A board year as Secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Martine Spaan

For the Dutch version, click here

As Secretary of the Board, I am, among others, responsible for taking minutes during meetings, the in- and outgoing communication of the association, and the year planning. I have also organized the Audit Activity and I am coordinating the committees Faces-Online en Accounting Insight. In this article, I will tell you about my experiences during my year as Secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance. 

Why did you choose to do a board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance?

During my first year as a Business Economics student, I decided to become an active member of Asset | Marketing. I really enjoyed this, but during the course of my studies, I noticed that my interests were closer to accounting and finance. This led me to join Asset | Accounting & Finance as chairman of the Faces-Online committee. In my third year, I went on exchange to Australia (Want to know more? Read my article!). After this unforgettable experience, I had the desire to take on new challenges. A board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance seemed to be the perfect opportunity to further develop myself and to start my orientation into the possibilities within the accounting and finance sector. Moreover, this was a perfect opportunity for me to enjoy student life for another year. 

What does your board year look like?

A board year is quite unique, to begin with, but the way my year has developed was unexpected, to say the least. I had the feeling that my conveyance period had only just ended, and I had just gotten used to the board life, when COVID-19 caused an unexpected turn of events. The University closed in March, causing us to continue our board work from home. This took some time to get used to, but it was definitely not impossible.

Since then I have often gotten the question “What do you guys actually do nowadays?” a lot. It might seem that we were out of things to do, but this was quite the misconception. I even had the feeling that I had more work to do than before the pandemic hit. Even though our physical events were canceled, our work continued and we had to prepare for uncertain times. This led to quite an amount of online meetings from home via Google Meet. Fortunately, my committees were able to continue their work from home as well. This made it possible for us to keep posting articles every week on Faces-Online.nl and with the Accounting Insight committee we’re still busy organizing our accounting symposium which takes place on November 25. We have made some changes to the format, because the symposium will be livestreamed as well, which is a nice challenge in my opinion!

Next to coordinating my committees, I spend a large portion of my time on internal affairs of our association, giving me a varied set of duties, like keeping track of all active and passive members, and being responsible for our Alumni Association. Next to my standard duties, I often help my fellow board members by giving critical notes on language use in the messages we spread and I help with the social media designs for our events. I also keep track of the task list and the weekly planning of the entire Board. Lastly, I am Vice-Secretary of Asset General and Vice-Treasurer of A&F, which means that I must be present at all meetings of the Audit of Accounts committee. 

During summer, when the COVID restrictions got lifted, I got the feeling that there was light at the end of the tunnel. This was also the time during which a lot of new association boards got announced, our own (partly new) Board included. The three newly announced boardies gave us extra motivation with their fresh perspective on board life. They, contrary to myself, have chosen to start their board year during this global crisis. Since then, we started seeing more and more members and other associations in person, which made the upcoming semester feel like a fresh start. Not without any setbacks of course. We anxiously watch every press conference, because any change in restrictions could have large consequences for our events every week. 

“We often have to deviate from our original formats and are required to think outside the box, because life has not really taken its ‘regular’ course this year.”

What did you learn during your board year?

You learn to discover, use, and improve your own and new personal skills. We learn a lot from and about each other within the Board as well. Everyone has his or her own strengths, and with good communication and teamwork, you learn to optimally use your combined strengths. 

One thing that I have learned specifically this past year, mostly because of COVID-19, is how important it is to adapt to crisis situations. For example, I developed my crisis management skills by continuously working on new scenarios and back-up plans, which requires a critical look at each situation and its risks. As a Board, we have a large responsibility towards our association, which comes with its own set of challenges and difficult decisions to make. This requires critical thinking, energy, and time spent on intense crisis management meetings. Especially when these meetings are held online, there is a need for these meetings to be as efficient as possible, because as Secretary, I know how busy everyone’s agenda is. This has taught me to prioritize, since some situations require me to put off my own work in order to help one of my fellow board members. 

As a Board, we also want to get the bottom out of the barrel, for ourselves, but even more for our members and partner companies. Especially in a year like this, there is a lot of room to come up with creative ideas. We often have to deviate from our original formats and are required to think outside the box, because life has not really taken its ‘regular’ course this year. This has made a board year during COVID-19 very interesting and challenging. I can rightly say that this was an intense year, with a new challenge, but also a learning opportunity every day.

What are you most proud of?

I am very proud of how we, as a Board, have handled these odd and uncertain times. Especially in this period, we had to be flexible and willing to cooperate. One good example is the Audit Activity, which I organized last month with Jochem, our Vice-Chairman. The location of our cooking workshop had canceled our event the night before it would have taken place, because of a possible corona-infection. Because of this turn of events, we had to start a last-minute search for another location, in order to continue our event. After approaching a lot of restaurants with the whole Board, we managed to find one after all. We eventually managed to set up a very successful event for our participants, as well as the participating companies. Without the quick and effective teamwork of our Board, we would have never been able to pull it all together. 

Would you recommend a board year, even in these times?

I would highly recommend a board year. Despite all the challenges, I have very positive feelings about this past unique year, which I would not have wanted to miss for anything. You will learn and improve many new skills and in return obtain a lot of experience, insights, and a large network of friends, coworkers, and potential employers!

If you want to know more about my board year, do not hesitate to send me an email at secretary@asset-accountingfinance.nl or a message on LinkedIn! You can also click on this link to read more about the specific task division within the Board.