For the Dutch version, click here. As Treasurer, you are responsible for the financial affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance. In addition, you coordinate the Activities, Sports, Lustrum and Investment Night committees. In this article, I describe my experiences as Treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance and why I chose it. Why did I choose a board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance? After spending my first semester just studying, I wanted to do something in addition to my studies. In the second semester, I decided to do a committee at Asset | IB&M because I thought it would be really fun to organize something with other students and get to know a new set of people. After a year there, I went to Asset | Accounting & Finance, because I already knew I wanted to go in one of those two directions, and because I already knew a few people there. I had a great time here for a year and a half doing committees when I finished my bachelor’s degree. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend a full gap year doing something completely different from studying, and after Corona I did need a fun year. During this year I can also focus on what I want to do later and have the chance to get in touch with all kinds of companies. What are you actually doing all day? Treasurer is a pretty internal job, which means that most people don’t see the immediate results of what you spend all day doing. One of the main tasks is creating and keeping track of the budget. You do this right at the beginning of the year and in doing so, you set a lot for the rest of the year. This budget is constantly updated, so you know whether there is still room for a spontaneous drink or a beer bike, for example. You are also responsible for the general bookkeeping of A&F, which you keep up to date. I do this with our accounting program Twinfield. Especially at the beginning of the year I regularly had to call my predecessor to get me through the maze. But soon I had learned this. Everything costs money, so you also know a lot about what is going on within the association. Besides the financial part, you are also the coordinator of A&F’s four most fun committees: The Activities, Sports, Investment Night and Lustrum Committee. Throughout the week, you’ll be busy putting on all kinds of events with these committees. From the Meals on Wheels, to the Mario Kart Tournament, to a fat symposium. The many informal committees are also a nice contrast to the fairly formal work you do on a daily basis as Treasurer. Together, it’s a super fun combination to fill the week! It is a unique experience that you can experience in very few places. Once a quarter the cash control takes place. Then the treasurers of the last three years come together to review my accounts and give advice for the coming period. Then I can ask all the questions I have. It’s also fun to compare what everyone ran into in their year and what is still the same now or what is going differently. In addition, A&F is part of Asset Tilburg, so we work together a lot. This year I am the vice treasurer of all of Asset, which means that I am involved a lot in the financial decisions of the association. Every week we also meet with all the treasurers of the departments to discuss matters within Asset. Of course, it is also nice to catch up with the other treasurers once a week. What are the highlights so far of your board year? It’s hard to pinpoint one moment because so many different things happen in a year like this. Some of the best are the first activity with the members, which this year was the Activities Committee’s Meals on Wheels. The Department Members Meeting was also a special moment, because that’s when you reflect on the past six months and also say goodbye to the Winter Enlightenment. But even smaller moments are still fun to think back on, such as when the Investment Night Committee brought in its first speaker, and the announcement of the new Winter Board. The year is really made up of an awful lot of little moments that together make it a wonderful year! Would you recommend a board year to anyone else? Absolutely!!! It is a unique experience that you can experience in very few places. You basically run a small company with five other people while still being a student. You have a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of freedom to set up this year and organize fun events and activities. Because of the combination of the formal and informal activities, you actually never get bored. You also get to know many new people from other associations and experience many fun things. Of course, you’ll also be at plenty of get-togethers and parties to fill your evenings. All in all, it’s a fantastic experience and definitely worth doing. I’ve never doubted my choice to apply. You get the chance to meet lots of people, experience fat things and still be able to catch plenty of parties. All while still being a student. I can only recommend this year.
