Contract Fair

I am not the Contract Fairy. But I think I’m OK at being a NEO (National Officer on Professional Exchanges).

Today (or rather August 6, but internet issues have prevented me from uploading this blog post until today) was the Contract Fair at the 2015 IFMSA August Meeting. Briefly, it’s a ludicrously short event in a room that is laughably too small at which the signing of too many contracts takes place between roughly a hundred different National Member Organizations (NMOs, or basically “countries” in IFMSA terms). This was the most important day for me at the August Meeting. You could almost say it was the only reason for me to be here in Macedonia (I say almost because I do have many other things to do here; this is just the most tangible result of my presence at the AM).

I had been preparing for it since the end of June, as I’ve mentioned in my previous blog post. I had been sending emails left and right with offers and replies to other NEOs. Just last night I sealed the deal on the final contract agreements. Finally, this morning, I walked into the plenary room with all of my pre-stamped, pre-signed contracts, my stamp, my promotional Québécois attire and my trusty assistant, Anne-Lou McNeil.

Soon as 10 am hit, we started hunting for the other NEOs in the room to officialise what we had agreed upon in the emails. It was a frenzy of stamping and signing and last minute negotiating and running back and forth across the room. It was an incredible experience unlike anything I’ve ever seen or done before, and I absolutely loved it. I was able to sign more spots for Québec students than I had hoped for, and most importantly more spots with NMOs that our students really want (i.e. Switzerland). I also established new relationships with several NMOs we had never signed with.

All in all, I think it was a resounding success. There are still a few contracts I have left to sign, but I’ll leave that for tomorrow and Saturday.

I think that’ll be all for today. There is so much to do and so little time to actually do it.

Cheers, from the hectic August Meeting 2015,

Mike

P.S.: The AM seems to be even more busy and sleepless and hectic than I thought it would be. In fact, during plenary today, the president kindly asked ‘’Would someone wake IFMSA-Jordan please’’ while there was a vote taking place. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world right now.