Workshop
Student boards - Business Skills Programme (1) - 9 January 2019
The first workshop of the Business Skills Programme was held on the 9th of January 2019. The focus was on how to organise an event, networking skills, general manners and etiquette.
Programme
17.30 Welcome with drinks and a healthy meal
18.00 Opening by Denise Spiekerman, alumni relations officer at UFW
18.05 Welcome by alumnus Jan Karel Mak, chairman UFW, chairman Executive Board Deerns Groep and Wageningen Ambassador
18.15 Networking skills by Jan Karel Mak and alumna Gerda Feunekes, director Voedingscentrum Netherlands and Wageningen Ambassador
19.45 Break
20.00 Organizing an event, dress codes and what are correct manners and etiquette by Denise Spiekerman
21.00 Networking drinks
21.30 End of programme
Summary of the evening
The evening started with consuming a warm day snack in Restaurant of the future. There was the choice between a vegetarian curry and a curry with meat. This was greatly appreciated. Somewhat uncomfortably, most board members sat at the table with their own board. However, they did make contact with the speakers of the evening.
For the first time the program was in English. The number of international board members present was not very big yet, but Varun Madapally Dinesh of ISOW was very happy to be there now and he shared some of his experiences from his homeland India.
In the first half of the evening, Jan Karel Mak (CEO of Deerns, chairman of Wageningen University Fund) and Gerda Feunekes (director Nutrition Center Netherlands), both graduated from Wageningen University and also Wageningen Ambassador, were speaking. Among other things, they dealt with the do's & dont's of networks, networks within different cultures and a few concrete network situations were discussed. This was all explained with examples from practice, about networking drinks and dinners where the speakers themselves had been, what they themselves ran into or what they experienced as pleasant. In between, there was plenty of room for the students to ask questions themselves and introduce their own cases.
After the break Denise Spiekerman (Alumni relations manager at the Wageningen University Fund) went deeper into etiquette and organizing an event, also supplemented by Jan Karel Mak with practical examples. This involved, for example, how to behave at a networking event, during a business dinner, but also dress codes; how do you dress for certain occasions? Denise gave a lot of examples that should be taken into account during the organization of an event and emphasized the importance of using a scenario. After the program, there was an informal networking drink, during which everyone could try out the new information about networks in practice. It was a useful and pleasant evening where 40 student board members were present.