A board year as External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Thomas Mols
For Dutch, click here. Who am I? I am Thomas Mols, 22 years old and from Tilburg. A year ago I became active at Asset | Accounting & Finance in my third year of the bachelor International Business Administration. After six months of doing committee work for the Finance Expedition, I became more familiar with A&F. I participated in almost every activity, getting to know a lot of people and making great memories. Besides studying and A&F, I spent my free time in the gym and mostly among other people. Why did I choose the function external? In the third year of my bachelor’s degree, the corona measures got lessened and I felt working life was already approaching. I had the urge to get more out of my college days so I joined A&F. By joining events often, I quickly got to know the association. I always ruled out a board year because I would have to take a break from studying. After a good conversation with some of the board members, I finally saw the value of a board year and decided to apply. What interested me most was the practical work a board member does. After several years of working in theoretical subjects only, I needed a change. In addition, I was unsure of which master’s degree I wanted to pursue, and I thought it would be useful to get a better idea of the possibilities offered by different masters during the year. The external affairs position specifically attracted me the most because you have contact with many companies and can get an inside look at everything. At the same time, I believed I could learn the most with this position. What does it deliver? The most important thing is that you are one board together. Within the board, everyone has a function with delineated responsibilities, so everyone looks at situations with their own perspective and gives their input from there. Decisions are often made together. During a board year you learn to work together very well. Not only within A&F, but also together with the other Asset departments as you will engage in consultation or discussion. You will learn how to identify interests, work and perform under pressure and how to present your opinion or strategy. In addition to the role within the board and within A&F, as external affairs you have a major role towards the outside world. You translate the wishes of companies into the opportunities the association can offer. How you want to position the association as a board is translated by the external to companies and students in the contact you have on a daily basis. So during the board year you learn to communicate in a changing context. By being in contact with so many people, both students and business people, you’re bound to build a huge network. A very useful extra for the future! What do I do as an external? As winter external affairs, you start up the Financial Business Dinner and Finance Expedition committees at the beginning of your year. You make sure the committee members know what their tasks are and guide them through the rest of the year in the work they do. In addition, you are responsible for all social media channels. This means you will help shape the policies that are written by the board during the summer. In the summer, you also help write this policy. In any case, with social media you focus on increasing the reach of the channels. During the year you will occasionally help organize other events and activities. These activities ensure the development you go through in collaborating and communicating. An important task that you perform at different times during the year is doing acquisition for collaborations with companies. The challenge in this is that you have different ways of entering into a conversation. The trick is to get a grip on the interests of the other party, to understand the context and to respond appropriately. As I mentioned earlier, you are also part of a board. You sometimes take over tasks from each other and jump in where necessary. In addition to managing your own department, you form “task forces” with other directors who take on tasks together. These range from organizing Master Experience Days to coming up with new Asset Member Card deals. In organizing events and the regular tasks you have, you don’t have unlimited time. Therefore, it is important that you prioritize and work efficiently. Because of the range of tasks you have, you will learn responsibility and develop time management skills. Conclusion All in all, a board year is a great opportunity to develop yourself and gradually make some amazing memories along the way. And to top it all off you get to help build the greatest study association that Tilburg has to offer!
A board year as Vice-Chairman of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Jonas van Voorst
For the Dutch version, click here. Who am I? I am Jonas van Voorst, 21 years old and come from beautiful Den Bosch. In February 2020 I started living in my room and I really like it. I am now in the third year of the bachelor International Business Administration, and am taking a number of courses in preparation for the MSc. Economics. Before my board year, I was convinced to follow the Accountancy master, but since I started, I am more oriented and have gained a strong interest in Economics. Furthermore, I started within A&F with the Activities Committee a year ago, I really enjoyed it and therefore decided to do a board year. My choice to do a board year. The choice for a year on the board was actually made pretty quickly. I was not very convinced about my choice to do a master’s degree yet, and because of corona my student life had been put on pause for a while, so I wanted to extend it. When Joep called me if I was interested in applying, I figured this was a good opportunity to discover where my interests lay, and thus extend my student life. Furthermore, I noticed that I was very chaotic in my studies. A year on the board has given me a fixed rhythm and a much more organised way of working. For example, I have an agenda where I put my appointments and a notebook where I keep track of my tasks. Among other things, these are important soft skills that you develop during your board year. I also wanted to develop myself socially, for this reason I also joined A&F. As a board member, I work with 6 people every day, and you speak to a lot of people within A&F and Asset, so you learn to deal with many different types of people. In addition, my resume was very empty, and I thought a board year was a very good way to change that. Of course I also do it for fun, besides the tasks I have, I regularly do fun things with my board in the rooms or at someone’s house, because of this I have a good bond that will continue after my board year. I also attend almost every party, and have regular get-togethers with other boards, through which I have also made many friends! What a Vice-Chairman does all day long The to-do list of a Vice-Chairman is very vague, which is why I often get asked by friends if I do anything all day besides being hungover and playing a game of Mario Kart. As Vice-Chairman, I am responsible for several things. Since I’m in the rooms almost all day, I have a good sense of what’s going on, and here I occasionally talk about it with the chairman, Luc. I also take over the chairman’s duties when he is not here. I also still have my own duties. I am responsible for the internal policy of A&F. This includes filling the committees, informal promotion and I am also responsible for the active and passive members. I