Q3 Past Activities

Committee Market & SMOTMD Speed Dating (Board Games)

Following the start of the new cohort a committee market was held, where each committee got to shortly introduce themselves to new potential members. New this year: the market was set up as a relay ending at the SMOTM Drink. During this SMOTMD several games were set up around the bar, from jenga to ricochet robots (a particular favourite of the math track), there was something for everyone to enjoy!

ACCIE Pooling Activity

As a part of introducing the new cohort to our lovely association we went pooling in city centre. There were several games going at the same time and groups were regularly switching between themselves after games, so people got to play with lots of different players throughout the evening. We also had the pleasure of observing some spectacular feats from people, strategically jumping balls over others, and getting them in from seemingly impossible angles.

ACCIE Movie Night

Under ACCIE, we hosted the second movie night of the year. Everyone who signed up could vote in advance what movie to watch in the Ockham room. It was a close fight between Trolls III and the eventual winner: Murder on the Orient Express. It was a lot more successful than the first movie night, as twice as many people showed up (and a movie actually got watched). 

Pedel Workshop

With the constitution drink (CoBo) coming up, the board urgently needed a defence force. As such, a pedel workshop was organised by DriCie to explain the craft and train the pedels for their upcoming tasks; this year this seemed particularly important considering the high brassability of the board.

The general traditions and rules were both explained and demonstrated, with what was essentially a shouting match to determine whose voice could carry over a crowd and would thus become head-pedel. To end off the workshop the pedel strategy for the CoBo was discussed, complete with a map of Beneden Peil and markings where the pedels and board should be. At this point, people were still excited to pedel.

Constitution Drink

After a VERY long buildup, the CoBo (constitution drink, or in dutch – contitutieborrel) of the fiteenth board of H.V. Ockham was finally held! Beneden Peil was determined to be the perfect battleground. The celebrations of the constitution of this board might have been a little on the late end but the CoBo was a great success with lots of congratulations. The pedels, for their part, did their jobs quite well; many bras attempts were made and in the end only the guest book and one member of the board were each brassed once. The funniest part was when DriCie (basically half of the pedels) were invited by the board. While DriCie were congratulating the board, the few remaining pedels scrambled to keep up the front line in what looked like total chaos. Either way it was a gezellige evening resulting in some amazing memes, and once again congrats to the (not so new anymore) board!

Plenary Session & After Plenary Drink

The after-plenary drink was very hastily organised afterwards by DriCie in a lecture room. While this was not ideal in terms of consumption and selling, quite some people stuck around for the “drink”. Also, some people came around and had a drink and played some games in the Ockham room. This was also the introduction of the drink stripes system in the Ockham room. It became a nice cosy night. Still, everyone in DriCie have agreed to not hold drinks outside TechnoBar anymore.

SMOTMD March

The Second-Monday-of-the-Month-Drink in March was a busy one. People from S.A. Sirius came over to help bhv. We held the largest game of stress pong i have seen yet, involving two whole tables. Overall, it was a nice packed evening and a good way to follow up the CoBo.

Open meetings

After the committe market, committees followed up with the idea to have open committee meetings. Hereby someone could join a committee meeting without having to sign up as a member. Multiple committees, including AcquisiCie and ACCIE, have tried this method. Very simply, we do not talk about the AcquisiCie open meeting. :( However, the other committees apparently had more success and also led to a good GalaCie interest lunch.

ACCIE Bouldering

Ockham went bouldering! Many people signed up, each with different levels of experience; some for whom this was only the first or second time being in a boulder hall and others who already go bouldering regularly. As a beginning climber, it was amazing to challenge myself to harder and harder climbs and feel the support of everyone. Not only did we hype each other up but also helped figure out where to go if we felt stuck or what we could try next. Hammy actually also joined us on some of the climbs! Being small made climbing on his own difficult of course but balancing on the heads of different Ockham members meant he could also see the boulder hall from the top :)

Half-year GMM

Finally, H.V. Ockham held its half-year General Members Meeting (GMM). During this meeting, the progress on the policy of the fifteenth board got reflected and evaluated by the active members who showed up. Additionally, the budget and finances of the association were evaluated. It was good to see more new members (members other than the fourteenth board) get involved in the association processes and voice their opinion on how they envision H.V. Ockham. Around 14 active members were present in total. 

I will abstain from voicing any opinion or conclusion about the GMM results specifically. However, the GMM did command the current board to host another GMM towards the end of the year. We hope to see you all there.

Lunch Lecture with Komma: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Working

Here, the guest lecture from Komma talked about what a “problem” is, how to formulate a problem, and the different approaches with which this can be done. Looking into Design Thinking and TRIZ (which is the Russian acronym for ‘Theory of Inventive Problem Solving’), the group of students at the lunch lecture were able to apply this kind of thinking to their ongoing projects. The lunch lecture was unfortunately cut short… luckily, Komma was happy to host a second lunch lecture within two weeks! See below for details on the next part.

Cantus!

This year, Ockham hosted its second-ever Cantus, presided by the honourable members of the 10th Board: Sander Oosterveld and Eline Uiterweerd. There was a great focus on making the Cantus as internationally friendly as possible, while still maintaining the traditions rooted in Dutch student culture. With a lot of singing, fooling around, and enough drinks (lemonade and beer both!) to go around, this certainly made for a fun evening! Ockham is looking forward to its third Cantus in the future.

Lunch Lecture with Komma: Problem-Solving with TRIZ

This lunch lecture was more interactive. Diving into the TRIZ approach to problem-formulation, the students were given some examples to brainstorm with, as well as an overall case for which the groups could identify their own problems and present these to each other for further feedback and discussion. It was very fun and creative, with full of good ideas and shared laughter, so perhaps there could be a third lunch lecture with Komma on the horizon…?