As a group, it all started 3 months ago. The board had formed, the partic-
ipants and the destination were chosen and the academic year started. Reason enough to come together as a group for the first time. Most of us did recognize each other, since we all have been around Astatine in the past few years, however one evening of pooling changed us frombeing a random group of Astatine-members into the group of students who were together going to organize a trip! We were ready to start a new journey, a journey to a faraway place.
Throwback 2020
The countries were already chosen, but the places to visit still had to be picked. From that moment the planning committee started working on finding fitting places to visit, which they did with a lot of pleasure. Soon they presented a plan, which we all loved. In the meantime the acquisition committee was getting more and more casework, which meant that there was more and more money pending. They even added sponsoring to the list of income, which is of course very nice. But with casework and sponsoring came contracts and even though it took sometimes a bit of time, more have now been signed and the companies will receive the invoices very soon. To smooth out the process of making contracts, the admin committee made template contracts for cases as well as sponsoring.
To promote our availability for casework and to keep external parties updated we also have a website created by the design committee. It looks appealing to the eyes and hopefully many will see it, before it gets altered slightly. The design committee has of course also worked together with the board on the course, it still needed some modifications. But it was really starting to look like a solid course, which was going to take place in the second semester.
Pandemic, but no panic
During these first three months we came across one big problem, COVID-19. This made the first months harder than they should have been, meetings had to be online, the continuation of the trip wasn’t certain and we as the board couldn’t always give answers to some of your questions. At the end we decided to delay the trip by a year, because even though they are now saying that there is a vaccine for COVID-19 we can still not be sure that we can enter other countries in 6 months. For the people that are leaving the
SSA, we are very happy that you joined the SSA and hoped you enjoyed your time in the SSA. But this situation wasn’t fully expected and can result in a change of plans. We are all wishing you the best of luck on your studies and/ or work in the years to come.
To all we wish you a Merry Christmas and a
happy new Year and we hope to see you all soon!
Kind Regards,
In name of the SSA 2021
Thom Goesten
Secretary