By Gino

Editor’s note: this article is a fucking UNIT, so feel free to read smaller bits of it whenever.

Who are you?

Daan

I am Daan Hulleman, chairman of the association now. [I’m] at this point, [a] fifth year mechanical engineering student. Still haven’t finished my bachelor’s because of other stuff I did. And I’ve been active here for – this my fourth year at the Koornbeurs. I have done quite a lot in Tapki and other committee work. And now doing a bored year.

Floris

I’m Floris, I’m a 20 year old student. And I am the commissioner external and treasurer of the Sociëteit de Koornbeurs. I’m now a third year mathematics student, and a fourth-year’s Koornbeurser.

Bastiaan

Hello, I am Bastiaan. I am secretary of the Koornbeurs. Also [I’m] in my fourth year as a Koornbeurs member

Patrik

My name is Patrik. I guess I’m being interviewed as a bored member, so I’m the vice chair and the commissioner backstage of the association. I’m a fourth year member of the Koornbeurs, very enthusiastic about all of the venue stuff mainly, but I also love tapping, I love a variety of other shifts. I guess that’s me in a nutshell as a Koornbeurser. (in Canadian) Oh yeah.

Per

I am Per van der Klauw, 22 years old. And I’m commissaris intern at O.J.V. de Koornbeurs. Among other things.

Raphael

I’m Raphael, I’m 21 years old. I’m a student at the TU and I’m bored at the Koornbeurs. I’m the treasurer association, which means that I take most of the treasurer duties of the Koornbeurs. And then some treasurer duties are done by the other treasurer, which is the treasurer society. And then also a large part is of course just generic board things.

Steve

That is a very philosophical question. I am Steve. I mean, I guess that’s not a great description as in… I am one of those people that doesn’t see the name as a core part of the identity. Like you can just call me by any name I respond to, and that’s fine. But I guess being Steve is a thing I am.

Per, how would you go about conquering the world?

Well, conquering the world is inherently unattainable. Mostly because you would have to reconcile so many different ideas and things. And of course, you know, subjugating population, it’s very tough because you’re going to have to delegate somehow.

However, it could be that the people you delegate have their loyalties with the place that they are governing instead of with you. Right. This is very, very relatable to our theme. Alexander the Great, he had to reconcile so many different identities just to keep his empire together. He wasn’t the king, he was leader, he was the leader of Macedon, but he was also the pharaoh of Egypt. But he was also the Persian king of kings. He had so much fucking stuff to reconcile. So in a modern day and age, that would just not work because everyone would be like, oh, you’re an outsider. And I, yeah, it would be practically impossible. But otherwise with force.

Why are you bored?

Per

Well, in general, when I joined the Koornbeurs, I thought you know, this is fun, I want to really help something. I want to add to the Koornbeurs to make it better. And then I went to Enschede for half a year for my minor and I really realised how much I actually missed the Koornbeurs, which some people will remember from Gravel Weekend, including you Gino [(can confirm)].

When I came back, I was kind of like, you know, I want to do even more. And then one evening Patrik asked me if I wanted to do board.

There I had the choice between either pensoc or com intern and I decided money is not my thing. So I decided to become com intern, because I realised that it’s more of a challenge than anything else, but it’s also something that is right up my alley.

Patrik

Woah, that’s a good question. I think it’s a very noble task to just dedicate a year of your life to something like this. The Koornbeurs has given me a lot in my social life and a lot of other values as well, a lot of other skills that I wouldn’t have learned any other way.

I guess I felt like it’s a very nice way of giving back to this community. I felt like I could do it. I’m in a fortunate enough situation to just be able to go for it. I’m very much enjoying it so far.

Daan

I mean, I was already very active during the past two, three years. And I always just liked the idea of doing board, kind of giving back to a place I’ve had a lot in terms of; I’ve met very many of my friends here, done a lot for, been able to spend quite a lot of time here. So it’s also a bit of like giving back and making sure that this is also a place for other people. Like be the place how it was for me, to also let it be that for other people.

