Ruud van Vliet mentions a number of PV activities: “We organize various courses, such as digital photography. Every month a number of activities take place. In addition, there are many sports and hobby clubs within the Staff Association, like badminton or flower arrangement. If international colleagues indicate that they would like other activities, we shall naturally look into the options for organizing them.”
Unfortunately at this moment there are merely a few international members among us. Van Vliet admits that the PV presents itself as an organization for Dutch co-workers in particular, but is of the opinion that this needs to be changed soon indeed. “Through the accession of international co-workers, we are also rejuvenating our club. Besides, a Staff Association should be a good reflection of the workforce, which it is not now.”

Chicken and egg
How come that there are so few international colleagues? “It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg story”, says Van Vliet. “As there is little interest on the part of international colleagues in the Staff Association, few activities and courses are organized in English. The reverse also applies: since few events are organized in English, there are few international workers interested.” Still, according to the chairman it is quite easy to speak English during most of the activities: “I teach a course of digital photography. If I really devote myself to this, I can easily teach that course in English. It is a pity, though, that if I have devoted a couple of hours to translate the course there are only Dutch people showing up. You should not forget either that the Staff Association comes down to volunteers. It just ripples on without really spreading its wings.”
The chairman is developing a number of initiatives to get more colleagues interested in the Staff Association. Thus, at present he is working on an English translation of the website. “At the moment there is only a booklet available in English, which may be downloaded via the site.” Through this, Van Vliet hopes that he can draw more attention to the PV among international colleagues./.

More information about the Staff Association can be found on http://www.tue.nl/pv/. The site is in Dutch. On the homepage under the heading ‘Brochures’ it is possible to download the English booklet by clicking on the link ‘information booklet’.