The first HUPE Zagorje meeting this school year was held at Secondary school Bedekovčina on 15^th November 2019. 

There were three workshops held as well as the short introduction to what is new at HUPE. The first one was a workshop held by Anita Jokić, a great fellow teacher and the new HUPE president.  Anita’s workshop titled Story of a friendship: Tom Jones and Elvis Presley was very inspiring and all of the tired teachers attending it on this rainy Friday afternoon were gladly singing (maybe a bit out of tune), joyfully laughing and working together on the numerous tasks. This workshop presented very interesting and fun activities that could be applied to any other subject matter, but we all felt that the choice of singers and music was great and many said that they would try it out in their classrooms.

 The second workshop was held by Sanja Rašković, from Global Lingua, an inspiring enthusiast full of great ideas. Sanja’s workshop The Magic of Storytelling was filled with useful activities on using the magic of storytelling in the classroom that made the members laugh and participate all the way through. 

The third presentation was held by our own colleague from HUPE Zagorje branch and the new HUPE vice-president Petra Blajić. Petra’s presentation 28^th IATEFL POLAND Conference in Gdansk – dissemination was a very welcomed compilation of useful activities, tips and tricks from the workshops and talks she had attended there. She gave us a handful of readymade and easy-to-use things, some of which we already use or have used in our classrooms, but this was a great way of revising and making a useful compilation.

This was also a great introduction to our next topic News in HUPE. Anita and Petra briefly explained to the members all the benefits that membership in HUPE offers them – such as the open call for workshop proposals for HUPE representative at the upcoming IATEFL Slovenia Conference in March (all expenses covered), or the opportunity to present your work at one of the Branch meetings or Annual Conference and many more. 

The energy at the meeting was such that when the meeting was finally over, waaaay into the evening, people were still chatting and drinking coffee, reluctant to leave.

HUPE Zagorje is thankful to our members and the speakers for coming. HUPE Zagorje will continue to inspire and hopefully become a bigger branch in the future.

If you wish to join us, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Gordana Bujanić Tretinjak
HUPE Zagorje Branch President