For two full days Hall 1 of the Student Sports Center was set up with twenty table tennis tables at which ninety players did battle with one another in team competitions and an individual tournament. Ranging from beginners to players ranked in Germany's second division, the competitors brought a variety of qualities to the table. The participants came from the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic and they camped out sociably in tents on the grass field on the banks of the Dommel.

That this tournament has been held is due to a bold board. In September 2018 Anouk Timmers became its president and she and her fellow board members decided it was time to do more than just organize training sessions and ensure participation in competitions, which was all that had happened during the preceding three years.

“It's not that difficult to breathe new life into an association,” she says. “After all, you can never perform worse than if you hadn't formed an active board. If you did that competitions could no longer be played, training sessions would fall by the wayside and then we'd also lose the chance of gaining any new members. But admittedly 2017, the first year, was difficult and we invested a lot of time, but it's something you do for the association and to ensure table tennis stays on offer. It wouldn't be right if the SSC dropped it, would it?”

At present ESTTV Taveres has 51 members. “We get quite a lot of new members joining the intro course at the start of the academic year. Capacity isn't a problem; during a training session Taveres can have forty people playing at the same time. Roughly half our members are originally from abroad. We think the continuous stream of new members is largely due to our keenness to welcome newcomers and the culture in the association. Last week about half our members came along to the 'beer pong', which always makes for a great evening.”

Active members

The biggest problem Taveres currently needs to tackle is stirring its members to action. “Never easy,” says Timmers. “Students are under a lot of pressure, they don't want to get behind with their studies and money has to be earned. By organizing a lot of activities we try to get members active within the association. If everyone were to carry out a small task, the board wouldn't have much to do either.”

That some people come only to play table tennis is something the president finds a pity. “An association can't exist if its members are only consumers, the art is to make people aware of this.”