Call for Proposals/Recommendations/ Ideas - Manifesto making-of

Dear All,

Our Manifesto is like this pineapple - still on its way.....

This is an official Call for proposals, ideas, comments and recommendation about the GapLab Manifesto and the Youth Media Seminar Publication. And because it is official, it has a DEADLINE (!) and that is NEXT WEDNESDAY November 2nd. It is very important that we move swiftly and get it done with input from as many of you as possible - if not all. Please keep your contribution short, from two lines to half A4 page. Email your it to both nikkokoul@gmail.com and amigov@gmail.com (Nikko and Angel), Your hard-working editors.

Let me clarify once more: There are two separate things me and Angel have to work on: one is our Manifesto, the charter of our network. The other one is our contribution to the publication of the seminar - the one with the results of the seminar that the organisers are putting together! We could use our manifesto for the publication - slightly modified to include our comments on the issues of the seminar and the seminar itself.

Email your feedback first and foremost to me and angel, and secondly, you can post them on the blog for everyone to read and react - or be inspired!

The name EU-TOPIA was suggested by a colleague on the weblog : We can use it as the name of one of our forums. I have already included it in the blog's titel.
((If anyone knows how we can divide our blog into thematic categories please share the info. We need technical support. I still can't figure out how we can open folders for pix - or separate thematic folders for forums. ))

On a different but related note, I have already registered for the: Stakeholders’ Forum on Bridging the Gap : how to bring Europe and its citizens closer together?
Co-organised by the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Commission
At the building of the European Economic and Social Committee,
Rue Belliard 99, B-1040 Brussels
On 7-8 November 2005

If anyone else is interested and can afford coming to Brussels again, please join me - It would be great if all/more people could come. For questions contact Martin Westlake.

Keep well

Mind the Gap
nikko

Food for thought!!!

Hi everyone,

Angel and Nikos have introduced the great idea of having a proposals/comments/ideas page? Great idea guys and I now leave it in your laps to come up with the first topic so we can start!!!

I have come up with the name 'Food For Thought', if anyone has any objections, post now or forever hold your peace!!!

Lets have some feedback on this guys, input is greatly needed...

Thanks everyone,

John

These are the votes of the Copenhagen jury!!!

Well everyone,

Mette has got in contact with us and she is inviting everyone of us to Copenhagen...pls make sure that my room will have a jacuzzi!!! see you in two days and make sure the limo has cable TV!!!

Hey folks,
What a great idea with this blog - I will try to look at it often and I hope some of you post more pictures as I didn't bring a camera in Brussels.
Unfortunately I didn't see the The Europian Song Contest but I hope Helena won - it's a damn good dancenumber.
A HUGE pile of work was waiting for me on friday and is still waiting so it's going to be some time before I have time to write about EU.
And by the way if any of you ever come to Denmark my door is open and I have a spare room. You are all very welcome - just phone me when you're in Copenhagen.
Mette

(Well darling, thanks so much for the invite, but I will be staying with my girlfriend's parents in Valby at Christmas but it would be great to meet up with you anyway!!, John)

As for Eurovision, justice was served - WATERLOO!!!!

By the way, pls send me a pic of you so I can use for gaplab!!

Viktoria's slideshow

Hi all,

For all those wanting to check out the pics that Viktoria took in Brussels, just go to the link below...Thank you to the lovely lady from Budapest!!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=fwhvsf0.156h86u0&Uy=-pb1aex&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1

Keep posting people!!!

Felix Morley Journalism Competition

Hey everyone, John here...
Sergej got in contact and published this on one of the comment posts...Pretty interesting, thanx Sergej and keep cheering for Artmedia Bratislava!!!

In honor of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Felix Morley, the Institute for Humane Studies awards $5,000 in cash prizes to outstanding writers whose work best communicates an appreciation of the ideas of liberty.
The competition is open to young writers (25 years of age or younger as of December 1, 2005) and all full-time students.Articles published July 1, 2004 through December 1, 2005 are eligible for consideration. For more information or to apply online, please visit the contest website at www.TheIHS.org/morley.
Deadline: December 1, 2005

BRXL Pixxx

Pic by Viktória

Viktória sent me a pic so here it is!!! Enjoy

Some ideas!!

Hi everybody, John here once again!!

