From Friday 11th to Sunday 13th March 2023, the member organisations (MOs) of DBYN came together in Sliema, Malta for their Annual General Executive Body (G.E.B) meeting.
13 representatives from as many countries attended the meeting hosted by our Maltese member organisation SPYS (Salesian Pastoral Youth Service). The first day was an opportunity to get to know any new representatives and for the more experienced members to re-connect with each other. We also took the time to present the member organisations and to ask ourselves questions to go deeper in our work and to know the other MOs better.
The group were then given the opportunity to visit St Patrick’s Salesian School & Residential care in the late morning, and then visit Valetta in the afternoon with several stops to get to know the work of SPYS and the Salesians in and around Malta (Friends of Don Bosco & Past pupils, YES – Youths Engaged in Senglea, the oratories, SPYS).
On the Saturday, the work of the G.E.B began. The body met to look ahead to the activities that were scheduled in 2023, and to hear about the activities of each member organisation present. It was also an opportunity to look at the state of affairs of the network.
We were also introduced to the newest staff member to DBYN, Begoña Ros Gras. Begoña is joining DBYN as Project Coordinator and Fundraising officer and has been volunteering for DBYN as an international representative since 2019.
Once we had concluded the business of the network, SPYS took us over to Dingli to see the sunset from the Dingli cliffs before visiting Savio college and sharing a nice meal with Maltese specialities.
During the next G.E.B meeting in October, the elections for the presidency and the board will take place and we will also continue working together in the network to offer opportunities to young people.
Our stay in Malta was appreciated by all representatives and we have been able to get even more connected to each other than before. We would like to thank the whole hosting team for the preparation of the meeting and their warm welcoming.

Don Bosco Youth-Net was created in 2001 to offer educational opportunities for Don Bosco youth in the growing EU. But Europe and its young people have changed strongly since then. In order to address these changes, DBYN organise a strategic network meeting 16-19 March 2017 at the Salesianum in Munich.
 
During the first day of work, representatives of member organisations were divided over 4 thematic working groups: Participation & Impact, Education, Representation and Spirituality. The working groups focused on bringing a new clarity on the needs of our member organisations and its youth. The outcomes fed into the annual meeting of DBYN’s General Executive Body. This is the main statutory meeting of the network, which apart from adopting the annual reports, started the development of a new strategic plan for 2018-2020 and a new work plan for the coming year.
 
DBYN also elected a new leadership. The network voted Aktionszentrum Benediktbeuern from Germany, Salesians of Austria, SPYS Malta and The Salesian Youth ministry office of Great-Britain as new members for the Administrative Body. They are responsible for the operational follow-up of the network. Fonny Grootjans was elected as a new president, who is taking over the presidency of Francesco Bagiolini.

​13 to 16 October DBYN held a network meeting in Turin. Our hosts of Turismo Giovanile Sociale arranged accommodation at SERMIG  - Arsenale della Pace, close to Valdocco. The focus of the meeting was initiating a strategic reform process, which will run through the year 2017. The main aim is to bring DBYN close to the needs of current generation of young Europeans. We could also welcome Lithuanian and Albanian guests from the Don Bosco centres in Vilnius and Skhoder. They could experience how the governance of our network works, get to know the different member organisations and reflect on possible future cooperation.

After almost 8 years, DBYN is soon to release its new website. The previous website was developed in a time when social networking and other web 2.0 applications were in full development. In this time we worked together with a Belgian youth work organisation, specialised in web development for the youth work sector. We were ambitious, integrating many web 2.0 applications allowing us to make simple mash-ups and personalized mailing lists. However, we were surpassed by the rapid development of the internet itself. Many of the functionalities of our website, were soon taken over by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google apps.

Since 2012 DBYN started to develop dedicated project websites.  First with web-application EDICY, but when this European platform changed their business plan, we moved to the WEEBLY platform. After a few years of experience with project websites, we decided to transfer also our homepage to this platform.