Floris

So, I was interested in board for quite a while, but there was never a good opportunity, time wise, to do it, until I moved from The Hague to Delft last year during an exam week and then passed zero of those exams. So suddenly I had an additional year of my studies and some time next to that. Which I now filled up with being bored.

Bastiaan

Well, at some point I kind of thought about it, just being like ‘how would it be like to be bored?’, just thinking about it? At some point Patrik actually asked me if I wanted to join three others back then, Steve, Daan and Patrik. He asked me and I was like well I kind of already thought about it, so just a couple days later I just said yeah sure, I’ll join.

Raphael

So basically, I think before I kind of got into the interest of being bored, I was an active member for like one and a half years and a member for two and a half years. And then some friends of mine were very interested in doing board and were kind of pulling me into it. I was very doubtful for a while. And then I realized that the group of people I would be doing it with was super gezellig, super nice. And that made me very motivated actually.

And then also it happened to very much align with my studies. So like this year I’m doing 5 points to finish my bachelor. Otherwise I would have just worked beside doing a bachelor so then I’d rather do board.

Schteve

Great question. I think I’ve already seen like… Well, one and a half years ago? That I want to do more things for the Koornbeurs than I was doing at that point. Because I had one year of basically no Koornbeurs activity. Like I was technically Geeki, but yeah, it was 2021 Geeki. That was a bit of a dead thing.

And then 2023 I started tapping a lot more. And I started eyeing with the Tapki and then, very soon after that, I started eyeing with Oppertapper, even though I was not Tapki yet. It’s weird that I’ve only become Tapki like June 2023. Like I’ve only been in Tapki for half a year more than the children. It does not feel like it.

So yeah. That was like half of my motivation for my big roles. And then there was the CG, where in January I looked at my board and saw no CG potential. And I looked at the Henkie, and the Henkie was half old board, half current board at that time. So I just joined and saw where it took [me].

{So you just decided to do it (CG) yourself?}

Yeah. I hope I don’t live to regret the decision.

Daan, let’s say you had to rob a bank, how would you do it?

First of all, do a lot of scouting on what exactly the bank has in terms of security, where the guards are. Try to get like floor plans, like blueprints of the building. Like look where sewer lines are, ventilation shafts are and then see what’s the best point of entry. And yeah, I don’t know from there.

{You would just sneakily try to get in basically?}

I would sneakily try to get in. Violence, it’s not always the answer, but sometimes it is. So there might be some violence necessary. Which is not condoned by the Koornbeurs, but is condoned by me personally. Yeah, I think I could come up with a good sneaky game plan, but I’m not sure. I think, probably, I’m overestimating myself.

{How would you get in the safe?}

Probably some welding.

What are you most excited about for this year?

Patrik

It’s a new thing that we’re trying this year to fill every Friday with a live music thing, that comes with a lot of extra booking and also a lot of extra shifts to fill on the bar side and on the technical side. So that’s, I think, my main personal challenge as a bored member this year to keep up with that and keep up the good promo, the good quality of the events.

Bastiaan

Just looking forward – basically just seeing how it goes. Being bored, It was kind of different than I expected at first. And I’m just excited to see how things go, what kind of mark we make on the Koornbeurs.

Per

I mean mostly just building on what 112 already did before us and trying to keep that going. More just onwards and upwards. Making sure that people feel at home and honestly just making people realise that the Koornbeurs is a place where they can be themselves and also discover themselves.

Raphael

I think what I’m most enthusiastic about at least is the fact that we just have a super full agenda. There’s something, I think, for the past few weeks there’s been something every single day, maybe bar some Sundays. Which is really crazy.

And then also high quality activities. Like every Friday there’s been live music. Almost every Saturday there’s been something of a party or a concert. It’s really insane. We’re going at a very high capacity and we’re managing it and that’s very cool I think.

Floris

One of the projects that I started with was the members price, which has now passed the members assembly. So that was something I was very keen on getting done. Some of our general policies, such as the live music on Fridays is something that I’m very excited about. And I like a financially healthy Koornbeurs, so that’s also something I’ve spent some time trying to make.

