Kick-In 2022 and Do-group Tree Update
The weather is getting nasty, the leaves are falling down (or are already on the ground). So, let us reminisce to the sunny days of the Kick-In with an update to the do-group tree of the last two years and a the story of Sjouke Spijkerman about the most recent Kick-In camp!
The family tree of the do-groups of the Bachelor Electrical Engineering from 1990 to 2022. If you have any improvements or additions to this overview, please contact us!
The Kick-In camp 2022, where should I start! For the third time in my life I had the honor to participate in the integration week with the even bigger honor of being allowed to be parent of do group Perry for the 2nd time after being a kiddo of the Perry IX generation. As corona restrictions did no longer apply (mostly), this Kick-In was totally different from my previous experiences. Big events, huge parties and of course a great camp organized by our SKIC during the Kick-In.
So, on a Monday afternoon around 12:00 somewhere at the end of August, the journey to the camp location had started. Do groups received a list of 92 challenges which needed to be completed on the way to the camp to earn a prize with the extra challenge of navigating the route by a cryptic manual on how to get to the camp where dinner would be waiting. As we of course needed to win this prize, we immediately started of speed-running through challenges, ending up with quite a few amazing videos of kiddos jumping in a pond, stacking themselves onto a bike, mummifying themselves with toilet paper and serenading each other. I must say I also enjoyed getting tattooed with a ball pen and that I like the fact that there is a video of me eating an ice cream for 3 minutes. Due to our enthusiasm, we were too delayed to still go through the entire trip manual, and we were told where we had to be for the camp and this way just set of on the fastest route.
A Perry XI kiddo mummified for one of the challenges
In the evening groups of kiddos were taken away by the SKIC to be dropped somewhere around the camp, while the parents and some of the not-so-young camp-volunteers of our association were dropped in Hengelo where we found our ways to have great fun, although we still had to walk back for more than an hour at the end of the evening. In my memory however, this trip was rather short and relaxed, and I can still remember how we sang for someone’s mom’s birthday on the street, I did not really expect that that would happen. Having arrived at the camp location again it was time for a final beer of the evening and time to sleep. As the room assigned for Perry was quite crowded, I decided to stay with Annie and Elco in a room with a lot more space, although not as much fun as I would have had in a room full of Perries of course.
To wake up all those sleepy kiddos, a warming-up was organized in which also parents needed to participate. Due to this active start of the day, my co-parent Matthijs Reus and me had arranged for our lovely kids a nice piece of “ontbijtkoek” (which can be translated to “breakfast cookie”, if you never had it before, maybe it’s worth a try!) in addition to the general breakfast to get them completely fueled up again, after which EE Sports initiated some more sport activities. Sadly, I felt a bit weak after I woke up and I supposed it would not be a good idea for me to join most of the activity. What if I would have gotten injured? Well, I would have missed out on the afternoon activity: swimming! Although the Kick-In is already behind us for some months, I can still remember me sitting on this floating island in the middle of this small outdoors nature swimming area with a bunch of others, while dreading the idea of entering the cold water again. The kiddos enjoyed themselves a lot however, so me as a dad could not have been any happier.
Stacking as much people as possible on one bike, as is typical in the Dutch culture of course.
After eating some fine Dutch cuisine, it was time to prepare ourselves for the introduction cantus. How nice was it to pick up our beloved codices once again after a long summer without my favorite singing event! I was surprised by the number of kiddos that were already engaging in the cantus for them being it their first times and I was glad to hear from many kiddos they enjoyed participating. I am also sure there is still some footage existing of Matthijs and me, and the other parents depicting Yogi bear.
Relatively shortly after the cantus I went to bed a bit early, being broken by the amount of party I already had had the past week. I am glad I did that because we needed it the following day. It was time to pack, clean and get ready to bike back to Enschede. The prize of the crazy 92 turned out to be able to choose first on what to clean in the camp building, but the honor of us winning was enough anyways. Luckily, waking up was not too hard due to the excellent taste of music of one of my kiddos in combination with a huge speaker. Although the men of Perry found their own spot in the sleeping area behind a wall on the first night, hiding themselves a bit from other do groups, it was clear that they were awake that morning. I should maybe feel a bit sorry for also enjoying the music that morning, completely getting rid of all peacefulness that morning, but it for sure got the day started.
And with that the camp was over already, and what a blast it was. It was not a lot of sleep, but a lot of fun which made it worth it to be there a 100%. From engaging in activities up to just having good conversation with each other during food or while we would be biking somewhere. It was all great fun. It was amazing to see so many people enjoying themselves and to see so many people finding new friends. I would never have wanted to miss out on these fun days!
