Column Saskia Stender: Catching up vs. overkill

In recent weeks, I have been hearing on the radio that people who normally attend all festivals now have to make choices. Because of all the lockdowns, it seems as if we need to catch up in the second quarter of this year on everything we were unable to organise in the past two years. This does not only apply to festivals. Trade fairs are also very close together, experience centres have packed their agendas, symposia and conferences are back in full swing, and that also applies to us, to the OSV. 

In April, we organised an extremely well-attended spring barbecue with 200 participants, a successful golf day in May and a company visit to GEA at the beginning of June. The OSV Summer Barbecue was planned for 22 June. Yes, that's right: it was planned. Sadly, we are cancelling this barbecue. Not only does everyone have an overloaded agenda, and we're racing to catch up, but it now turns out that a lot of people are already on holiday at the end of June. After all, you never know whether corona will spoil things (again). We can travel now and we are all gratefully benefiting from that. Of course, we avoid Schiphol Airport, otherwise we are still not sure of our holiday!

I receive more e-mails and phone calls about the summer barbecue from members saying: "Sorry, but I really can't be there this time, as much as I regret it", than registrations. We are not going to make it to 50. This is at the expense of the quality of the barbecue, which is all about good food and extensive networking. We are not going to achieve the latter goal as well as we could. So it's time for reflection and a break in the schedule. We don't want to make you go through a semi-event, not me as an organiser, let alone the sponsor.

After the summer, we will continue our planning in good faith! For now, I wish everyone a happy summer holiday.

Saskia Stender