Dear Samourais,

We hope that you are enjoying your summer vacation by now! With this end of year newsletter, we want to this turbulent year behind us and look forwards to what we are going to do next year. This includes the Introduction Week, some changes in the board lineup, the first GMM of the year and the end of year summer barbecue. We also want to mention what the summer program is.

For the board, this was a very weird first year. With the corona situation not allowing us to train, we have had to really think outside of the box to think of some fun activities. For some time, we had online get-togethers on each second Saturday of the month, but as the corona situation kept lingering on and interest declined, we decided to put a hold to that. To promote the association and to keep everyone connected, we started an Instagram account for the Samourais (@esbvsamourais) which we are happy to say grew a lot over the year. Here, we posted some fun martial arts facts (inspired by Luuk) and we shared information from the SSC. We also created very special Corona Edition Hoodies (see picture below). All in all, we are very happy that you stayed with us throughout the year and to see the end of the period where we cannot train.

Introduction

This year, the introduction week will be from the 23 August until 27 August. As we want to show our association of to the new comers as much as possible, of course we will be participating in this event. Currently, we are not sure whether or not we can do the introduction (completely) offline. However, we are hopeful that the introduction will be mainly offline, and therefore we could use your help with the introduction activities! Our own offline activities include the markets of TU/e and Fontys on 25 August, the city tour on 26 August and workshops on 27 August (4 timeslots, 1 per sport) and 31 August for the master introduction (2 timeslots). The timetable for the activities that we have the times for is as follows:

Fontys market, 25-8-2021 10:00-18:00

TU/e market, 25-8-2021 13:00-18:00

City tour, 26-8-2021 9:00-18:00

If you think you might be available to help for a couple of hours, please let us know!

Board changes

This year, the board consisted of five members, namely Keita as chairperson, Anton as secretary, Cristian as treasurer, Arjan as commissioner of activities and Elif as commissioner of public relations. Anton and Elif will be leaving next year, which leaves a board of three. We are still looking for board members! Reach out to any of the current board members if you would be interested in joining the board next year! At the GMM, we will make the transition of function and board members.

General Members Meeting

The first GMM of this year will be held in October. We will get back to you with the exact date. The GMM will most likely be held in person. We want to encourage you to attend, since it is a fun meeting where you can voice what you want for the association.

Barbecue

We have decided to put off the end of year barbecue until we will be able to have it in person. We will keep you up to date on when we want to hold it, which might be as early as August.

Activities over the summer

From Monday 5 July until Sunday 5 September, during the summer holiday, we will have trainings for Judo given by Mathijs on Mondays and Duco on Wednesdays, and Aikido given by Ad or Mathijs. The times for training are somewhat different, the hours are:

Aikido: Tuesday 20:00-21:30, Thursday 19:00-20:30

Judo: Monday 20:30-22:00, Wednesday 18:45-20:15

For BJJ, we have made hours available for open mat training, namely on:
Thursdays 20:30-22:30

Other news

We wanted to mention that there is a sale going on over at Nihonsports, the store where we buy suits for members of the association. They might have something that interests you, so if there is any piece of equipment you still need, check it out!

Finally, we as a board want to wish you a very happy summer holidays, where you can enjoy the world going back to normal. We are looking forward to seeing you next year.

Kind regards,

Anton Halma
Secretary E.S.B.V. Samourais