Tong Lu

Tong is running for the post of Vice-President

****************TONG'S VISION IN WORDS*********************

Dear EuroAquaers,



Thanks for your attention to have a look at my words, as a candidate towards the vice president of CB of EAAA. I am a G5 student, thus have spent a meaningful year, thanks to the platform of EuroAquae which provides so much for us. This platform is built upon the effort of different parts, EU commission, our teachers and alumni. All my gratefulness to them would become the act of what I am doing now, to actively take the responsibility to get in contact and work inside EAAA.

I would like to work in the coordination board of EAAA, with my time and thoughts devoted, to gather and help both the current students and the alumni. I would regard this as meaningful and thus take my responsibility and try to make a warm community. My goal is to build a strong sense of belonging to EAAA for every EuroAquaer, within the short term of this expecting coordination board.

Thank you very much for casting a vote to me.



All the best to all,
Tong

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Hi everybody, please ask questions to Tong by clicking on post reply at this topic. Please note the voting starts on the 18th of October 2009. The voting will be done through this forum.

Hi I thought of starting to ask the questions to the candidates.

1. After the graduation, the people tend to get busier and busier, therefore I wonder how good your time management skills are as they will have to be of a good quality in order to combine work/studies/research, EAAA involvement and personal life?

2. Good time management skills are not enough, it is important to work as a team. Therefore how do you see yourself working in a team of 6 people or more (see the question number 4)?


3. During the last past two years, I saw that the willingness to be initiative plays a very important role. How initiative are you?

4. The number of the graduates of the EAAA is growing, and it is getting harder to manage the potential demands of the six generations (in two years there will be eight generations), therefore after a brief discussion among some of the members of the CB of EAAA, we decided that it would be good to create an Executive Committee which will comprise some 10 – 20 people, each of them having a certain responsibility such as updating a website, preparing the Star of the Month articles, checking and responding to the messages on the forum. The Constitution of the EAAA already has the provision of such an Executive Committee. The Constitution can be downloaded from here (opens a PDF file). What do you think of such an idea?

Thank you for your responses.

Kostya

Hi,

Please find my simples questions below:

1. Why do you want to serve as vice president and no others?

2. What personal or professional experiences or abilities distinguish you from others?

3. What specific actions or plans would you implement toward attracting more active members to the alumni? If you do have something in mind, will the plan fulfill students' needs through the programs? Why is that?

Thank you for your responses

Stanley

Thank you, Kostya, for your questions. First, I have to apologize for late reply due to a excursion these days.

Quote :

1. After the graduation, the people tend to get busier and busier, therefore I wonder how good your time management skills are as they will have to be of a good quality in order to combine work/studies/research, EAAA involvement and personal life?

I have been keeping a custom that I reply my emails the moment I open it, at least trying to keep it within one day. Busy life is usually meaningful. If I found myself having a schedule filled up with work, study and social activity, I would be happy and then arrange then according to the importance, as everyone would. Actually, the advantage of Eaaa is that we have a team working for the coordination board. Try to allocate appropriate tasks to each and the proper one is of more importance. To gather more and more active members to the core of EAAA is of the most importance, by which nobody in the board will feel pressure due to limited time.

Quote :

2. Good time management skills are not enough, it is important to work as a team. Therefore how do you see yourself working in a team of 6 people or more (see the question number 4)?

I will get contact to the team first and make sure the purpose of the tasks we will carry out and the possible procedures. The common purpose, more or less equals to the motivation of the team members. If possible, also make sure the possibility to whom it belongs. To make it clear and get instant contact to team members are always the best way to work in a team.

Quote :

3. During the last past two years, I saw that the willingness to be initiative plays a very important role. How initiative are you?

I am confident with my initiativeness and creativeness. EAAA does need more attraction to the outside. I will try my best to use more methods and hold more activities to keep an inner-connected community. The first thing I will do is to create everyone in EAAA a profile, with his/her current status and background.

Quote :

4. The number of the graduates of the EAAA is growing, and it is getting harder to manage the potential demands of the six generations (in two years there will be eight generations), therefore after a brief discussion among some of the members of the CB of EAAA, we decided that it would be good to create an Executive Committee which will comprise some 10 – 20 people, each of them having a certain responsibility such as updating a website, preparing the Star of the Month articles, checking and responding to the messages on the forum. The Constitution of the EAAA already has the provision of such an Executive Committee. The Constitution can be downloaded from here (opens a PDF file). What do you think of such an idea?

