‘The contact with members is decreasing, people don’t want to sit in front of their laptops anymore for social activities, but it is also hard to come up with new things,’ says Winters. ‘Meeting people online is hard, especially when you don’t know each other yet. It’s also demotivating for committees to organise events when only five people participate. We needed something new.’
Achterkamp adds: ‘Around September, October, it looked like the second wave was coming and physical social activities would be even less possible. One day, Annet came over to our association room and asked me for ideas for social events, so we brainstormed: what can you still do? We thought it’s still possible to be with your housemates, so we came up with the idea of the student house games.’
They started planning the games with the two of them, but most boards shared the same goal: reaching as many students as possible. Now more associations are on board to organize the event. ‘First, we thought of just doing it with the ET faculty but then expanded it to all associations, as nobody can do anything and most can’t even go to lectures,’ says Achterkamp.
Already 64 houses have signed up with a total of around 400 students, but the sign-up numbers are still increasing. What participants can expect? ‘It’s two weeks of crazy, fun and daring challenges’, says Winters. ‘Some are smaller, like eating as many marshmallows as possible, and some take longer, for example collecting as many beer bottle caps as possible during those two weeks. We also have challenges where houses have to collaborate with other houses, so they can connect. That’s also our goal: to connect people and the bonding of houses, despite the circumstances and measures.’
It is still possible to join until Monday via most study associations websites or the Instagram page @housegamesenschede.
