A week in the life of Ivo Warmerdam

Today I will write to you for our SECTOR segment: ‘A week in the life of…’. Hopefully, my fellow board members have already been able to give you a good view of their working weeks. Today, it is my turn to give you some insights into the function of the chairman, so I will take you through the week of 8 to 15 March.

My working week usually starts Sunday evening. Although I very much like to keep my weekend as free as possible, I take Sunday evening to organize my week, write down my to-do’s and most importantly: prepare the most important meeting of the week: The Board meeting. By definition, the meeting is chaired by the chairman. That means that it’s my responsibility to make sure that important agenda points are not to be missed.

On Monday, we start with the board meeting. We often had these on Zoom, but most recently, we decided that it would be important that we see each other at least once a week, so our meetings are physical again. We start the meeting with the gossip of the weekend, but pretty soon, we will turn to the business of the day. After the meeting, some board members like to listen to the ‘Clipcast’. I myself usually turn right into my to-do’s. In the afternoon I had an UVO, a meeting with all study associations, and the faculty and university student councils. These meetings are often about how different associations and the VU cope with corona. It can be extremely useful to see what other associations come up with during these times.

My Tuesday mornings used to include a LED (National Econometricians Day) meeting, but since the day is over, I usually have a free Tuesday morning. This gives me time to search for a date for the next LOES meeting. The LOES is the foundation for all econometrics associations, which organized both the LED and de LEST (National Econometricians Sport Tournament). The chairmen of all econometrics associations are invited, as well as the chairman of the LED, the treasurer of the LOES, which is our treasurer and since I will chair the next meeting, Tristan is also invited to take minutes. As most of these people have quite a busy agenda, it is important to plan this well.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Amber to talk about our budget for the rest of the year. Since there are a lot of uncertainties about our activities due to corona, it is important to keep a good overview of the options we have financially.

Wednesday, I didn’t have a meeting on the agenda, so that gave me time to write some articles. The chairman writes the ‘van de voorzitter’ in the Ecotribune, and I had to write something for the almanac of Faector (the study association for econometrics at Rotterdam). Furthermore, the chairman is responsible for the contact with our advisory body. Once a month, I write an extensive update for them about what’s going with committees, the board, and our events. We sometimes have disagreements with our advisory body over the policies we propose, but in the long run, Kraket will get better because of these disagreements.

Thursday morning, the new LED committee came to the VU to collect some leftover stuff from this year. Afterwards, I had a meeting with our hitchhike committee. The committee is doing wonderful stuff to try and organize something fun even during corona, so stay tuned!

Often my Friday mornings are filled either with a faculty meeting, or a meeting with the study trip committee. This week however was an exception, so that gave me time to look at our options for the Active Members Day with Estée. Afterwards I worked on Econometrics 3 with my friends. We started our weekend with a fun activity, because we met the board of Salus, the association for health sciences and won a game of ‘hallibal’.

Besides these meetings, it is also important to notice that a lot of time goes into keeping up to date with what happens with Kraket and the VU. The most important responsibility of the chairman is the overall coordination of the board, which means that you are involved in all important questions concerning Kraket.

Hopefully this gave you some insight into the function of the chairman. If you have any questions about my function, feel free to mail me at chairman@kraket.nl. I’m always available to answer questions, possible over a cup of coffee. If you are interested in a board year, don’t forget to sign up for our speeddate event, and hopefully, I will see you there!