arrange the study support in the form of guidelines, CoEE and various trainings. Furthermore, I organise the introduction activities for the Master of Accountancy and Finance, board trainings, the Citytrip Replacement Activity and the Audit Activity together with our secretary, Lars van Maris. Finally, within A&F I also make sure that the website is up to date. Think of events, news, partner pages. This is another side to being informal so I find that a very nice change. Within Asset Tilburg, I also have plenty of duties. I sit on four Asset bodies: the Public Relations meeting, the Webmaster meeting, the BE cluster and the Study Support meeting. The Public Relations meeting is a weekly meeting with the Vice-Chairmans of each department. Together we organise, among other things, all informal activities from Asset Tilburg. Think of the Kick-Off party or the Pre-Carnival party. We are also responsible for most of the promotion of Asset Tilburg. I am responsible for the budget of the promotion and activities. I also attend the Webmaster meeting with every Asset board member who manages the website of his/her own department. Together we manage the website of Asset Tilburg, we are also busy redesigning the site. I also join the BE cluster every Thursday. Together with S&L, SBIT and Marketing we are responsible for the committees and activities for first- and second-year Business Economics students. I coordinate two committees: the Date Dinner Committee and the Accounting Insight Committee. Starting next year, the Vice-Chairman is also going to coordinate the Citytrip Committee, but unfortunately it will not happen this year. What is the most enjoyable aspect of the Vice-Chairman position? I really like different aspects of the Vice-Chairman position. When I applied, I knew that the Vice-Chairman position appealed to me by far the most of the positions. I regularly saw what my predecessor, Joep, was doing and this excited me. What I like most is that through the conversations with active members you get a picture of each member, and for the active members you are also a point of contact, so at activities you are quickly addressed and you quickly get to know everyone. This contact is not only a lot of fun, but also educational because you get to interact with different types of people Would I recommend a board year? I would definitely recommend a board year! It is a great consideration, so don’t be afraid to talk to a current board member. This can be very helpful if you run into something or want a new insight. Ultimately, a board year is an investment in yourself that you are going to benefit from for a long time to come through your development and connections, and beyond that you are going to be able to look back on this with a lot of joy!
A board year as Treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Lotte Schipperheijn
My name is Lotte Schipperheijn, I’m 20 years old, and this year I am the treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance. I started studying Business Economics in 2019 and actually started at Asset at about the same time. After doing committees for two years and already seeing a lot of board life, I finally decided to take the plunge. In this article I want to take you through my experiences in my year so far. As treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance, a lot of responsibility falls on you right at the start of your year. The budget preparation, which you do at the beginning of your year, is already one of the most important things of your year, since you base all your expenses and revenues on it. You do this together with your predecessor, who can outline the expectations better. Even though you do it together, it is still your budget and you are ultimately responsible. It’s super cool to be able to give your own interpretation of this. In your first few weeks and months, the actual accounting of the association will also really be your biggest focus. Figuring out the accounting program Twinfield and getting to know the accounts takes a while for every treasurer, and so it did for me. Fortunately, this went quite well for me and I was soon declared the expert in Basecone, the program in which we process invoices. So when the time finally came for my first kascontrole commissie”, or KasCo, I had a lot of work to do. My KasCo consists of the three previous treasurers. They check my accounts every quarter and help me with any accounting problems I encounter. The KasCo’s are a great guide for me as treasurer; every quarter you work towards this. This is also one of the most fun things as treasurer as far as I’m concerned. Everything you have been working on during the past quarter comes together here and what a relief it is every time when everything is in order and you can wrap everything up again. “This is one of the hardest things to pass on to your successor, so it is really up to you to find your own way in this.” Six months in, I have got the hang of accounting and it has become much less of a part of my daily work. In addition to your function-specific tasks, you are also assigned some general board tasks and committees. In my opinion you get the most fun committees as Treasurer! Normally, the CityTrip committee, the Activities committee and the Investment Night committee are under my coordination. It’s super fun to take a seat on a committee in a different way for a change. The coordination of a committee requires that you dare to give things away and that you can set boundaries in your tasks, but also intervene when it is really necessary. This is one of the hardest things to pass on to your successor, so it is really up to you to find your own way in this. You really learn a lot about yourself from this, but also about working with other people. With the changeover in the winter, there were of course more tasks that had to be picked up than usual. For Nina, Lotte and I, this was a kind of new beginning. You are suddenly the seniors of the board and now you can’t fall back on anyone else. You’re the person who’s been working for six months and therefore should know everything. As it turned out, I knew most things! With this switch, a large part of the realization came to me about what I had learned in recent times. I notice in myself that during discussions in the Faculty Wide Organs (FWO) and the board meetings I can form and convey my opinion better, because I now have a much better understanding of what it is really about. You can already tell that it is fun to pass on to the new board members, what A&F stands for and how we have been trying to portray all along. I am already looking forward to handing over my baton to the new treasurer and teaching him/her the finest tricks of the trade. I hope to give my successor just as enjoyable and instructive a year as I have had. The big task for me is of course to train my successor as the master of Basecone. That is ultimately the reason for me to do a board year. Learning as much as possible, combined with as much fun as possible. In an informal atmosphere full of students, there is room for some nonsense and jokes, but miraculously, there is also much to learn. This is not only about the association, but especially about your own working methods and your own way of communicating. Looking back, a year on the board has really been the best choice for me and an experience never to forget! Does this appeal to you and do you want to know more about my experience? Or do you have any other practical questions about a year on the board? Feel free to contact me or drop by room E1.07!
