Monthly Update

September

President:

So what a month have this been! Not only uni started but the real board stuff started as well. And the kick-off was of course Introweek. It was amazing, it was so nice to meet all new students but also have real life events. I get a little addicted to all the events 😉 Right after Introweek we went to Camp and damn, it was better than expected. Had so much fun, everybody liked it, the games were nice, it was just fun! Back at uni we started with the Committee Drinks and the preliminary committees started. A lot of new active members signed up and with all the interviews, we hope to have all committees in two weeks. Activities Committee started with organising the first real COP and Education Committee has already three events planned! Of course, the Board Meetings are going on weekly and in September I also had a meeting with the other presidents of FHML and the Randwyck party committee. A lot of fun things are coming up! Stay tuned and see you soon!

Secretary:

The past month was definitely one for the books. We started September off with our Introweek and Camp. Our Introweek Committee did an awesome job in organizing amazing events and entertaining our firsties (or “the kids” as we call them). After 5 days of Introweek events, we left for Camp. For me, the Cantus on the first night of Camp was the most memorable event of the weekend (maybe also because I left on Saturday morning but that’s just a small detail). Meeting all the new biomed students and actually getting to know them during this week full of events was a really nice experience for us, as board, as well. After this (very intense) week, a lot of people signed up to become active members, so now we are very busy with planning and conducting the interviews for our committees. Very soon the new committees will be formed, after which we can finally start organizing more fun events for you! Aside from our own committees, Helix also is in a committee together with the other study associations of Randwyck; the Randwyck Party Committee. Mara and I finally had our first meeting with them and now we are busy with finding dates and preparing for the first Randwyck Party. Personally, I am very excited about what the upcoming month has in store for us, so stay tuned and see you soon!

Treasurer:

The month September started of very busy, with uni starting up again and having our Helixweek in the second week. I was part of the Introweek committee, so I was very busy with organising everything in regard to that. In the beginning my biggest struggle was time management, because it was a bit stressful to do all the uni work besides the board work. For the treasurers position I was mainly busy with supervising the Introweek and Camp budget. Moreover, I started having interviews with the new committee members for the Excursion Committee. For the Head of Externals position, I was in contact with quite a few -hopefully- new sponsors. The month September was basically filled with all the things that revolved around the labcoats for the firsties. 

Right now I am busy with setting up the crashcourses for the committee treasurers and with setting up the first meetings with my committees.

Vice-President:

September started with our legendary Helix week. This was a huge success and lots of fun, also for us as the board. We got to know many first years students and made them enthusiastic about Helix and joining committees. Once I started the committee promotion, many first years applied. In the past couple of weeks, I was especially busy with doing interviews to find new committee members and with posting pictures on the website and doing all the promo of all events. Last week I had a meeting with a group from FHML who organises the bachelor graduation together with board members from Pulse and Santé. Because of all the uncertainties around Covid, the organization for the graduation started a bit late this year. For the graduation, I am working on a general presentation from Helix and I am thinking about the flowers and speakers during the ceremony. Next to the things I am working on as Vice, we still have our weekly board meetings and board integration activities. Next month will be a month full of fun activities, so I hope to see you all there! 

Head of Education:

This month, I finished doing interviews and almost completely formed all the SEPs. I have had my first SEP meetings which went well. I am also looking for student representatives. I have attended my first coordinator meetings, student council and SHAPE. A problem right now around students which came up during student council is the housing situation. Therefore Helix is going to help Biomed students find housing via a Facebook page. I have had contact with the BMSO for the first meeting. I have also met with the student council to discuss the posters in the toilets and Helix contribution to this. Besides that, I have had a lot of fun during intro week and camp! And am very excited about the upcoming events :).

