What to Do, When You Have ‘Nothing’ to Do
When I applied for a board year, I had not imagined the amount of things I was going to learn the upcoming year. The realization has exceeded the expectations and the influence is way higher than I ever expected. Since this piece is much too short (for me) to tell you more about everything a chairman does, I will highlight some of the tasks that appear during a week. Since there is no definition of the work as chairman, besides steering the organization (which is already a little bit vague), I actually have ‘nothing’ to do.
What is it like to be a chairman of this beautiful association and what do you do? When you asked this question to the rest of the board at the beginning of this year, the most common answer given by my fellow boardies would have been: “I don’t know precisely”, followed by: “He is often in a meeting”. Well, that is surprisingly accurate.
It all starts with the General Board meeting on Monday. During this meeting, all chairmen and the independent chairman of Asset, discuss all matters related to the association. This meeting is followed by the afternoon Room Duty at the Asset rooms, to answer questions from all students that belong to Asset, or in many cases, are looking for the AIESEC rooms upstairs.
The next day starts with another meeting: the board meeting with my fellow boardies at Astrics. On this day, I have room duty once more, but now at the Astrics room. It means that I am the one responsible for refilling the fridge and the food stock, to serve you Lipton Ice Tea (always Lipton, otherwise your taste is not as good as you think it is), Kinder Buenos or Doritos Bits. The sale of these products has gone beyond any limit, so shame on you guys, but keep stepping by our rooms for an abundance of the aforementioned products or just for a chitchat.
Secretly, I love being in meetings
Wednesdays are my favorite. Usually, not that many appointments are planned which means that I have time to work on bigger projects, such as the concept of new events. This gives me a lot of energy, since you can put your creativity into this. Thursdays are the opposite of Wednesdays. These days are often fully planned from 09.00 to 17.00 hours, such that the thought of being overtaken by events runs through my head sometimes. But secretly, I love being in meetings, since these are the places where you can convince others of your own ideas and really can make a difference.
Fridays often starts with the feeling of being tired, followed by two meetings. Then, on Friday afternoon, we have, once again, a General Board meeting to discuss the progress of last week. Almost every Friday at 17.00 hours, all doors close at building Esplanade, for everyone goes home and enjoys their weekends. Most of those excludes thinking about Astrics or Asset, but thoughts fly through my head sometimes.
While writing this piece, I have received a bunch of emails, fixed the photo computer – since it breaks down sometimes -, have given my thoughts about issues others came up with and answered a load of questions I had not even thought of.
Oh right, besides all above mentioned tasks, I still have activities during the evenings and more tasks as chairman of this beautiful association. Do you want to know more about the life as chairman, these tasks or the tasks of my fellow boardies? Join the Board Information Session on March 21!
Text by: Thijs Kramer
