A Short Journey to go a Long Distance

AIESEC Recruitment is one of the most glamorous events of our NSU campus. It’s always been greatest, finest, toughest, hardest, and biggest of all types of recruitments of NSU student affairs. This time we badly needed the Recruitment because we were gradually falling behind from the National Direction. All of the other LCs did their recruitment 1 month before us. We supposed to have it earlier but due to some internal reasons we failed to organize it on time. Moreover, our National Leadership Development Seminar (NLDS) 2006 was approaching closely, so it became our tough time to organize AIESEC in NSU Recruitment 2006 before NLDS. Because, if we can’t organize it before NLDS; it will not be possible for us to take our new members in NLDS, which will result a great loss in member learning. So it became our primary job to do the recruitment before NLDS. Though other LCs had done it before, some of them faced great problem regarding student response. So we became so afraid about the situation. During the recruitment campaign, one question always peeped into our mind that, what will happen if we don’t get proper response? It became one of the most risky jobs we’ve ever done!

The Organizing Committee President (OCP) of this Recruitment was none other than our beloved Vice President People Development Nazia Haider, informally known as MUMMY. She and her legendary team simply changed the history! The theme of this recruitment was similar with the theme of NLDS 2006, and it was, “A Short Journey to go a Long Distance”. OCs and we (EBs) worked days and nights to make this recruitment successful. At last, God heared our plea! Surprisingly, it became the biggest recruitment of AIESEC Bangladesh’s history. It supposed to be a 3 days recruitment (23rd May 06 – 25th May 06), but all of the forms were taken away just in 2 days, nothing left for 25th May 06! We distributed 400+ application forms, out of them 320+ returned back. From those applicants, we invited 220+ candidates in Teams Day at 27th May 06. 200+ showed up there! It was the biggest Teams Day of AIESEC Bangladesh’s history. On 28th May 06 we arranged interview panels for the applicants who showed up in Teams Day. Since, we had to finish the interview process within one day; we arranged 4 separate interview panels in one big room at Sher Tower (SPZ), North South University. After taking their interview, all of us (EBs) stayed overnight at OCP’s house and started selecting potential AIESECers from those candidates. It was an amazing experience! Finally we selected 60 people as probationary members of AIESEC in NSU. We organized a parent’s meet for them at 29th May 06. Here we introduced AIESEC to their parents and convinced parents to give them a chance to participate in NLDS 06.

Finally, the long awaiting NLDS came at 31st May 06. Almost, 45 of our new members along with 4 of our SNs signed up for the NLDS! We never thought that we’ll go to NLDS with such a huge delegation. We became the highest delegation and the main attraction of NLDS. The venue was Proshika HRDC Trust at Koitta, Manikganj. NLDS 2003 and NLDS 2004 also held at that place. Though the place is well known as a haunted area, this time we did not find any ghost (Please read NPC 2006 published on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 for the Ghost Story). Probably ghosts became too afraid seeing such a huge delegation, and leave the area instantly for 4 days!

This time NLDS was too exciting. If I compare it with last NLDS in Sylhet, I’ll definitely say that AIESEC has totally changed. At last NLDS, LCEBs and members of different LCs used to argue and debate each-other at any time. Anyone, even a non-AIESECer could find the useless competition at that NLDS. This time, we completely changed the culture. We able to create such a culture, that everyone finds friendly environment at everywhere. This time there was no fake competition among us. We all became good friends.

My room-mates were Ahmed, Moin, and Nafees. We named our room Divisional Head Quarter, and it was the most active room of all other LCEB Rooms. Though, EB Track sessions were very interesting, we felt bored because we wanted to spend some more time with our new recruits. Food was much better compared to NPC 2006. Overnight parties were really interesting. Though this is the only AIESEC Conference where I did not get any date in the Prom Night. Actually none of the LCEBs except Nafees got any date! As a result we constructively embarrassed Nafees by making a new roll-call, based on the song “Bullshitt” (performed by our LCVPICXCorp Shehrina’s band: “Subconscious”). More than 8 LCEBs gathered in my room at that night and it took only 15 min to make the moves of that jive! After that, we performed it in front of all the people presented in the prom night. We declared that, this jive is dedicated towards our beloved betrayer friend Nafees. Nafees along with other people who got their date, felt too shy that they stopped dancing for 10 min! It was soo funny. We really don’t let anyone sleep at night ;-) We even didn’t let our MCP to sleep happily with dry cloths! We were well prepared to irritate everyone who might took attempt to sleep. Water gun loaded with shampoo water, shaving foam, tooth-paste etc. were our main weapons to prepare for the Raiding Campaign in mid-nights. It was truly awesome.

Obviously, we all feel too sad when we were returning back from the NLDS. But we (LCEBs) were too satisfied about one thing. Though, we (EBs) did not get NLDS bags, dates at Prom night, A/C at our rooms, and much more other stuffs but we get the biggest thing and it’s the LC Friendship, unfortunately which our predecessors failed to establish at their time. Now, all 4 LCs are united like anything. Our motto is, “United We Stand, Divided We Don’t Understand”.

After coming back from NLDS, we organized the first GBM of our term at the 8th June 2006. It was also the biggest and longest GBM of AIESEC Bangladesh’s history. More than 75 people were present at that day. We also finished our departmentalization. I got highest new members in my department. I had 2 old members in my dept. Now I’ve 22 members in total. It’s not the ending, it just the beginning. The journey has just begun. A Short Journey, to go a Long Distance!