Delegates who participated in the Preliminary Rounds have an idea of what EYP is. However, to prepare you for further EYP involvement we would like to explain to you what the differences are between the Preliminary Rounds and the National Selection Conference.

What is Teambuilding?
Teambuilding aims for, as the name states, the building of a team. Delegates will be divided into seven different committees. You are placed with people from other delegations that you have never met before. Teambuilding serves several purposes. Like Ice Breaking, one of the aims is to make you feel more comfortable in your committee and to get to know the other people in the group. But Teambuilding also aims at improving the communication and teamwork between you and your fellow delegates. The chair will guide this process, he or she will play different kind of games to get to know each other, build inter-committee trust, improve brainstorming capabilities and make you feel more comfortable with giving your opinion.

What is Committee Work?
Committee Work is quite similar to Introduction to Committee Work at the Preliminary Rounds. Your Committee is assigned a topic on a specific current European issue. Your task is to write a resolution about this given topic. The resolutions you write at the Nationals are in the same format as the resolutions at the Preliminary Rounds. A resolution is a collection of statements of what the problem is, solutions to the problem and how you would like to implement these solutions. Essential for Committee Work is that you need a consensus within the committee about everything you write down in the resolution. Equally important to note is this: you represent your own opinion within EYP. It is therefore very important to think what your personal view is on a topic and express that view to others. You try to convince others, but also be open for others opinions, for someone else might have ideas that you never thought of that change the way you look at the topic. Your goal as a committee is to come as close to finding a solution for the problem as you possibly can. It is important to be well prepared for the Committee discussions so that you can make relevant contributions on the topic.

What is General Assembly?
There is little difference between General Assembly on Preliminary sessions and the National session. The only real difference is that instead of a prewritten resolution by someone else, you now defend the resolution your committee made during Committee Work. Also, your time to prepare speeches is limited to one evening, night and morning between Saturday’s Committee Work and Sunday’s General Assembly. Because of that last element, it is of vital importance that you not only study your own topic, but also gain in-depth knowledge on the other topics, so you can form an opinion before the session begins. This will give you an advantage during GA.

You will probably feel more comfortable now than you did a few weeks ago with giving your opinion and we hope that you learned from the previous experience to give even better constructed points, better speeches, keep moving the debate forward by responding more to given points and avoiding repeating what is already said, and avoiding giving hollow statements without any arguments or being disrespectful to other participants.

We want the level of debate to be even higher than at your previous session, and this can only be achieved by you, as participating delegates, by being better informed and prepared on your topics.

What is Eurovillage?
On Friday evening we will have a dinner prepared by you. Delegations are assigned to a European country (you will receive yours, via email, soon) and you are asked to prepare dinner in style of this specific country. For example for The Netherlands: hotchpotch (stamppot), small pancakes (poffertjes), gouda cheese, chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag), etc. All delegates are asked to wear traditional clothes of that country and to bring attributes to decorate their country tables. If everyone does their utmost it will be a festivity to never forget.

What is EYP café?
On Saturday night all delegations and alumni will go to a bar in Amsterdam. As we all know getting to know each other works best with a drink and a chat. And as it is the 14th of February we have a Valentine theme! So pack your red dresses and pink shirts, love is all around…

What do you mean when you’re talking about becoming an alumnus?
EYP The Netherlands selects various schools at the National Selection Conference to participate in international events. In the past, only these people could become alumni. This has changed! When you have participated in the National Selection Conference 2010 you automatically become an alumnus.

As an alumnus, you are recognised as a member of the European Youth Parliament. You are registered in our mailing list and receive regular updates about all kinds of events: sessions, parties, the EYP alumni weekend, etc. Not only about Dutch sessions, but also about session in other countries. For all these events you can sign up. For some, you have to selected to take part, for others you are free to participate. Usually you have to pay a participation fee when going as a delegate, but not if you go as an official. All these activities are on an individual basis.

EYP the Netherlands organises the Preliminary Rounds and the National Conference for which you can apply as well. EYP The Netherlands relies on alumni and their dedication to the organisation to organise sessions. We encourage all participants at the upcoming National Conference to become actively involved in our organisation to help EYP the Netherlands grow!

More information about Alumni Guidelines can be found here.