June – August

President:

The 17th of June is forever in my memory now. After training a lot, a bumpy CB time for me personally but a time of making a lot of friends as well,  we were finally voted in! We celebrated with the old board the start of our board year and then, pretty fast after the GA, started with the organization of the INKOM, preparing the Helix room for this academic year and planning our Introweek and Camp. A busy summer to say so. While we were organizing the INKOM, FIC, Camp and Introweek, we also had to get used to our new positions and responsibilities. Therefore we had some meetings, hanging outs with the board and a lot of phone calls! Now we are ready to start the new academic year. A lot of new members signed up, people are excited to come to uni (again) so I am looking forward to see you all in the Helix room and please keep an eye on our social media because a lot of new and funny things are coming up! For now, let’s start with Introweek and Camp 🙂 

Secretary:

The past months I have been busy sending emails and typing documents. I hear you asking yourself “what kind of emails and documents?” Well, I will tell you in this update. 

To start, I wrote the minutes of last Changing GA and mailed them to all our members. I had a lot of fun listening to our shaking voices, almost reliving the stress of the moment, but this also meant reliving the happiness and relief when we were officially voted in. Moreover, I emailed our members about the struggle with the discount on the books at Boekhandel Dominicanen and the change of Boards.

Also, my inner computer nerd has awoken and over the past few months I have been working on improving the newsletter. The new newsletter has a completely different layout and I am still working on improving the last few features, especially the layout on the different types of devices. 

During the summer, a lot of people signed up to become a member. This increased even more the last few weeks, especially during the INKOM and the Faculty Introduction Day. For me, this also meant that I had to update our membership list by deleting people who are no longer a member of our Helix family and of course adding our new members. Aside from this, the mailinglists were updated accordingly. We also want to be in contact more with our honorary members, so we are working on strengthening these bonds. Hopefully, we will be able to put our honorary members more into the spotlights.

Moreover, I am one of the board members in the Introweek Committee. Therefore, over the last few weeks I have been busy guiding them with organising the Introweek that will take place in September. It is so nice to see that all the committee members are super motivated to make it a nice week now we can finally organize real events. Aside from this, I was present during all events and I am looking forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!

Treasurer:

After being board for 2 months I finally start getting used to the fact that people come to me when they have questions and not the other way around. I am still getting to know all the small things about our association, but overall I think I got the hang of it.

During the last months the things I did for the Treasurer’s position were not very intense. I made sure all the invoices were paid on time and I kept track of all the invoiced and declaration forms. However, for the Head of External position, I fixed a new old sponsorship with Café Defile and I arranged the labcoats for the first year students. Currently, I am looking for new sponsorships and I am staying in touch with all of our current sponsors. 

During INKOM I was present at the Intromarket on Monday and the College Tour on Tuesday. We did pretty well during the INKOM because quite a lot of people signed up for a membership and also some master students. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there for the FIC, because I had other obligations. I am also in the introweek committee, in which we set up the introweek for the first years. I am really looking forward to the upcoming year!

Vice-President:

The past couple of months I have been busy with organizing the FIC and arranging things around the new Helix website. I had lots of contact with events FHML and promo team FHML about the FIC. For the FIC, I was the one who had to arrange “FIC buddies” from Helix to show the new first years around. I also did a lecture talk during the bachelor FIC about Helix together with Meike. For the Master FIC, I send the introduction video to the organization and kept contact with Events FHML. I regret not being present myself during the Master FIC.

I also made sure that the website is up-to-date again. In fact, the website is fully renewed. Thereby, I fixed the account problem on the website. The accounts were not made automatically and therefore when someone signed up as a member they did not get their account and for me, it was hard to monitor who signed up. Therefore I fixed that the system is automized now and all new members or people who register for a new account will get this almost instantly.

As the only member of the promo committee at this moment, I was responsible for all the promotions regarding events, the association itself and getting new people for the preliminary committees. I hope to find more people soon since I have big plans regarding merch and more creative ways to promote.

