The Annual Meeting of YEE gets the Member Organisations together every year. It is one of the most important chances they have to reconnect with other members, to present their activities or their future projects. Also, the event enables all representatives to discuss the future of YEE and the delegates from full member organisations to vote for the approval of all the official documents and for the elections of the Executive Board.

This year, the YEE Annual Meeting was held between 15-17 August in a wonderful place called Baili Center, in Valmiera, Latvia. The hosting Member Organisation was Balta Daba. Throughout the meeting, we had plenty of work sessions, as well as team-building activities, energizers and evening events.

The first day started by getting to know each other with the help of name games and energizers. The work sessions included: introduction to YEE, presentation of annual reports and board reports, clearing of the board (the procedure through which board members are released from the responsibilities connected with their positions), the opening of nominations for the Executive Board and Internal Auditors and a first round of project planning, which was very successful, due to the significant number of projects and partnerships proposed by the working teams. The day ended with an NGO market that took the shape of a TV broadcasting. Each participant had the chance to be on the "NGO channel" and answer the questions of our reporters Anja and Mercedes or advertise their organisation during the "commercial breaks".

The second day was full of constructive discussions and voting procedures. The General Assembly tackled the following issues: YEE's Short-term strategies; YEE opportunities, rights and responsibilities in the shape of a quiz; rising membership fee; membership review, acceptance of new Member Organisations and change of the type of membership (from associate member to full member of the network); second session on project planning and presentation of all projects, which concluded with the voting on which projects should be included in the Working Plan 2015; the election of the Executive Board and Internal Auditors. In the evening, everybody brought their good mood and energy at the farewell party.

Last day started with discussing and voting the Working Plan 2015 and the Draft Budget 2015. The Annual Meeting concluded with a session on evaluation, which enabled each participant to share opinions, express gratitude or reflections from the last three days.

The Annual Meeting was successful not only because all activities and procedures took place accordingly, but also because of the openness and respect of all the people involved - organisers, hosts and participants. The sessions went on smoothly, the discussions were relevant and based on reasonable arguments and there were no conflicts or heated discussions within the General Assembly. What is more, YEE has a new Executive Board that consists of 5 members that have already worked together in the previous term and one new member, 9 projects proposed by the Member Organisations that were all included in the Working Plan, new inspiring Short-term strategies, as well as new friendships, a lot of international collaborations and so many memories from a green, rainy place in Latvia.