Non-IT activities/projects
KUL Social Dance ↑
For the balfolk and social dance courses at the KU Leuven, I'm the teachers' community manager and teaching assistant.
As I keep coming back to this course I'm at a significantly higher level than most other participants
(it's still fun and I keep learning, it's also important in the maintenance of my abilities).
This allows me to give good feedback to my dance partners in a gentle manner
(without overloading their brains or putting pressure when they're already at their limits).
On top of that, when one of the teachers can't make it, I'm the default replacement to help show the moves and give instructions.
When there are no official classes during holiday or exam periods, I organise my own classes where I teach by myself.
Usually I go for balfolk dances, as they're easier to prepare on my own, but I've also given initiations to couple dances.
The video below is one sequence of the Leuven Roulette Troika mixer,
a dance I made myself based on several other dances and with a bit of extra chaos.
The image is my notes of a particularly complex Breton dance which I learned in Czechia.
Leuven Volley ↑
I started playing volleyball at the KULeuven's official sessions.
The beginners had their own field but were mainly left alone.
As I felt the need to practice technique instead of just playing, I gathered some fellow beginners and made a practice group.
This started slow, the first practice session we were with two.
When we made a nice combo in the next official session a few others joined in.
Every session thereafter I asked all new people if they were interested in joining, slowly growing the group.
Through interactions with other volleyball groups some advanced players joined the group as teachers.
By the end of the year we had enough active members to run full game sessions twice a week.
At this point our practice group had evolved into one of the main recreational university volleyball groups.
To keep a better overview of who participates in which session, I created a website.
More about that here.
UCLL Student Council ↑
Halfway through my professional bachelor I found myself with free time and an opinion on the cirriculum,
so I joined the campus student council.
A few months later the IT students were moved to a brand new campus and I took the initiative of founding and leading the new campus student council.
After a recruitment drive we had 16 official members, most of which were actively participating.
In that first semester we were very proactive with solving problems and communicating, resulting in a 42% vote during the yearly elections
(most campusses struggle with 20%).
The year after, I planned on leaving (I graduated and returned to the KUL). However, through circumstance I ended up becoming vice president of
the general student council and representative to the board of directors of the UCLL. I was the primary author of the internal rules on both
the campus and general level and became the council's legal expert (and in some cases I surpassed that of the staff).
Together with a collegeau we secured the generous funding (upwards of 50k) that various student organisations received from being lost in the process of the UCLL merger.
In the second semester of my term I focussed on internal reformations, in an attempt to decentralise responsibilities and effort towards other members.
Before it was usual for a few key figures to do nearly everything, with other members just being present in meetings and voting.
One of the things I did was to introduce several roles, such as event manager, campus liason (to improve the connection between the various campus councils and the general council),
communication manager.
Besides the serious stuff, I was a strong adherent of a "work hard, play hard" philosophy.
We had several teambuildings per semester and went on a weekend each semester.