Head of Education:

Hey everybody, I was the last one to join the board and am very happy to work with these girls! Since then I have been working on a lot of things to catch up. I have finished my training at the end of the vacation and tried to help the board as much as I could. I joined the camp committee. Since then I have started promoting the Student Evaluation Panels. I started during the FIC with a presentation during the main introduction lecture and in the small talks during the day. I also hope to start promoting the SEPs on social media later this week and via the FHML newsletter. I have contacted all the coordinators for giving lecture talks, which I will be making a short video for, given that the lectures will still remain online. About that, I will also be contacting the coordinators and try to push them to give as many lectures on-site as the possibility of registration. Besides that, I have been working on finding student representatives and arranging the certificates. At last, the vice-president and I will try to organize a masters only event to hopefully get more members for helix and the master SEP. I am looking forward to meeting all of you! If you have questions/interest in SEP, let me know 🙂

May

President:

• Wrote the president script to guide the candidate president
• Searched for BoC prizes
• Requested new keys for the Helix room
• Wrote the protocol for the CB mini-event
• Organised CB mini-event
• Wrote protocol changing GA (in case it were to happen at university; it’s not)
• Requested the form for the Board certificates
• Starting organising the active members day
• Wrote the year report
• Trained Mara for the president position
• Organised and hosted a Helix crash course for CB
• Was active in the well being taskforce

Secretary 

• Bought new helix bags and a special surprise for active members day
• Picked up new helix keys
• Bought wine for a member of the month
• Wrote the year report
• Trained Heleen and Kim for their board positions
• Had a bonding event with promo committee
• Helped lieke with active members day
• Helped the candidate board with their policy plan
• Hosted crash course for CB
• Wrote and send out minutes second committee GA 
• Made year evaluation survey for our members

Treasurer

• Wrote treasurer script to guide the candidate treasurer
• Trained with the candidate treasurer, the administrative work
• Started working on the realization and upcoming budget
• Planned FSC meeting

Head of External Affairs

• Wrote Head of External Affairs script
• Training of Candidate Head of External Affairs
• Worked on Studydrive promotion
• Sent out invoices

April 

President

In April I did the following things:

• Created instructions for all presidents (and treasurers) for the GA
• Hosted the second committee GA
• Planned CB interviews
• Requested a new Sligro card
• Prepared and hosted the Gala Dinner

 

Secretary

In April I did the following things:

• Made notes during the board meeting
• Took minutes of the committee GA
• Conducted CB interviews
• Set up a plan for the website redesign
• Made a plan for the remaining FIC money
• Email traffic

Treasurer

In April I did the following things:

• Payed the monthly bills
• Met with the committee treasurers to discuss their term realizations
• Prepared slides for committee GA
• Conducted CB interview
• Had First Year committee meetings and planned the Hunting Season event

Head of Education

In April I had several student council meetings about some future plans for updates to the BMS bachelor in regards to minor options. 

A meeting with the coordinators of BBS2002 was held to go through some of the reported errors in the exam.

Lastly the interviews with several board applicants were held.

 

Head of activities

• Worked with the Activities, Education and Sports committee to organize events
• Helped organizing the Helix Pubquiz organized by the activities committee
• Attented the online event organized by the Gala committee
• Planned the Yoga event together with the sports committee, but canceled it because of lack of signups

Head of External Affairs

• Sent out invoices to our sponsors
• Finalized contracts with studydrive and Maastricht Housing

 

March

President

In March I did the following things:

• Continued the recruitment of a new board
• Updated KvK
• Planned the first meeting for the well being task force
• Worked on organising the gala dinner
• Planned and hosted a president meeting
• Made the agenda for second committee GA

Secretary

In March I did the following things:

• Board recruitment on Instagram
• Had an update meeting with the Promo committee to discuss further merch plans
• Ordered merch samples: rain poncho, keychain light, pens and a lighter
• Hosted a tutorial during the family day
• Took minutes of the board meetings
• Email traffic

Treasurer

In March I did the following things:

• Payed the monthly bills
• Planned first meeting for the First Years Committee

Head of Education

In March I had various meetings with the coordinators of the bachelor and master courses, some discussed the overall organisation of the bachelor and master and others were SEP coordinator meetings discussing reports.

Furthermore, I had student council meetings in which the changes to the rules regarding physical education as well as future BMS plans were discussed. 

Finally the BMSO occurred in which a selection based entrance was weighed against a draw based entrance from the perspectives of the different BMS studies around the Netherlands.

