“The biggest differences with the get-togethers as we knew them and the future ones are that nowadays you have to register in advance to have drink meaning you can no longer just walk in. They will always take place outside and you have to sit at a table instead of standing or walking around with a drink,” says Martje Wijnen, vice-president of the Federation of Study Associations Eindhoven (FSE). And those new rules must of course be practiced, during a pilot drink in the ‘market hall’ on June 4th.

On the familiar yellow picnic benches, all participants are properly spread out enjoying a drink. With clear instructions: one leg must be on the outside of the picnic table. This way, four students fit per table and there is still a meter and a half between each of them. In addition to the fact that the get-togethers are now more planned in terms of numbers and floorplans, there is also some change in the supply of the drinks. “This time we were served by the bartenders. It is still unclear whether this will be the case during every event,” Wijnen says. Huub van den Boogaard, educational affairs coordinator at study association Japie (Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) hopes so. With a big smile: “The beer is delivered to the tables. I think that is an advantage and I wouldn’t mind to keep it this way.”

Read more under the video below of our reporter Fabian Lucas Luijckx, who visited the pilot drink. After this pilot, the protocol for future events was presented earlier this week.

Diverse group

Study association Thor (Electrical Engineering) organized the pilot drink, which was open to all directors of the study associations, making it a diverse group. The pilot drink was a success according to Wijnen and the participants are enthusiastic. Of course the physical contact of a hug is missed, "but everyone is really happy that some activity can take place on the campus again,” she says. TU/e’s community manager Erik de Jong sees that it is good for the students to have a drink again: "Everyone has been staying home for a long time, so there is a great need to meet again."

Wijnen looks back with satisfaction on how students dealt with all the new requirements for a get-together: “Everyone respected the rules. The only issue are the toilets. According to the rules, only one person can go to the toilet at a time, but this proved difficult to regulate. We now have limited the duration of an activity to 2.5 hours because we noticed that people tend to loosen up with the rules if more alcohol is consumed. This also gives the organizing party a little more time to build up everything, because with all the new rules that is more work.”

Protocol

A protocol has been written for future activities on campus. If you want to organize an activity, you have to write a plan and have it approved by Conferences. The first version of a plan has already been used for drinks last Thursday. “We as FSE will put the detailed plan on our website, so that the study associations can reuse them and make some adjustments. It would otherwise be double-work if everyone wrote out the same plan,” Wijnen says. The protocol can be consulted by students and staff and can be adapted again if the rules of the RIVM change. "The pilot will be evaluated and if everyone is satisfied, this type of event should be possible more often," De Jong says.