Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

It is expected that the more active and bigger entities would have more BoE members.Warsaw has had nine BoE years, Utrecht and Tartu both seven, Amsterdam fourand Lisbon, Porto and Ljubljana each had three BoE members. The map also showswhich entities organised an Annual Congress. Annual Congresses have mainly beenorganised by entities that played a main role in the network In three cases we couldnot find the evidence that a representative of the Annual Congress also had a placein the BoE.Communication and the start of new entitiesIn 25 of the 36 answered questionnaires it was stated that mouth-to-mouth contacthas been the way in which people got to know EGEA. Often several communicationchannels played a role before an entity became into existence. Ten entities came intoexistence because they received a letter or e-mail or were surfing the internet. In twocases surfing the Internet was the only source to start an entity.Ten entities started because of students studying abroad, in eight of these cases itwas a student, studying in an ‘EGEA city.’ In two cases a student from an ‘EGEAcity’ managed to start an EGEA entity at their host university. Eight of the entitieshave been set up because the initiator(s) has heard from EGEA on a geographicalcongress, field trip or excursion. In two cases it was a professor who has heard aboutEGEA and told the students about it.In the EGEA history numerous letters and e-mails has been sent to geographydepartments all over Europe. These letters, together with the people that met at ageographer’s congress in Leon, were the reasons why EGEA already had 24 entitiespresent at the first congress. Some entities in particular have been successful ininspiring other entities. Fifteen entities answered that EGEA Utrecht has played arole in their founding, EGEA Ljubljana was named four times and Warsaw twice.The number of entities started with help from Utrecht may be coloured because theseentities might have been more willing to answer the questionnaire.Geographical proximity and language play a role in the expansion of the network.Some examples are Mytilene that helped Thessaloniki and the new entity Athenswith their founding, Utrecht has been active to start entities in Belgium, Ljubljanawas responsible for the start of Zagreb and Koper, Saint Petersburg helped Moscow,and Valencia is making efforts to start entities in Spain.ConclusionThe EGEA network started overwhelmingly. Enthusiastic people have beencontacting geographical faculties on a large scale to join in their newly createdstudent network. In a short time a vast network, spread all over Europe, was created.The cold war division of Europe was already bridged before the downfall of theCommunist regimes.The EGEA network is very dynamic, with many entities appearing, disappearingand sometimes being reactivated again. When analysing the countries present atAnnual Congresses we see that The Netherlands, Germany and Poland are thecore of the EGEA network. Looking to the BoE members Warsaw, Tartu, Utrecht,200