From the Chairman: In with the New, In with the Old
It feels like our change GMM was just last week. It is weird then that, at the time of writing, I have been part of the Inter-Actief board for over three months. It’s safe to say that time has flown by, and while I have been enjoying every minute of my board year, there is enough for us still to do. We made promises at the GMM that we fully intend to keep, and with the chaos at the start of a board year slowly coming to an end, these months are the best time for us to make them come true.
This year, as you may or may not have heard at the end of the association song, we intend to “zoom out”. You may be wondering what exactly we mean by a phrase, which seems to have more to do with cameras than a policy plan. For us, zooming out is a great way to look at the association’s bigger picture. We want to look further than the multiple social activities that we are so known for. Part of this is placing more focus on serious and educational activities, but we also want to become a place more appealing to international students, master students and university staff.
Besides just looking at the bigger picture, we want to take a look at the physical image of the association, which makes “Zoom out” an even more fun play on words in my opinion. As you may have already seen, we have already started this by reconsidering the design of the Inter-Actief office. It is often pretty messy, but in my opinion, we have made it a lot more spacious and relaxed. Besides the office, we also want to give the beloved Inter-Actief site a fresh lick of paint, to keep up with the modern times!
This year already, we have had some fresh, new activities. This year, a sailing weekend was finally organised! Unfortunately, the weather was too bad to sail, but the participants had a fun weekend. We also held a board game evening in the Mbasement to introduce master students to each other and the association, which was low-key, but well-received. Seeing the participants’ enthusiasm for new activities is very rewarding, and motivating for our ideas for the rest of the year!
As you can see, as a board we are always so focused on new things that we can do. But thinking about my highlights of the year so far, lots of them have been old traditions that have returned post-COVID. We have seen the first Beagle in five years, the first Christmas dinner in three years and the Inter-Actief top 100 is finally physical again. Even looking forward, there is enough coming up that has taken its inspiration from pre-COVID times. The International Business Course is on track to take place again for the first time since 2019, and we are planning to do a promotional round past university staff like previous boards used to. To me, this just goes to show that not only new things can add value to a year, but renewing old ideas can be pretty cool too!
All in all, it has been a busy, but rewarding few months so far. I’ve had some awesome experiences and joined fun activities which perfectly summarize the identity of Inter-Actief. With all our plans and upcoming activities, I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us for the rest of the year!
About Oliver
22 years ago, Oliver was born in Sydney, Australia. At 5 years of age, he moved to Amsterdam, where he quickly learned Dutch and settled in.
Here, he developed an interest in mathematics and IT, so decided to start following the double degree in Applied Mathematics and Technical Computer Science at the University of Twente in 2018. Four years and one dropped AM degree later, he is now the chairman of Inter-Actief.
In his free time, you can mostly find him at Inter-Actief activities or with his fraternity BAGGER.