchanges, training courses or other interesting youth projects! If you are interested to become a voluntary ’YouthNetworks reporter’, please contact us and we’ll set up an interview. Or write an experience report by yourself and sent it to anita@noborders.eu. Pictures and videos are also more than welcome!

       Europe is a Masterpiece. Be the artist who will paint it!

40% from over 300 voters picked this picture as the winner of our Photo & Slogan contest. It was a very close call, because 38% of the votes, goes to the runner up picture of ‘Young people in old country’. The winning photo was taken by Teodora Koleva (23) from Bulgaria. 

About the picture…
The statue of the Bulgarian painter and writer Tzanko Lavrenov is situated in Teodora’s hometown Plovdiv in front of the Art Gallery. The Renaissance town of Old Plovdiv is a cultural center famous with its architectures, which in the past attracted and inspired many painters; that is what the statue represents.

Congratulations, Teodora!

Because there are not as many participants to our Photo & Slogan contest as we hoped for at this moment, we decided to postpone our application deadline until 1 March 2010. So don’t hesitate and send your photo to anita@noborders.eu. For further details please check out our earlier post.

Follow YouthNetworks on Twitter or become a YouthNetworks fan on Facebook!

YouthNetworks wishes you all a merry Christmas!!

We invite European youngsters between the age of 16 and 30 years old to participate in our Europe Photo & Slogan contest! The challenge is to make a picture in combination with an original slogan which is telling your vision of Europe and shows what Europe really stands for or means to you. From all submitted entries the YouthNetworks jury will choose the 3 most creative and original photo & slogans. After the announcement of the short-listed photos in our newsletter on 1 February, you will all be able to vote on your favorite picture until 1 March 2010. The participant who gets the most votes, is the lucky one to win 2 tickets to a concert of your own choice. Are you creative and do you want to win this contest? Don’t hesitate and send your photo to anita@noborders.eu before 1 March 2010.

Rules & conditions
The first prize will be 2 tickets to a concert of your own choice. Attend for example a concert of Joss Stone in Hamburg on 5 March 2010, Star Wars in Concert in Glasgow on 13 March 2010 or Mika in Barcelona on 18 April 2010! Feel free to choose your favorite concert anyplace you want, however the travel costs will not be covered by YouthNetworks and the concert must take place between 1 April 2010 and 1 July 2010. You have to arrange the tickets by yourself. After you bought the tickets, you can declare the bill of a maximum amount of €100,- at YouthNetworks. As a condition of the prize the winner must (not later than a month after the concert) write a short report about his or her experiences during the concert completed with some pictures or a video, which we will publish on this blog.

Last week, YouthNetworks gave it’s first presentation in it’s home country, and it happened to take place in the city where our headquarters are located: Utrecht! There was a training by the NJI,  (Dutch Youth Institute) and people from all over the country came there to share information, network with each other and offcourse to learn from several workshops, where YouthNetworks was also represented in the workshop about Youth in Action & New Media.
If you would also like to implement the eMatchmaking training in your training or seminar, feel free to ask us any time!

Before I start, please note: don’t try this at home! Taking the very first train to Germany, work all day and returning the same evening with the last train is very dangerous: it nearly exhausted me to death.

Yesterday, I gave my second eMatchmaking training about YouthNetworks. And my third and forth. I had to give three (!) trainings in a row in an international seminar in Bonn, Germany. It went quite well, actually. I got my message across, the participants were very eager to learn and there was a fun atmospeher (and very good cake!). There was, however, total chaos prior to my presentations, as my preperation had some flaws: I hadn’t asked for a computer with the newest version of Powerpoint, access to internet and Adobe Flash installed (for the brilliant animation by Roquefort). It took me over an hour to get everything right, and even then it wasn’t perfect: every 60 seconds a loud BEEEEP broke through my words (before I figured out I could turn the sound off, ofcourse). It was computer hell. Sometimes I wonder why I am giving these trainings about online YiA communities, when I know absolutely nothing about computers..

Anyway, thanks for inviting me, Germany! I am very very very sorry my preperation wasn’t as it was supposed to me, but luckily everything went very well, and I hope you are not angry with me for not asking for specific computer stuff (and if you are, pleased eat one of the stroopwafels I gave you: they’ll make you feel better). Wir sehen uns wieder!