Head of activities

• Worked with the Activities, Education and Sport committee to organize events
• Helped the Activities Committee with the organizing and executing of the Beer tasting week
• Helped the Sports Committee with the organizing and executing of the Dance your mass off event
• Attended the online company visit organized by MERLN
• Helped organizing and hosted the BBS1004 Pubquiz 
•  

February

President:

• Prepared for and organised the half year GA
• Wrote my parts of the half year report and proofread the report
• Made a summary of the results of the half year survey
• Wrote my parts of the newsletter
• Was in contact with UM sports about a collaboration
• Was in contact with Coffeelovers about a possible collaboration
• Planned the first meeting for the well-being task force
• Planned the third president meeting

 

Secretary

• Made the minutes during meetings
• Replied to emails
• Made the newsletter
• Made notes during general assembly
• Evaluation with promo committee

 

Treasurer:

• Met with FSC concerning half-year realization, new budget, restructure of reservations
• Made monthly transactions
• Created new budget 
• Wrote part for the newsletter

 

Head of Education

• Had meetings with student council
• Had meetings with the Heads of Education of the other SAs in the FHML about the SHAPE contract
• Had a meeting discussing issues in education and possible suggestions with the Dean, scientific director, and director of Education as well as Student Council members
• Wrote my half year report parts
• Wrote my newsletter part
• Set up a collaboration between Student Council and the SEPs aiming to improve the english of the exams

 

Head of Activities:

• Organized and attended the Valentine’s day themed music bingo
• Had meetings with my committees
• Wrote parts of the Half Year report
• Attended and participated in the Half Year GA

 

Head of External Affairs:

• Further planning the family day 2021 with the committee
• Looking into a new bar collaboration
• Finishing sponsorship with Maastricht Housing
• Wrote my part for the newsletter
• Looked for new sponsors

January

General

President

• Finalised and hosted BoC muder mystery event
• Had a meeting with the new AC
• Started organising the half year GA
• Organised a meeting with all committee presidents
• Had a meeting with the gala committee
• Had a meeting with all Randwyck presidents
• Reached out to UM sports about a possible collaboration
• Reached out to Taskforce QRS about a collaboration

Secretary

• Made the december newsletter
• Answered emails 
• Took notes during meetings
• Wrote parts for half year report
• Wrote motion for half year GA

Treasurer

• Started on half year realization
• Planned FSC meeting
• Started writing on half year report
• Participated in the battle of the committees event

Vice President:

• Had meetings about the open day
• Participated in the battle of committees event
• Collected hoodies from the university
• Fixed up the website 

Head of Education

• Had meetings with coordinators about the corona measures and the affected education
• SEP meetings discussing the latest courses and their adaptations
• BMSO talking about national ideas to possibly be applied to the study as well as student well-being

Head of Activities

• Had meetings with all my committees and brainstormed online events
• Started the organization of the ,lppMaster Info Drinks
• Started the organization of the valentine’s day themed Music Bingo
• Participated in the Battle of the committees event 

Head of External Affairs:

• Organised a MERLN company visit
• Searched for new sponsors
• Continued with organising the family day 2021
• Worked on the newsletter for February 2021

December

General

President:

• Created a murder mystery for a BoC event
• Evaluated the first committee GA
• Attended the BBS2002 pubquiz to communicate possible technical issues
• Enjoyed the cocktail workshop with a part of my committee

 

Secretary:

• Wrote and distributed the minutes of the general assembly to our members
• Enjoyed the cocktail workshop with friends
• Sent out christmas cards to sister and brother associations
• Took notes during all BMs
• Had a meeting with Dr. Berendsen about a possible cooperation in the OTAGS project

 

Treasurer:

• Looked over the finacials
• Had an amazing time at the cocktail workshop

 

Vice President:

• Attended cocktail workshop
• Fixed technicalities on website
• Christmas preps
• Prepared hoodies for board 

Head of Education

• Had meetings with student council and the SEPs
• Attended meetings with Bachelor and Master coordinators for the upcoming courses
• Hosted the BBS1002 PubQuiz with the Head of Activities
• Had a great time at the cocktail workshop (if I remember correctly)

Head of Activities:

