The plan was to dedicate the entire Saturday afternoon to the Assembly, so we “warmed up” in the morning with an Inclusion session, which later became our inside joke for the whole weekend. In this session, we discussed where we encounter inclusion—and especially exclusion, meaning the exclusion of certain groups from society—and how often we may contribute to it ourselves. After that, the Board presentation began, and only me and another volunteer, Štěpánka, attended as observers, since the rest of the participants were voting members.

The director, Flady, opened with information and an overview of how the organisation had performed in previous years, what went well and what did not, both from a financial and organisational perspective. We discussed how many outbound students went abroad, how many inbound students arrived, what changes occurred in the office, who left, and who joined the team. A key part of the Assembly is voting, which allows members to influence many important decisions. A Board member could probably explain it in more detail, but for me it was a great insight into the inner workings of the organisation and how YFU is actually doing—something I don’t usually get access to as a regular volunteer.

Thanks to attending in Kolín, I also saw how YFU has evolved in terms of marketing, such as their focus on SEO content, which improves the visibility of the YFU website on Google and other platforms. Many other topics were discussed as well. I saw who sits on the Board, how many students are planning to go abroad this year, and what the plans are for the future.

At the end of the evening, the Novice and Volunteer of the Year 2025 awards were announced. Congratulations to Lucka Bohdanecký for a well-deserved win as Novice of the Year, and I myself (sorry, that sounds a bit awkward) received the Volunteer of the Year award (even though the mug says “Volunteer” in a not-so-inclusive form ☺).

I would like to encourage volunteers to join next year and for more of us to attend, because I believe it is incredibly valuable to see what is actually happening within YFU, especially at Board level. Even if we mainly attend seminars, it is still important to care about who is making decisions about the future of this amazing organisation.

Many thanks to Honza Zemánek for organising the event and for the great atmosphere with everyone who took part in the seminar.

Volunteer Petra