It has been a great start and already the posts are pouring in so we are going strong. I would like to get some feedback from all of you as to how we can keep maintaining the site so please, please, please keep emailing me. Also if anyone has a picture of all of us (give or take a couple of us not there, if you don't) please send them to me so that we can post them.
Eugenia mentioned to me something about posting news, that sounds great and I also had the idea about posting news articles about things happening in the EU and we could discuss them. Would that be OK with everyone??
Also it would be nice to hear from our good friend from Poland, Bogdan, who left the seminar early and perhaps didn't know that we would create this page. The same goes to the lovely lady from Istanbul, Aylin, who I also interviewed for my newspaper and of which I will publish on Gap Lab when it comes out!!
Also Sinisa, it is time to wake up so wakey, wakey!! And as for Sergej and Angel, get off the mic and onto the net!!
I would also like to hear from the folks (Margereta, Eva and co) from the Goethe-Institute so c'mon people wipe the dust off your keyboards and get typing!!!

John

AND ALREADY WE HAVE KICKED OFF!!

This is the email from Nicos to all of us..well done my boy!! (Nicos attached a word document with all our emails but I refrained from publishing it on Gap Lab in case some people didn't want their email address plasted on the net. However, if no one minds, then I will!!)

My unconventional conventionists,

It was strange the way it happened.One of those quirks of fate really. One of those moments when you seem irredeemably lost: you panic; you're trapped; your back's against the wall.
The information on the EU enterprise is just to much to take in!
The volume is just huge! There's no way out, and then suddenly, you get a break. All the pieces seem to fit into place. What a sucker you 've been.
What a fool. The answer was thereall the time. It took a small "accident" to make it happen. An accident! An accident, like the Youth Media Seminar on Active EU Citizenship! An accident that made us realize our power, unite into one team and build our network. To give the so-called Gap a good kick in the butt!


this is Niko Koulousios and I am still in Brussels.May I prefix this email by saying that the city is just not the same without you all!!

As promised, I am sending you the list with all our email addresses. Unfortunately, the PC i m working on does not have Office (believe it or not), therefore i cannot send you the Excel sheet with all our details, but you will receive that one asa i m back in Holland.

As you may have noticed, I have Cced this email to some of the people we have all met (and inspired by) at the seminar, such as Martin Westlake, David Monkcom, Lone Larsen etc., to keep them informed of (and involved in) our Bridge the Gap network-to-be.

In short, we have decided to take advantage of our coming together at the seminar, and create a network of young journalists aiming at a closer cooperation among us. All we have so far is our experience of the seminar, our enthusiasm and a list of email contacts. This is the basis upon which we aspire to fill the GAP between the EU and the real people, the "humans", the true heart of this hard-to-grasp Union.

To that direction we have unanimously decided to build a web space/weblog where we can bring everyone's voice together and communicate/share our ideas about our project. As you may remember, my Cypriot friend John Leonidou has agreed to set this weblog up and I am sure we will hear from him pretty soon. Myself and Anna (Sweden), Maria (Finland), John (Cyprus), Sergej (Slovakia), Sinisa (Slovenia) and Marie (Denmark) have come up with a name for this weblog - and that is GapLab. If there is anyone who does not agree with this name and has a more imaginative suggestion please feel free to send it to us and John of course.

Myself and Angel Igov will try to write our manifesto. At the same time, we have proposed to the organising committee of the seminar to let us speak our mind and heart about what we have experienced these 4 days in BRXL - and to include this in the publication that they will be preparing with the "results" of the Seminar. Therefore, we would like to ask you all to send us a few lines of what you think should be included in these two documents! Time is an important ally to this effort of ours so please send us ur thoughts asap. Angel and I will start writing the manifesto asap, maybe even before we receive everyone's ideas, but we will not publish it until we have also summarised, edited and included all of your contributions! Let me take this opportunity and say that this should be a collaborative work and no-one will assume himself/herself the leader in this. There is no hierarchy, no fixed posts and no personal ambition in this effort. It is all about equality and sharing of ideas...on equal and fair terms. We cannot do this otherwise- - - if we want to give the message to everyone (esp in the EU) about what democracy should really be about!

I would like to thank you all for these unforgettably special 4 days we spent in BRXL, and we hope to hear back from all of you asap.

Keep up the good work and... ... mind the GAP!!!

My warmest regards,

Niko Koulousios

Gap Lab has landed!!

Hi boys and girls,

It is here as promised and with everyone's input, I hope to keep on posting and enhancing the site as we go along so this is just the start...So make sure we all keep on posting!!

I would like to say once more that it was great meeting everyone so make sure that you all keep in touch. A special thanks should also go out to all the folks at the Goethe-Institut for bringing us all together.