• Hosted the BBS1002 PubQuiz
• Hosted the cocktail workshop together with two other members of the activities committee
• Had meetings with my committees 
• Attended the meeting with Dr. Berendsen 

 

Head of External Affairs:

• Planning the Family Day with my Committee
• Working on improving the website
• Finishing the Labcoats
• Search for new sponsors

November

General 

President

In december I:

• Made, organised and hosted the presidents crash course for the presidents of all committees
• Had the first couple of meetings with the gala committee
• Worked on a bigger project for BoC
• Organised and hosted the first committee GA

Secretary

• Looked into clubit issues
• Usual mail activity
• Interviewed 2 alumni members to be featured in the newsletter
• Made november newsletter
• First promo meetings
• Ordered brand new hoodies and phone wallets
• Black friday sale
• Made notes and kept track of attendees during committee GA

Treasurer

•  

Vice-President

• Preparation for Graduation 
• Hoodies and Corona Prep/ Precautions
• Replied to emails 
• BoC event + Workshop + GA Prep
• Website arrangements to fix 

Head of Education

• I attended meetings with the different SEPs to discuss how education is going for each of them, with some coordinator meetings being organised and some great discussions taking place between the coordinators and the SEP members.
• I had 2 meetings with the student council during November where we discussed and went through some decisions which are being made about education and student welfare.
• We had our first GA which went smoothly and we were given valuable feedback on how to approach certain issues we see as possible in the future, and got to see our (new) members get more involved with the workings of Helix.

Head of Activities

• I had meeting with my committees
• I participated in the Cocktail Workshop organized by the Activities committee
• I participated in the Sport Pub Quiz organized by the Sports Committee
• I attended the first Committee GA

Head of External

• Helped organising the BoC
• I have been in contact with potential new sponsors
• Trying to organise virtual Lab/company tours
• Finalizing labcoat purchase

October 

General

President

• Organisation of elective drinks
• Organisation of committee drinks
• Formed gala committee and had the first meeting
• Organised and hosted the president of randwyck meeting
• Brainstorm challenges BoC
• Had meetings with the university

Secretary

• Formed promo committee and made a plan for 2020 and looked for new merch ideas
• daily mail and emails about events
• Organisation of elective drinks + recruitment of presenters
• Instagram and facebook activity
• Designed and sent postcards changed board to brothers and sisters association
• newsletter

Treasurer

• Formed excursion committee
• In contact with financial representative from uni
• Taking care of the money

Vice-President

• In process of forming camp committee 
• Organization for bachelor graduation but could not attend due to being a suspect of the covid virus 
• Planning of upcoming meetings 
• Replying to emails and working on given tasks 

Head of Education

• Formed the different SEP committees for the first, second, third and Master years, however am still looking for more members for SEPs 2, 3 and Master SEP 1
• Had several meetings with coordinators of the bachelors and masters discussing the differences and problems facing both the exams and educational events as well as larger components of the different years (internships, electives, minors)
• Had several meetings with the student council discussing several components of education which issues have been experienced with throughout the month in education for students as well as future plans and how those may affect the students
  • Proctorio issues and future plans
  • Internships/minors outside of the netherlands
  • Future exam options
• Met with SHAPE to talk about their plans and expectations
• Meeting about the quality agreement and extracurricular activities organised for students and future activities for students

Head of Activities

• Formed the activities committee, sports committee and the education committee
• Met with every committee and started the organization of events for the coming month
• Helped in the organization of the elective drinks
• Started on the organisation of the Battle of Committees
• Helped during the Biomedical Sciences bachelor graduation

Head of External

• Formed the Family Day Committee
• Had the first family day committee meeting and discussed options for a Corona-safe Family Day
• Helped in organizing the Battle of Committees
• Participated in the Biomedical Sciences Bachelor Graduation 

September

General

President

In September I worked on the following things:

• I had a meeting with the presidents of randwyck
• I contacted the incassokamer about helping us with collecting the money for excursion (we got it!)
• I was in contact with university about putting the finishing touches on the Helix room
• I was present at the introweek, the first physical event we organised as board
• I created a plan for the committee drinks
• I created a crash course presentation for all new presidents, which I’ll use when the committees are formed
• I reached out to companies we can organise events with

Secretary:

• Promotion and communication of introweek, pubquiz and committee drinks
• Daily checking the helix mail and secretary mail, replying to all mails
• Worked on the refund from excursion which we finally received
• Contacted uni for the covid rules and our permission for events
• Update the members list and mail list
• Made the newsletter

 

Treasurer:

• Attended introweek and the committee drinks
• Refunded all members which signed up for the excursion → we finally got the money!
• Distributed and transferred money to ongoing expenses, website etc.