Personally, I would prefer each generation has at least one of the members to be presenting in the board. Some office work can be done by the 6-member team, however, some tasks needs all the generations to participate in. Personally, I believe the Executive Committee is necessary, but the members should not be designated or elected. Each member of EuroAquae can contribute something to the building of the association, and each year, some members are recommended by others to the Executive Committee, because of his active roll in the previous year or several month and continuous effort. It is better based on his contribution and also his willness, to be taken as a member in the core team.

Thank you Stanley for your questions. Sorry for late again.

Quote :

1. Why do you want to serve as vice president and no others?

Personally, I regard that the president position would be more fit for an alumnus who has working experiences, which is better for previous generations. I am now still studying in univ. and not able to provide career-related advices which is, obviously, the most concerned issue. Also, as for the other positions, I am not good at financial stuff thus not for treasurer, so finally, the secretary and vice president, which I regard as more or less the same, would be of my interest.

Quote :

2. What personal or professional experiences or abilities distinguish you from others?

This question is hard to answer, but it is a good one. I was thinking of what distinguish myself as unique, but found nearly nothing special. What I can rely on is exactly the collective efforts from all the alumni community. And only thus, I can keep on an open mind of different opinions from all parts. And only rely on more and more of all the members, I can be sucessful doing each prospective task. I am confident of myself because of I am confident with the whole EAAA.

Quote :

3. What specific actions or plans would you implement toward attracting more active members to the alumni? If you do have something in mind, will the plan fulfill students' needs through the programs? Why is that?

The first thing at hand I was thinking of, is to create a document with each EuroAquaer's profile,with his/her background and current status and location. That is a tiny facebook and of high importance for sure. Also, joint everyone on the facebook sounds nice too. These little tasks are more or less starting parts, which some surprise ideas would follow and welcome everyone to reveal it.

Thank you for your structured answers, Tong.

You are saying that the posts of vice-president and the secretary are more or less similar. Why you are only running for the post of a vice-president?

I liked your idea of distribution of the tasks among the EAAA community, however how you will be sure that these tasks are done regularly?

That is why there is an idea of having the Executive Commitee which will regularly meet with a member of the CB of EAAA. Also each member of the Executive Commitee will be allocated a certain task. And experience shows that it was hard to get people from outside of the CB of EAAA involved as perhaps they did not have a certain title (i.e. secretary of the CB of EAAA or a vice-president for example).

Also which opportunities for attracting funding to the EAAA do you see?

So far all the activities were sponsored from the pocket of the graduates taking part in these activities or from the Erasmus Mundus Alumni (EMA) association for those who took part in the activities of the EMA (participation in their promotion events and General assembly meetings).

Thank you in advance.

Thank you Kostya for further inqueries.

Quote :

You are saying that the posts of vice-president and the secretary are more or less similar. Why you are only running for the post of a vice-president?

Generally, vice president takes more reponsibility and thus would be expected more. The position I chose is based on the balance between challenge of the position and my time available.

Quote :

I liked your idea of distribution of the tasks among the EAAA community, however how you will be sure that these tasks are done regularly?

That is why there is an idea of having the Executive Commitee which will regularly meet with a member of the CB of EAAA. Also each member of the Executive Commitee will be allocated a certain task. And experience shows that it was hard to get people from outside of the CB of EAAA involved as perhaps they did not have a certain title (i.e. secretary of the CB of EAAA or a vice-president for example).

It is still in consideration how to attract attention and willingness from all alumni, but two rules will make sense. 1) EuroAquaers can have discussions on the technical issues within water research and industry, which will link more others and learn from each other. 2) EuroAquaers can build business entities among themselves with the facility of different background and nationalities.

Quote :

Also which opportunities for attracting funding to the EAAA do you see?

So far all the activities were sponsored from the pocket of the graduates taking part in these activities or from the Erasmus Mundus Alumni (EMA) association for those who took part in the activities of the EMA (participation in their promotion events and General assembly meetings).

As for the fund, I am not expecting too much from the outside, it is commonly recognized fund is always a tough issue. The treasurer stated the same and everybody is well regonized as well. A suggestion is that we can publicize a account, and receive fund from donation from alumni. And accordingly make the budget known to alumni. The donation shall be recorded with names. I am expecting this account would receive fund when we have about 10 generations, when the first several generations have more economic availablities.

Hi Tong.

I do believe that you are capable of being a vice-president.You are active,smart,diligent.You will benifit the EAAA.
Wish you good luck!

Support you....

Mi

miwu wrote:

Hi Tong.

I do believe that you are capable of being a vice-president.You are active,smart,diligent.You will benifit the EAAA.
Wish you good luck!

Support you....

Mi

Mi, thank you, you are also doing awesome. Wish you good luck too.

Tong