Do-group Family Tree: Catching up to the past
In a previous article the history of Electrical Engineering do-groups was explored after a dive into the Scintilla archives. A lot of information was dug up, but a lot remained hidden. Thanks to contributions by some do-group veterans, many improvements could be made to the orignal tree. With memories, some more vivid than others, and the help of photographic evidence, the family tree could be updated until the turn of the century. With this article an attempt will be made to catch up to that past, an odd 20 years ago. Without further ado, the improved family tree is presented here:
An exhaustive family tree of the do-groups of the Bachelor Electrical Engineering from 1990 to 2019.
Working our way back in time, we first find the addition of more bastards. Besides the disaster of ‘18, there were more attempts at starting a do-groups with the names of ELco special edition, ELmo, ELmoow and Mex. It is obvious which do-group parented ELco special edition. Then, larger differences are found in 2009, we find that Duracell is indeed a decendant from Annie, but a distant relative if anything. Instead of Annie, we find the last generation of Delirium and Elco 5 at the cradle of this new do-group. The last generation of Delirium left another child, Elvis, together with BubbEL from 2005. Many do-groups did not use numbers for each new generation, but just stuck with the name year after year.
Old blood
In that same year, 2009, more do-groups were needed. This called the Kick-in Pidgeons to life, together with a second Annie do-group, dubbed Annie 19B. Both found parents from many generations ago, both with at least one parent dating back three generations. Together with Elvis (also from 2009) this makes them the groups with the oldest parents. If it was not canceled, ELco special edition would have held this title.
The parents of the Kick-in Pidgeons presenting their do-group during the do-group market in the Hogekamp in 2009.
Further back
The previous tree contained the AantrekkELijk and BubbEL, but they were not linked. As it turns out, they are part of a lineage with a changing name over a period of 5 years it changed 3 times, from SnorkEl, to BubbEL and finally to AantrekkELijk. Fortunately this lineage could be continued with Elvis, a few years after it had originally ended.
In 2005 a small miracle happened as the second generation of Elco was doomed when the original parents stopped before the Kick-in. A rescue operation was quickly started with parents from do-groups telefooncEL and VrijgezEL. These parents from the year before had already passed the training and screening by the Kick-in which is required to lead a do-group. It was with these eligible parents that Elco could continue until the current day as it was able to find enthousiastic parents of its own in the years after. Some were even so enthousiastic that they fathered both generations 14 and 15.
In 2004 an opposite problem occured, instead of requiring more do-group parents, there were too many of them. In fact, there were too few kiddo’s to fill all of the do-groups. This led to do-group EL Cheapo being canceled. An honourable decision as this gave way to parents that had never led a do-group before.
The shirt EL Cheapo would have used in 2004.
New old faces
At this point we are further back in time and some of the current day do-groups did not exist yet, instead, there were other groups with nowadays unfamiliar names. To get more familiar, some pictures were dug up from the archives:
A picture of BonomEL getting a tour on the roof of the Hogekamp in 2003.
Do-group LeipEL bringing a visit to the old STORES location in the basement of the Hogekamp in 2003.
A picture of freshmen attending the cantus during the introduction camp of 2003, shirts of SoepEL and SnorkEL can be seen.
The brightly coloured shirt of do-group TelefooncEL from 2003.
DommEL grandpa Lodewijk taking a swing at the computer destruction in 2002.
Besides some interesting scenery in the background, a lot of do-groups can be found in these pictures. In the previous article, the Elco lineage seemed to be separated from all of the other families. In the improved version you can find that Meneer de EL + Dommel is the corner stone that connects Elco to the other families, the two elemental do-groups: Annie and Delirium. The previous article was correct however, in the fact that EExcelcius is the first direct connection to Annie for years. With the help of some old year books the names of do-groups El capone and fLuim could be recovered for 2001, but further details are lacking.
A story from the good old days
Much of the family tree has been reconstructed from memories of people studying back in the day. Many suggestion came from the hand of Henriëtte (Jet) van Dorp. We have seen the differences between do-groups then and now. But Jet has provided a small insight in the introduction period back in 2002 to contrast it to the program today:
In 2002 the introduction period featured several theme days, a sports day, the Enscheday and a specific day to explore Hengelo. In Hengelo different activities were organised, among which abseiling from the town hall’s tower, a cabaret show in the Rabotheater and a party in one of the night clubs: New York (nowadays VIOS).
Because the Delirium generation from 2001 gave birth to a new generation of Delirium as well as another group, Meneer de EL/DommEL, there was some friendly rivalry. Some items got brassed, some competative games were played during the sports day, but at the end of it both Delirium and Meneer de EL/DommEL could happilly share a beer together.
Now, the tower of Hengelo’s city hall is quite tall, 59m high with a balcony around 42 meteres. There is quite a long queue for the abseiling, about an hour of waiting and then some to get all of the climbing equipment ready. The abseiling is cool, and despite being affraid of hights, getting over the edge is always a bit frightening. When I got about halfway down, it got a lot more frightening. My mom’s were screaming and there was a lot of laughter from the Delirium dads. I got the time to look to the side, looking behind was difficult because of the ropes. And that is when I felt it…
ICECOLD WATER! The Delirium dads and two of their kiddos had brought water guns just to shoot at the kiddos of Meneer de EL/DommEL. When it turned out that two of us were abseiling, they got extra happy. They had missed the other kiddo, but I was abseiling right in front of them. In which case my blue shirt was like a red rag to a bull. I caught the full load of two Supersoakers. The Delirium dads coined it ‘EE-girls should be initiated’ and my dads went along with it. I got my initiation when abseiling, but my sister Mariëlla…
The square in front of Hengelo’s station had a rather large fountain at the time, where we were waiting to go to club New York. The fountain was similar in size to the water fountain on the square in front of Enschede’s station, no edge and like the fountains you can find on the Van Heekplein. My dads carried Mariëlla through the entire fountain. There, she was initiated too. Before we entered the club she had dried up a bit, but it was later in the evening and she couldn’t dry up to the sun like me.
In 2005 I was mom to another do-group. That year (and the year before too) was completely without girls. During the faculty Kick-in, where Mariëlla was a board member, the story of the ‘initiation’ got told. My kiddos found it amazing. We just played the Highland games and there was this kiddo pool…
Jet being thrown in a pool during the introduction camp at Boer Frans’ farm in De Lutte in 2002.
Wrapping up
Then, there is a large gap in the data where records are lacking, the trail picks back up around the start of the family tree. Thanks to some more digging a UToday article (Dutch) was found which contains the complete story. It discusses the origins of the oldest do-group still alive, Annie. As it turns out, the name is based on an attentive mother, Annie, who sponsored shirts and a couple of beers during the introduction period of 1991. The article also shows that the first ever Annie shirts were white with red print.
The attentative reader also notices that the founder of Annie, Hans-Elias de Bree, had already been a do-group parent of ‘Timmer je kan het’ in 1990 making that the oldest do-group on record. That also wraps up the improvements made to the family tree which has made great progress to being more complete.
This article only took form because of the contributions of: Coen Bresser, Erwin Bronkhorst, Henriëtte van Dorp, Steven Staal, Jeroen Thijs, Caspar Verhey and Bob van de Vijver. Thanks for all of the contributions, your interesting stories and for racking your brains to dig up all these memories!
The Vonk and various contributors have made an attempt to dig up as much history as possible, but photos, archives and memories might be incomplete and only go back so far. If you have any improvements or additions to this overview, please contact us!