 

Head of Activities: 

In this month i:

• Attended introweek and the committee drinks making sure people could meet each other and Helix in a safe environment. 
• Was in communication with uni about in person events. 
• Organized the PubQuiz for the first years, which was a huge success.
• Met with the Randwyck committee to brainstorm ideas for events in the future. 

Vice President: 

• Attended Committee Drinks 
• International Meeting
• Replying to mails
• Fixed the website
• In contact with university and working on recruitment for committees

Head of External Affairs:

• Working with the Introweek committee to create a safe and fun opportunity to get to know Helix
• Contacted possible new partners
• Helped to work on the first years Facebook group
• Been in contact with MedSocks about our partnership
• Tried out StudentenBox for our members

 

Head of Education:

• Meetings with the coordinators discussing the effects of the pandemic on education and how education will be affected by the rise in case numbers in the Netherlands
• Helped in the PubQuiz for the first year students, which turned out to be a great success

 

Summer 2020 (July & August)

General

Summer was pretty great, we all worked during the break as much as we could. Helix room is officially opened and well as recruiting members in the faculty introduction day, which was a huge success. Helix was active on social media as well. We managed to start the year off with ideas and brainstorming a nice plan for the year. 

President:

Over the summer months, I worked on the following:

• Analysing the website and pointing out what could use improvement
• I was present at the INKOM, where we had a stand on the ‘Welcome to Maastricht’ market
• Planning and leading the first board meeting of this academic year
• Finalizing the presentation used during the virtual faculty introduction day. Together with Khush I presented during this day as well
• Being in contact with university about access to the faculty and Helix room
• Catching up on all emails sent over the summer

Secretary:

• Caught up on all the emails and DMs sent to me from first years who had all sorts of questions
• Put effort into staying active on social media, making sure we didn’t just disappear off the earth!
• Finalized the minutes of the financial GA
• Kept in contact with the hostel in Denmark about our refund and called legal counsel together with the head of education. Unfortunately legal counsel cannot help us as our case is located in Denmark and thus we are stepping up our spam game to the hostel itself again.
• Brainstormed and planned about having camp, unfortunately we will have to look for alternatives.
• Helped on the faculty introduction day

Treasurer:

• Brainstormed and planned about having camp, unfortunately we will have to look for alternatives.
• Worked on refunds for excursion 
• Kept track of the money

Vice President:

• Updated website and clubit
• Faculty Introduction Days
• Helped in planning the camp
• Replying to emails 

Head of Education

• I had the year reports written by the different SEPs
• The SEPs all received their payments for the SEP year
• Contacted our insurance about the situation surrounding excursion in an attempt to gain more help

Head of Activities: 

• Had meetings with the activities and sports preliminary committees to brainstorm possible events for the beginning of the year. The two committees decided to start working together on an event for the start of october. 
• Helped during the INKOM at the Maastricht Market

Head of External Affairs

• I had meetings with the introweek committee to ensure a nice and fun week of getting to know each other
• secured a deal for lab coats fort the first year students and received the delivery
• Been in contact with companies and online shops about special deals for our members

June

General

June was another month with many restrictions because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was also a month in which more was possible and was done again. We had the Changing GA, in which we officially became the 28th board of SA Helix and some really fun online activities were organised by our committees. And since UNS40 is being renovated, so is our beloved, but slightly worn out, Helix room! So even more incentive to join us at university once we’re allowed back in!