Daan

I think most excited would probably be, like, we have the first international board now. So there has to be a lot of provisions in terms of how we make the association more acceptable for international students. That is something that I’m very much working on also with translations of documents, translations of rules and stuff to make that a lot more accessible to international students.

And just, I think in general, some stuff just needs revision and needs to be done differently and a whole lot of cleanup of backlog and stuff. So kind of making sure what I said in the board policy, to make sure that we have a consistent basis to work upon. And from that we can grow.

SchteBe

So my original plan was to do like a bit of stable things at the start and then do incremental betterings. But then I immediately got Capri Sun and pushed the cherry coke out of the throne of most beered drink. Hell yeah.

Oh yeah. But yeah, I think I align with my board, as in like the Koornbeurs goals of last year; save the Koornbeurs.

And I think this year we are working on making the Koornbeurs better, like financially and otherwise. I’m excited about that.

For my non-Koornbeurs goals, you can read the ledenpost. They are bangers.

Every bored member has like personal goals outside of Koornbeurs. Mine are great. I have some great personal goals. The third one, the one I’m most proud of, is making a wizard pondering orb.

{A what?}

A wizard pondering orb.

{A wizard?}

Bastiaan, let’s say you had to overthrow the government, how would you do it?

That’s a tough question. I’m usually quite a law-abiding citizen. I find it quite hard to go against such a thing. I would try maybe via speech, just talk the government into saying ‘alright you win’. Just to convince them.

{Like gaslight them?}

Yeah.

You have now already been bored for a while. Is it what you expected it to be? Did anything surprise you? Are you enjoying it?

Raphael

I think we were worked in quite well. I think it’s about what I expected. It is slightly different. Some tasks that I got a lot of tutorials on, I guess I didn’t really have to do a lot, and some other tasks I had to do way more. But overall it’s about what I expected I think.

SchteBro

So I’d say that I’ve said multiple times that the first two weeks of September were like four months for me personally. They were long weeks. I think it hasn’t been like less work than that but I’ve gotten more used to it. Also luckily this week I had actually two days off Koornbeurs, I was not in a Koornbeurs for two days and that’s fucking great because that rarely ever happens. Like both Tuesday and Friday I was just not here and I slept so much.

{Is it what you expected, to be bored?}

Yeah okay maybe not exactly, like I maybe expected it to be a slightly less work but then since the first two weeks I am just very much in the zone. I am locked in and I am slaying.

Per

I very much like it. It’s very fun. It is hard to juggle between how first years see you and how older see you. First years see you as this big bad, more just, ‘oh god, it’s board’. The moment you have to speak to them you’re already in trouble. Which especially as com intern that’s kind of tough.

Whereas the older members are like, ‘oh you’re com intern right?’. Fucking prove it. Prove to us that you’re competent enough to listen to. And that’s kind of hard to reconcile those two things and do that. But in general, I mean DB days have been fun. It’s just kind of nice to be able to chill here and know that in your schedule you’re just not going to be able to study one day. It’s very nice to have consistency and also have more than one thing to work on. So yeah. I like it very much at the present moment.

And doing everything for the Koornbeurs that I can to make it a better place and have it be nice. It’s cool. But it has been very tiring.

Bastiaan

Always things are kind of different than I expect, my expectations are always kind of different about things. So yeah, I’m enjoying it, it’s a lot of fun.

{What was different than you expected?}

Well, they’re just a lot more little tasks, I guess. And what I thought of secretary, it’s a lot of taking notes. Well that part is kind of up to my expectations, but other stuff like maintaining the members admin, stuff like that. Keeping the website updated.

Patrik

Yes. Yeah, definitely enjoying it a lot. I guess it’s not as surprising, people have warned me about this, but it really does seep into every moment of your life. I expected to be able to separate concerns a bit better. I’m also doing some studies on the side but it is definitely something that you think about 24/7.

Daan

It is kind of like I expected. I was already very active so I expected it to be kind of similar in that way, but just holding a lot more responsibility. And that is kind of the case now. Like being here four or five days a week, doing shifts, making sure everything is up and running. But then there’s like the additional thing of a lot more inter-committee communication. And eventually you’re ultimately the responsible one. So kind of chasing a lot of people to talk with each other and making sure that agreements are followed. That’s something that I did expect, but I think it’s been a bit more than I expected.