A board year as Secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Renate de Vries
For the Dutch version, click here As secretary I am responsible for taking minutes at meetings, the in- and outgoing communication of the association and the annual planning. In addition, I have organized the Audit Activity and I coordinate the committees Accounting Insight and Faces Online.In this article I tell you how I experienced my year as secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance so far, which challenges I still see for my last months and why I made the decision to do a board year last year! Who am I? I am Renate de Vries and I am 21 years old. I was born in Hoek van Holland (Province Zuid-Holland) and after obtaining my VWO diploma I moved to Tilburg. I wanted to live on my own and chose to study further away from home. Besides my year at Asset, I am the treasurer of my dispute Keiretsu and when I have some spare time, I can be found at Keiretsu or at Vidar. My choice for Asset | Accounting & Finance In my first year of my Bachelor Business Economics I became active at Vidar. I liked this very much, but I wanted to orientate further within my education. During the TOP-Week I came into contact with Asset | Accounting & Finance, where I started as secretary of the Activities Committee. I immediately liked the atmosphere within A&F and felt I had found my place. The reason I finally decided to dedicate myself for a year as a secretary When I started my studies, I already had my plan ready; I wanted to complete my bachelor in three years and then do a master. I had already been delayed by a year, so I thought it was time to do my studies fast. When Corona showed up in March last year and completely changed our lives, I started to doubt this. I wanted to study for an extra year, but I didn’t know yet how I would spend my extra year of study. A year on the board was certainly not the first thing that came to mind, but after a few conversations with (former) board members, I became more and more enthusiastic. In the end, I decided that I wanted to take on this challenge and I have not regretted it for a second! “What do you do as secretary of the board and why are you always so busy”? This is a question I often hear, especially from my friends. I must confess that I find it quite difficult to answer this question. I have many different tasks and my weeks do not look the same Of course, I have a few fixed tasks, such as taking minutes at the board meeting every Monday morning, posting an article on Faces Online and the weekly meetings with the committees I coordinate, but the rest of my week is mostly made up of smaller tasks. Fortunately, we don’t just sit in the office all day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., but the six of us also do many fun things, such as our activities with the members, dating with other departments or just having a nice lunch. “So what kind of ‘smaller’ tasks do you have?” Something I also often hear is that a secretary only sits in front of the computer taking notes all day. This is certainly not the case. I am responsible for all mailings that are sent out from A&F. These are the monthly mailings, but also mailings for companies. This involves a lot more work, especially creativity to make the mailings look neat, tidy and attractive to students. Besides that, not only Myron is working a lot with Indesign in our board, but I also do a lot of promotion for Accounting Insight together with Odile, a committee member of Accounting Insight. At the moment, I spend quite a lot of time on this, but after many frustrations, I think I’ve mastered Indesign! Accounting Insight is also getting closer and closer, so we have a lot of meetings and I spend at least a couple of hours every week on these. “I really wouldn’t want to miss this and definitely I don’t regret my choice.” Besides Accounting Insight, I am also the coordinator of Faces Online. Every Wednesday, I prepare the article and post it on the website. After this, I make a Facebook and LinkedIn post announcing that the article is online, to make sure it gets read as much as possible. At the beginning of my management year, I was often busy with this all Wednesday, but nowadays it takes much less time. Organising an active members lunch is also part of my duties from time to time. I write the Member of the Month pieces and of course I help my fellow board members when necessary. This is just a small selection of the tasks I have, but I will never be bored, that’s for sure. “What moments will you never forget from your board year?” The first moment I will never forget is when I was shown which two other board members I would be working with for a year. This is what we call your foundation. I started together with Myron and Joep, so I have built a very good relationship with them. At the moment of writing this article, the three of us are busy organising the board weekend, one of the other highlights of my board year. With nine people we go on a transfer weekend to get to know the new generation better. I will also never forget the active members weekend. I was also in the activities committee last semester, so I had the honour of organising this weekend together with my committee. We had many setbacks and as with every activity in that period, we had to work out three several scenarios, but despite all the corona rules, I think we always went for it 100% and wanted to get the
A board year as External Affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Myron Boere
