A week in the life of a board member

For one week, Treasurer Philip Lankhorst logged his daily activities to give you a glimpse into the daily life of a board member. His week was dominated by the promotion of the International Study Project, for which the registration deadline was Sunday 16-9. Read the article to find out what he does, besides getting coffee!

Monday 10-9
As always, the week began with the board meeting. From 10 to 1 we discuss all ongoing affairs and any other things the board members should know about. The meeting didn’t take too long this week, because there weren’t too many points on the agenda. This came in conveniently, because I had to give a lecture talk about the International Study Project in Advanced Econometrics 1. After a meeting-filled afternoon, my fellow board members went to the Learning Academy Kick-Off, while I had to stay in the VSAE boardroom for a cash audit. Every three months, before the General Meeting, the cash audit committee checks everything the treasurer has done over the three months before.

Tuesday 11-9
Tuesday was marked by the International Study Project. While my fellow board members were working on the organisation of the Master Speeddate Event, I gave another lecture talk for the International Study Project in Econometrics 2. This lecture talk in front of my former fellow-years was a lot more memorable because the lecturer forgot to mute his microphone while going to get a coffee. I spent the afternoon calling VSAE members to promote the ISP. In the evening, we had a dinner meeting with the Advisory Board, during which we discussed our progress in implementing our planned policies.

Wednesday 12-9
On Wednesday morning, I had another ISP meeting which revolved around planning of the week in Boston and the promotion for the last few days of registration. The rest of the morning and early afternoon saw me taking care of my accounting duties, logging the cash flows of our association and making sure they are properly updated in the budget. At half past 4, we left for the ISC Boat Trip, which was a great opportunity to get to know our international members! The International Student Committee truly did a great job organising this event, which saw us float through the canals of our beautiful city. In the evening we finally had the thanking dinner of the previous Board at the Vegan Junkfood Bar, which was coincidentally on Stefan’s birthday! We had a great time celebrating his birthday, but had to go home in time because Thursday would be another busy day.

Thursday 13-9
In the morning, I settled some accounts and sent invoices to some of our partners. Once again, I made a lot of calls in the afternoon to discuss our ISP with members. After a mostly uneventful day and drinking around 9 cups of coffee, we headed to the Constitution Drinks of our neighbours and close co-organisers of the Beroependagen, the FSA. In café de Ebeling, we congratulated the new FSA board and made sure they had a good start to their board year.

Friday 14-9
The last working day before the ISP registration deadline meant I was mostly getting in touch with more of our third-years and masters to make sure they were properly informed. Since Teska had a day off and Sanne was at a meeting with the other chairs of the Econometric study associations of the Netherlands, I spent significantly less time getting coffee for others, allowing me to focus on my own coffee (and business). It was a busy week with a lot of evening activities, so I wasn’t too sad about an evening off. Hopefully, we’d reached as many people as possible about the International Study Project, now it was up to them to sign up before Sunday!