Floris

Yeah, it’s basically exactly what I thought it would be. Which is nice I guess. No real big surprises.

I’m spending a lot of time on it, maybe I should cut back that a little bit. But yeah, thus far I’ve been enjoying it.

Raphael, how would you try to get away with murder? And also while we’re at it, who would your target be?

Foo. Well that’s quite classified I guess. A quote from a very good movie, or I’m not sure if it’s a quote, but “never trust a guy with a pig farm”. I would find someone who has a pig farm. I have an uncle who has a chicken farm so maybe I can find some connection through that. And then, well I would try to get rid of the body that way I guess.

{Feed it to the pigs?}

Yeah yeah. And I’m not sure who my target would be. Like there’s no genocidal maniac that I have a direct connection with. So I don’t really have an easy connection to a truly evil person that’s ethical to murder. Like if I had, you know, a connection to Hitler’s reincarnation then I would go for that of course. But I don’t. So if AIVD is listening to this, no I’m not planning on murdering anyone.

{How would you execute the murder? You’re gonna feed the body to the pigs but how are you gonna get the body?}

Yeah poisoning I guess. I’m not the strongest person. I’m not the person that carries the fusts around here. So I think poisoning would be my best bet. I would tap on some person’s shoulder that knows a bit of chemistry and ask them for advice. You know, a trustworthy person. That’s how I do it.

{Like through their drink or food or would you try to stick them with like a needle?}

No, I think just spike their food or drink. Yeah, yeah. This is a very detailed part of the interview by the way.

{Aaah don’t worry about it}

What’s with the purple profile pictures?

So apparently most of the bored members themselves don’t even know the full story behind their profile pictures, not that it’s very comprehensive or anything. But the long story, not so short, goes a little something like this:

“This was like during a random party where I found the little sunglasses. I found it in the P. It was just lying around on the closet there. And I was like, yo, these are like amazing for raves. They are such a vibe. And I just put them on. And I think Patrik had like some similar ones. And I was just like randomly putting it on people like making pictures during a party.” – Daan

“At the last New Year’s Herman I think it was, I don’t know who it was but someone had Matrix sunglasses, like the classic ones from The Matrix. Well we were just basically like putting on the sunglasses one by one while we were dancing, taking pictures and stuff and I was like this goes kind of hard. It looks kind of wacky but it goes hard and so we just did it.” – Raphael

“I don’t know who started it. I think it did start at that same Herman though. Well, I think it was actually – first it was Joep actually who said to me ‘oh you should change your profile picture’ [and] he said [that] to a couple of other people and then it turned out to just be bored.” – Bastiaan

“So I think a bunch of people after Herman, I don’t even know when, like three of us had those kind of profile pictures of the wacky sunglasses in the pink-purple lighting. And we were placed in the group chat [(with their board)], I just looked through the [profile] pictures and I was like hey it’s it’s funny that three of us are like that, and then we just decided to make all of our profile pictures that” – Beve

“When we all decided to be bored somewhere during the spring, we all just like changed our profile picture. I think it’s funny. Also like purple has become the color of our board pretty much is like the color of emperors used to be scarce to like get purple dye. So, yeah. Also I just think that the pictures look cool.” – Patrik

We were like, okay, now we all got to do it. So then on like a random Wednesday, Floris and Per also joined the board. And then Patrik just like turned the lights on and put some purple on there so we could all have this similar profile picture. – Daan

“So the purple profile pictures is something that I don’t exactly remember. But I do remember one day during a Wednesday, when I already said I would become bored. Daan coming over to me like: ‘Per Per Per! Go sit down in that chair. Put on these sunglasses. We’re going to take a picture of you in the bisexual lighting.’ I was like, huh? Huh? Excuse me? Explain. I’m not opposed to bisexual lighting, good shit, but also; huh?” – Per

“At some point I was just given those sunglasses and put under a purple light and I was told, you are now going to change your profile picture. And then I did that. I have been told by my grandma that my profile picture looks intimidating and not like someone you would like to have a chat with, so maybe I should update it at some point.” – Floris

Patrik, how would you escape an insane asylum?