For the Dutch version, click here Who am I? My name is Myron Boere and I am 23 years old. I am from Benschop, a small village in the province of Utrecht. Last year in December I received my Bachelor degree in Business Economics and in September I started with the Master Accountancy (zachte knip). I am now living in Tilburg for 4 years and since 2 years active at Asset | Accounting & Finance. My time at Asset | Accounting & Finance started with the Orientation committee, then the Accounting Expedition and later on I decided to do a board year. Why a board year? I had been wondering for a long time whether I would like to do a board year, but I also doubted whether it would suit me and whether I would be willing to put all my time into one organization for a year. In the end, there are a number of factors that make me very happy that I decided to do it after all. A board year has many advantages: You get to know a lot of new people, both formally and informally, you develop yourself through the year in various areas because you are leading an association, you have a lot of conversations with partners and, ofcourse, members. There are also some things you have to give up like: you have little or no time to study, a little less time for friends/family and a day of chilling on the couch is also less likely. I had already applied for a board year at A&F previous summer. Unfortunately, I did not get through the application procedure. After this, I actually had the idea of continuing my studies, finishing my master’s and applying again the following year. During my master’s I quickly noticed that the motivation for studying was completely gone. This was mainly due to Covid-19 situation; sitting at home and having to open my laptop every day and work on school projects was pretty hard for me. During that time I started to consider doing a board year in the winter. I often talked about it with Richard, who is a good friend of mine and was also on the board at the time. From those conversations, I finally decided to take on the challenge of starting a board year in the winter. How was my time on the board? I kicked off my board year during the period with the worst corona measures. In the beginning it took some time getting used to doing a lot from home. This was especially difficult with the transferperiod, because I had to learn everything from Evelien in a short time and I also spent some time in quarantine. Furthermore, with the constantly changing measures it was constantly a challenge how we could make our events happen. These issues were also a daily topic of conversation which led us to test a lot of online platforms. You could almost say that I became a real Zoom pro, with all the break-out rooms, online drinks and formal online events. In the beginning it was still very difficult to find out exactly what my function entailed and what my tasks were. Partly thanks to Evelien and Simo, I quietly rolled into my role as External and got the hang of it, if I do say so myself. An External Affairs function basically entails the following: First, you are responsible for a business portfolio of about 30 -35 companies with whom you have to maintain contact. With some partners you have a lot of contact, because they participate in events and also have exposure opportunities with us. Secondly, it is important to recruit new companies for events and to look for potential long term partners. As an external you also have a weekly meeting with all the other externals of Asset, where I was also allowed to fulfill the role of Vice the last half year. This means that I was often sparring with Wout (Acquisition Coordinator) about partnerships, university related issues and of course various issues within Asset. I am also responsible for our social media and update the board monthly on the numbers (reach, clicks and likes) and the three events that fall under my responsibility: namely the Banking Days, the Financial Business Dinner and the Finance Expedition. For the last two events, I also coordinate a committee, with which you have weekly meetings to ensure the best possible event. In the beginning I was a bit reluctant to do this, partly because I am not really a leader by nature and prefer to do a lot of tasks myself in the background. However, I was always told that I had to outsource tasks, because the committee also has to learn all the important tasks and as a board member you are already busy enough with all the other tasks. Furthermore, I have become the chief design officer of my board. So I use Indesign a lot and it appears that I have mastered the tricks of the trade. Simo and also my other fellow board members have often used this. “You could almost say that I became a real Zoom pro, with all the break-out rooms, online drinks and formal online events.” Finally, you have the general duties that you share with your board. Every Monday we have our board meeting. Here we discuss the state of affairs within A&F and Asset broadly. Other tasks we share are discussing our vision on various developments within A&F and what our opinion is in discussions, being present at our (in)formal events, speaking to members when they are in their rooms or when something is not clear and of course helping my other boardies when they can’t figure something out or needs my opinion. How did I grow personally during my board year? In general, I am a quiet person who likes to wait and see and doesn’t take the initiative easily. During a board year