President

During my first month as President, I did the following:

• Prepared for the Changing GA by making the slides for CB introduction and policy plan presentation
• Had my last training sessions with Sacha
• Evaluated on the online events and the Changing GA
• Planned meetings for the board and have been leading the meetings
• Had a meeting with most of the study associations of UM

Secretary

Cheers to us being voted in as the new, 28th Board! Here is what I worked on:

• The minutes of the changing GA
• The newsletter
• Reading the statuten, huishoudelijk reglement a couple more times
• Making posters with the promo committee
• Answering emails, sending emails
• The evaluation of the Battle of Committees
• Adapting the last motion into the standing rules and huishoudelijke reglement

 

Treasurer

During the first weeks of being treasurer, I attended the FSC meeting to check the realization of last year and evaluated the online events and Changing GA.

 

Vice President

Throughout this first month of officially becoming Vice-President, I have attended several meetings about the Faculty Introduction Day. Due to this pandemic, ensuring the new students are informative and have fun during the first week is important. I also met some interested/ prospective students on the Virtual Experience Day as well as simultaneously handling the website and meetings on how camp would be. 

 

Head of Education

During this month I became the new Head of Education of SA Helix, after the changing GA on June 11th. However, I have been attending meetings since half May and have slowly been becoming more active.

For this month I had several meetings with the Student Council regarding the reopening of the university as well as the reaction to and plan of action for education for the coming academic year. In these meetings the main model of learning discussed was the hybrid model, combining both online and on-site education for all students as is policy for UM. 

I also had a BMSO (biomedisch studenten overleg) meeting on June 4th, where we discussed the responses of our respective universities to the pandemic and what measures have been taken throughout the Netherlands. The final meeting on June 22nd was with the Master Coordinators, who gave some guidelines for how education would be continuing in the Master program, as well as some new ideas to possibly be implemented in the Master courses however these are uncertain and confidential.

This month our board organised preliminary drinks looking for members who would already be willing to join committees for next year. I was the board member present for all the different committees on June 17th, where SEP (II, III and Master) and the Education committee presented the committees looking for members.

 

Head of Activities

On the 11th of June I was voted in as Head of Activities. Throughout the month I kept track of the participants of the Sport Challenge, and took part in the preliminary committee drinks on June 16th, where the Activities committee, Sports committee, Promo committee and Camp committee presented themselves.

 

Head of External Affairs

In the beginning of June I was voted in as Head of External Affairs and started to take the first actions in my new position. I got into contact with one of our biggest sponsors for our next contract and I kept on searching for new sponsors in both the Netherlands and Germany.

 

This month I took over from Andrea on the 13th of June as Head of External Affairs. In that week Andrea and I had a meeting with dominicanen. The meeting was really good in the sense of clear communication and the contact from domincanen was really nice. However domincanen did say that the low amount of books sales currently is a problem. I got a list from domincanen with the books that we ordered and how many actually were sold and the numbers are really low. Of one book for example they ordered 21 and sold 0, most books half or less than the amount of expected sales were actually sold. This leads to domincanen making unnecessary costs(helix doesn’t pay for the books) because domincanen can not return the books to the publisher. I agreed with domincanen that something should change so we made the following agreements: first of all to lower the amount of expected book sales, so domincanen doesn’t order as many. Second is that helix will promote at least 1 or 2 books at the start of each block the same way we promote events to try and increase sales. Third is that helix members can either have the books ordered and then send to their home address or pick them up at domincanen, we will not give the books out from the helix room anymore. This will avoid unncessary transport costs to get books back and forward between helix room and domincanen. Hopefully with these steps we can increase efficiency and increase book sales. If these do not increase domincanen will not want to move forward with the same contract the year after.
I also looked at switching to a different company for our clothing(committee and board clothing) than GOT shirts, in the hope we would get sponsorship money somewhere. But because Helix is not big enough as association all they could offer was around 10% discount, which is the same amount as we are getting with GOT shirts right now.

The past month has been a lot of figuring out how things work and adjusting to having a somewhat different time schedule than normal due to all the helix events and meetings.
Next to that I have held all Sports Task Force meetings and will be deciding who are the fit candidates over the weekend.