Ooh. I would probably try to put some tools together from like, maybe I could dry

some bread. Like, if stokbrood [(baguette)] exists in an insane asylum and it gets as hard as it

does in the real world, I feel like it could definitely be on par with some metal tools.

{So, what would you do with it to escape?}

I mean, I guess it really depends on the layout and like how exactly I’m locked in there. I would just need to adapt to the situation. I mean, yeah. Definitely need some lockpicking skills and I’m also not afraid of using some brute force.

{So, you’d probably just use the stokbrood as a weapon?}

Yeah. Yeah. That as well. Definitely. Like a spear or… I mean, I feel like it doesn’t have a lot of mass. So, like using it to do blunt force trauma, it’s not really a thing.

{Like poke their eyes or something?}

Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Anything you want to tell the Koornbeurs?

Floris

I love all of you, but I love people who do second tap shifts and party shifts the most. And I love all the cooks and technique and all other personnel that I’m now discriminating against as well obviously. Make sure to have fun and just enjoy being here and enjoy your studies.

SchteBroloski

I want to say that; please please rinse your cans, I am so sick of smelling like yeast every single Wednesday when I have to empty those, half rinsed half not, cans into the big bags. So please rinse the cans that you put away behind the bar. Also just do more tap shifts, it’s a lot of fun, there’s the reason why I’ve done four tap weeks at this point, it’s fun.

Per

Take care of yourself, have fun, do shifts and explore yourself!

Bastiaan

I hope you’re not sick of us being bored yet. I hope we’re doing a good job.

Patrik

Stay gezellig. I don’t know. Just be good kids.

Raphael

Well first off, I’m not planning to murder anyone, don’t worry. Especially not members who don’t clean up after a borrel you know. I’m **not** planning to ***murder*** you, I want to make that **very clear**. And other than that, please do tap shifts.

Daan

Tell the Koornbeurs, please be as willing to do stuff as you are now. Sometimes shifts are a bit hard to fill and I very much know that everyone who is here has a heart for this place. I know not everyone has the time. But if you have the time, we are always very happy if you like, do a shift. You’ll get some stuff in return in terms of drinks.

There are a lot of people also who do a lot of shifts. And they very much like it. They pour their heart and soul out for this place. So I just want to do like a general comment on everyone, like do a few shifts. We’re very grateful if you do it, you get free beer.

And also stuff like tapping, technique are very fun. And dishwashing might not be that fun, but we have running water now in the attic. So it will be a lot easier. We’re very much looking into making sure that shifts are actually worth it. So if you have ideas, also let me know and please do some shifts. It’s always very fun.

Stevenson, if you had to be an animal which one would you be?

[{(< Sidenote: At this point I’d run out of dubious questions, so SchBeve got more of a jolly one instead. >)}]

That is a great question because I am a huge animal lover, so it’s hard to choose one that I would [want to] be the most. I guess it would be cool to fly, that’s like a cool thing. But then I still wouldn’t want to be one of those solitary animals.

{So like a flock bird?}

Yeah I guess migrating every year twice would be cool. To just like fly a huge distance, yeah.

{You want to be like a big one or a small one?}

Medium size I think. Like I’d say, [with] big birds you are expending a lot of energy and so you have to eat more. Medium size you’re just chilling. And then the small size you will also get into the same thing of you cannot store that not that much energy. 

{And cats.}

Also cats, cats are scary if you’re a bird.

Is there anything that you thought would be asked, but wasn’t? Or anything else you want to talk about?

Raphael

No I don’t think so.

SchteBroloskivic

I mean you can ask me random questions. I am a yapper so if you just talk to me somewhere I can yap yap yap. Especially when I’m tired, I get more yappy when I’m tired. yeah I don’t think you’ve missed anything.

