A board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance – Daniek Veldhuis, Secretary

At the beginning of the first semester, I thought I had it all planned out. I would complete the Master Accountancy in two years and do an internship and thesis internship. Yet I began to doubt my own plan when I saw that new people were being sought for the board of Asset | Accounting & Finance. After careful consideration, I decided to alter my plans and do a board year.

Within the board of Asset | Accounting & Finance, I have the duties of the Secretary. The Secretary is responsible for taking minutes at meetings, such as the board meeting and the General Members Meeting and is responsible for the incoming and outgoing communication of the association. This task constitutes only a small part of what I do, so there is enough time for other tasks. Especially the variety of tasks is what makes this position so much fun. Every week looks different to me. This way you get to see something from all aspects of the association. For example, I have been to several partner meetings, but I am also Vice-Treasurer and am therefore present at the meetings of the cash control committee. The administrative position of the Secretary has taught me to be critical in various situations, to be able to switch quickly from one aspect to the other, but also to continue to multitask.

“Every week looks different to me. This way you get to see something from all aspects of the association.”

Besides helping out the other board members, I am also the coordinator of various committees, namely the StudyTour committee, the Faces Online committee, and the Accountancy Cycle committee. For the first time ever, we have managed to acquire a sponsorship for our Study Tour. We came up with the idea to seek out sponsors at the beginning of the year, but this brought many doubts. Because of this, it was up to me to prove that it is possible. Due to good teamwork between the StudyTour committee and the board members of Asset | Accounting & Finance, we managed to achieve this goal and I am super proud of this. Next to this, together with the Accountancy Cycle committee, I have managed to set up a completely new event. I personally really enjoyed the experience of organizing this event, mainly because we built an entire new event completely from scratch.

Working so closely with the committees, you automatically create a bond with them, which eventually leads to great times and great activities next to working on the committee. Asset | Accounting & Finance organizes multiple informal activities throughout the year. I have had the honor to organize a big share of these activities at the beginning of my board year. I was part of the lustrumcommittee, specifically in the task force for the lustrumweekend. Organizing such an event next to my full-time workload was tough at certain times, but whenever I look back to what we have done, I am proud of what we have achieved. With more than 70 activum alumni and active members, we can look back at an incredible time at Keulen.

However, next to all these great events during a board year, there are also some things that do not always go as planned. Nobody is perfect and there will be mistakes. What happened to me was that I had handed in a file in the wrong format, which led to us shredding 100 constitution cards. I’ve also posted an article with a very obvious grammar error. These may at first glance, seem like minor errors. However, even the little things can have an impact on our brand image as a study association. By making these mistakes, I must say that you learn from them and that you become a lot more critical of your own work.

“It will definitely be one of the best years of your student life with all the new contacts that you get”

To sum this all up, I would absolutely recommend a board year to everyone. It will definitely be one of the best years of your student life with all the new contacts that you get and all the fun activities. Other than that, it will be a period in time where you will develop your skills rapidly and learn a lot throughout the year. Looking back, I am very happy that I have made the decision at the time to deviate from my original plan and chose to do a board year and, therefore, I certainly do not look back on that decision with regret.

Would you like to know more about a board year after reading this article? Do not hesitate to visit me at our room E1.07 and feel free to ask questions while we enjoy a nice cup of coffee! You can find out more about the specific division of functions within the board via the following link.