The Eurodesk Executive Committee met with representatives of Unit B3 “Youth policy, Outreach and DiscoverEU” to discuss the cooperation between Eurodesk and the Commission, the impact of the inflation on the network and the possibilities and needs of long-term increase of financing of youth information services/activities at European and national level. EEC members stressed the importance of Eurodesk, in particular its local outreach through the multipliers who are in daily contact with young people, especially those with fewer opportunities. As a step towards continuing negotiations with the EC, Eurodesk will provide data and necessary informationto sustain its contribution to make the programmes more inclusive as part of the mid-term review of the EU Youth Strategy coming up in Spring 2023. This is a vital means to move forward the partnership of Eurodesk with the EC regarding Eurodesk’s local and national work.

The EEC shared ideas on the way it will operate and the priorities to be followed, including working as a team to make Eurodesk more visible and relevant to its members and target groups, with a strong community dimension. The EEC will follow and give flesh to the Eurodesk priorities set for 2022-2027 - inclusion, sustainability, digital outreach and participation. EEC members will follow the various working groups and support EBL in its representation towards EU and international institutions.

EBL is looking for a structuring element to bring coherence to its visual communication (logo, font, visual elements, etc.) and brand persona. As the branding process is blocking several projects, EBL proposed to focus on a new set of colours and start testing them in different projects. EEC recommended a progressive implementation of the new branding, especially if there is a logo change. A timeline will be provided by EBL once it has a concrete solution to propose. The new branding is being prepared for the Network Meeting in Tbilisi. 

The European Commission has contracted ICF Next on the integration of EYY elements into the EYP (ex. pool of young journalists, activity map) and will consult the EYP Advisory Group on this. EEC recommended that EBL and NCs use this opportunity to push for improvements of the EYP, with more interactive features. As of 2023, an EEC member will actively participate in the Advisory Board.

Eurodesk joined the YIminds project (KA2, Erasmus+) led by Eryica on mental health as an associate partner. EBL will more particularly support the survey on the needs of youth information workers and the guide to be developed for them. EEC stressed the need to provide resources to the network not only on supporting young people’s mental health but also their own. It also recommended that EBL posts one post related to mental health per month as part of an ongoing campaign to support the importance of well being. In addition, this topic should also be covered as part of the inclusion guidelines prepared by EBL and the Inclusion working group. 

EBL presented the survey of the TTM campaign 2022 evaluation (12 countries participated) and the statistics. 

Duration of the TTM campaign - The piloting of a 3-months campaign was not successful enough to be continued. It was very difficult to manage for EBL (eg. delays with releasing tools in time), and it was confusing for multipliers. In addition, the countries who requested such a change did not organise events or managed to organise a very small number of events. The EEC supported the proposal to move back to a 1-month campaign in October as the best possible solution. 

Social media competition - EEC recommended focusing on 1 competition instead of 2 and to focus on the Design competition, as more powerful and based on peer to peer information. In addition to the main design competition, the EBL could also run mini-competitions each week during the TTM month. The NCs should be able to vote on all entries, including those who won the public vote in order to select the ones they prefer as visuals for the next competition. This should be clearly explained to NCs to encourage them to vote.

Join European initiative - EBL is working on a giant board game for the TTM23. The EEC invited EBL to investigate the idea of a TTM European Treasure Hunt, based on the experience of Croatia, that could take place on the same day all around Europe. In addition, EBL will organise a webinar promoting KA2 cooperation projects in the context of TTM to the multipliers, during which such ideas could emerge. EBL is exploring ways to plan new game developments/designs yearly so that the NCs could budget co-financing grants in their work plans.