{Good, uh yeah I didn’t have any more questions really… I guess uh, what’s your favorite color?}

Favorite color, it’s a certain shade of blue, actually I might need to look it up, what the shade is because I keep forgetting the name. That is something that’s very known about me; is that I don’t have a memory. So I could also be a goldfish for the animal, wouldn’t change much.

Blue shades let’s see, somewhere between iceberg and the sky blue where [it’s] a more vibrant version of the iceberg but not as vibrant as sky.

Bastiaan

I kind of, sort of thought about maybe our goals for the year, but we also have our board policy we presented at the WLV, which also contains our goals. So I guess you can see them in there.

{What’s the most important goal would you say? Or goals.}

It’s mostly just our own personal goals, but my most important personal goal is – I kind of already sort of thought about it, was basically just figuring out what I want to do after I’m done with my bored year. I already kind of thought about it and I have a rough plan about it.

Floris

I don’t know, I’d have expected like a question about what I thought of old board or what I think of my current board. I’m not going to make a statement on what I think of old board, they know. That can be interpreted in many ways, which is funny, because they know I love them.

And on my current board, I’m also not going to make any statements, but reiterate that we have a feedback and meeting evaluation point in all meetings.

Daan

I guess what our entire plan with the board is. What to do with the entire association. I know the board has quite some ambitious plans in terms of financial systems. Especially the Kaki stuff. Kaki essentially runs on its own now in terms of finances. So I think that is outdated. And I know that Raph and Floris are working very hard to actually throw that system around to make it better for the Kaki to do their shit. And also to make it [make] a lot more sense in the entire Koornbeurs bookkeeping.

Of course we have the idea of doing live music every Friday. It doesn’t matter if it’s a karaoke, kelderjam, DJ party, etc. And I think just a whole lot of it is just making sure we have a very solid foundation to work upon. That’s at least the plan for the first few months, first half a year. And then we can look into doing a lot more stuff. We are already very ambitious. But then actually making this place our own and helping a lot with different stuff.

Per

I mean, just random things would always be funny. Just like, just like give a random dilemma. Like for example, would you prefer to fight an orangutan with a sword once a year or fight a chicken every time you step off of your bike?

Patrik

Honestly, I didn’t really come to this interview with a lot of expectations. But now I’m trying to… Oh, actually, Gino, what sauce would you like to see in the sauce crates?

{Oh, well, I’m not too familiar with what’s already in there, honestly}

That’s fair. I need to get my… Like the image of the sauce crates more in the mainstream. I still haven’t really done anything for that.

{You’re trying to expand it?}

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

{It’s already pretty full, isn’t it?}

Yes. Yes. I will have to look at it at some point and just sort through it.

Floris, How would you go about faking your own death if you had to?

So it would depend on whether I am faking my own death for everyone or whether or not there is a subset of people that I’m still keeping in the loop.

If I’m faking my own death for everyone, I would go on my holiday, probably either with parents or friends, and just disappear during a hike. I would make sure that I have the access to the Koornbeurs and Stok accounts still, so I have some spare money to work with for the first while.

I would make sure I have a couple additional credit cards and ID cards and stuff like that with me, and I would make sure we would be going on a holiday to a place where I have been to before, or maybe a couple of times before. I would go to the general area, probably somewhere in Schengen, because that means that I can have a lot of freedom of movement and can stay on the move if necessary.

Afterwards I’d probably move over to the edge of Schengen and go to a place that doesn’t have an extradition treaty, so they can’t look for me anymore.

If there are other people who still know that I’m still alive and if I’m only doing it for the government, then it’s a bit rougher. In that case I would probably need to get a doctor to declare me dead legally, which probably means I still need access to the Koornbeurs and Stok accounts because I’ll need money to bribe them. I guess there are also some friends of mine that are studying medicine at this point, so maybe in a few years I could convince one of them to do that for me and declare me dead legally.

And then afterwards I would just, I don’t know, inhabit a place that I know, but where a lot of friends of mine are also at, which most likely [would] be the Koornbeurs. I guess you could make a cozy place to live for yourself in the Q attic, that’s doable. Other options would be, I guess behind the wipzolder there is a storage area you could rebuild that into a living space or just retract old copies of abactis keys, it’s also an option.