Interview: Lucas

- “Freedom, partying, endurance.”

The TOP committee is definitely a special committee within Flow. It’s both a very calm committee to be in as a member, as well as very intense during the week itself, and I mean that in a very positive way. The week itself consists mainly of alcohol, partying and meeting new people. For that, you work all throughout the summer vacation, toward one big week where you organize all the activities. This is all to introduce Flow to new students, but also just to have a fun week. As a committee, you are busy just having fun and actively trying to involve others in this. Once that’s done, everything will follow naturally. Before and during the week you are very free in your approach, and that is what makes it such a great committee to be part of.

A big part of the TOP committee is coming up with new things; be it themes, decorations or random activities throughout the afternoons. You end up having an entire week to fill, where there is a lot of room for freedom in what you organize. For example, we spent some time brainstorming about what games we wanted to make. We ended up having multiple sessions where we all worked to make our own board games.

Really cool. Especially the week before TOP week starts, you’ll sit and think through everything and work everything out. You really get an adrenaline rush beforehand to arrange and prepare as much as possible for the following week. During TOP week itself, this completely changes, and you start building much more on the flow of the week. So, it may very well happen that you suddenly have to completely rearrange plans because the atmosphere demands it. Being a TOP Commissioner requires adaptability during the week itself, but above all, enjoyment. You see a summer’s worth of plans come to fruition, and then you also get to do it together with all your friends.

Of course, the number one goal of the committee is always to have as much fun as possible during the week and to do fun things. We had more than enough prepared, so we had a very successful week with respect to that. I think everyone had a good time, and that's the most important thing. There are also still so many people stopping by the Flow room that I met during TOP week. In addition, I started this year as Flow's treasurer myself, so from my role as a board member there was also a focus on recruiting members. This too has gone really well.

I saw cargo bikes (bakfietsen) from other associations come by a few times during TOP week. Now it would have been really funny to also have a Flow vehicle for during TOP week. Whether this is a cargo bike (Flakfiets) or a Flow car (Flar), it would have been fun to work on this with the committee as a longer term project anyway. I wouldn’t really know how we would store it, but with an unlimited budget this should not be a problem

I think Wednesday was the most fun for me. This was the very first day since Monday when we only had something big planned in the evening, giving me time to just socialize and play games all day. Monday, and especially Tuesday, were jam-packed with activities (and with that, the necessary planning work), so to then have a chill day and be able to end it with a nice party outside was absolutely perfect.

Wow yes, a lot happened! One happening was on Tuesday night. It was raining ridiculously hard outside, so no one was there. We ended up dancing together with the TOP committee in the rain for a while. But I also look back fondly to something as simple as having a nice chat with the TOP committee while making bracelets inside VHZ.