Interview Annamaria

I am Annamaria Krekel (23) and I am the commissioner of the InFlow Committee. I just graduated with my Bachelor's in Communication and Information Sciences. In my spare time, I like to read, listen to music and work out; my plan is to run ten kilometers on the Tilburg Ten Miles. I am not going for ten miles haha. That is a bridge too far and I’ve only just started!

At Flow, we are the committee responsible for the InFlow newsletter, which I work on together with Stefan, who is mainly in charge of each newsletter, and Gaia, our board buddy. Twice a year we publish the Flowzine, which is the official magazine of Study Association Flow. On top of that, we also release the Pocket Edition for TOP week! Each release we center around a certain theme connected to either Data Science, Communication and Information Sciences or Cognitive Science and AI. Preferably it is a mix of those of course!

Last year, I was a part of the InFlow Committee as an active member. I did the promotions at the time. It is really fun to see the other side of it! Gaia used to be the commissioner, and she often seemed like a bit of a magician. Things kind of seemed to fix themselves, and we would think to ourselves "This worked out really well!", and now it is my job to fix all of those things. As it turns out it is not magic; it is a lot of work, but I do really like that! The event organization is not really my strongest suit, but I notice myself getting better at it, which is fun. I am really enjoying coordinating the committee and seeing what goes on inside the Daily Board, as well as in my entire committee! When I was just doing promotions last year, I did not really know what was going on with the InFlow newsletter, for example. I only got to admire the results. Now, I am really involved with everything, which is extra exciting to me!

We changed up the newsletter! Gaia, Stefan and I did a full rebrand for the newsletter with a bit more of a fun design. The rebranded website made this fun change possible. I think we all got to put in fun stuff that fit ourselves personally and the newsletter really well! It is fun to see what Stefan comes up with every month with the different themes and the "Guess That Board Member" games. It all just feels more informal and personal; it feels less corporate and has its own identity!

- I am excited to see what the next InFlow editor does with it. There is so much possibility with the new setup!

Yes! The ability to add more design to the newsletter really elevated it to more like a pet project than a task.

Really fun! I think it is difficult at times to know what everyone is working on since the writing tasks are quite individual. I try to give everyone their space and not ask them about what they are up to 24/7. That has been paying off though, because everyone is really proactive and enthusiastic with their tasks, which makes it a lot easier to manage. Most of our meetings are focussed around how things are going and how everyone is feeling about it. This makes it feel like a very nice work environment. We are all quite busy this year with three people doing their thesis and two doing a board year, but it has been working out quite well, and the vibes are good! We are lucky that we do not have to organize an activity every week or something, so we have the space to have weeks when we are just not really feeling it. It is a very chill way to lead a committee.

- That is true! Then it turns out though, that you have quite a stressful job making the Flowzine's design that has much less flexibility. What is your experience with that? How do you come up with designs you put in for different articles?

Usually it comes to me in a vision. This sounds fake and conceited; you are also allowed to dislike the design! I really used to wait until an idea just came to me, and then I will do it. For the previous Flowzine, I really could not figure out what to do with the article about the history of the Warande forest. I ended up leaving it and doing it last, but then I think it might actually be one of my favorites now! Right now we are working on the next release and the articles are not yet finished, but I am starting on the design. I think I do want to try to get a bit more ahead of it and make a plan, because I did not really do that last time. I thought I did, but then as I was working on it, I found out that the plan was not really a plan as much as just an idea.

- As I understand it, this is a phenomenon every year!

Yeah, because you think "Oh, I am just doing the coloring; I just have to think of something and do it! How easy is that?" As it turns out there are a lot more steps between thinking of it and doing it. That's all to say, I am a bit more prepared now.

We usually start off with a brainstorm on topics people are interested in, and we try to center them a bit around the studies that are involved with Flow. From that, we try to make sure that the different articles are weighed out evenly across more formal and informal articles, following the three pillars of Flow: educational, professional, and social. In the end, everyone has something they personally like so it is easy to write an article because you get to focus on something you are already interested in. It is a very collaborative effort, I think!

Everyone's ability to put their own thing in the magazine, and all the different, fun projects that come out of that. It really gets to be everyone's end product equally. I like that everyone does something different but coordinated, and we get to help each other! Sometimes we even make collaborative articles, like the InFlow Tries. During the next edition there will definitely be more of that, but we will keep it a secret for now. Everyone should definitely attend the next Flowzine release, is all I will say!

Maybe this does not match entirely, but I would say The Big Bang Theory? I just really feel like Sheldon when he is talking crazy with the white board behind him, and everyone has their own projects they are working on. Honestly, I am not sure if it is the entire committee or really just me, but this is the first one that came to mind.

We could make the Flowzine an actual physical mailing list with attachments similar to those children's fantasy books about Egyptology or Dragonology, for instance. They all have little envelopes inside of it with little cards and different smells. Honestly, I would make the Flowzine so much more expanded. I would not change the articles or our process to writing those. That is already perfect, no need to touch that. However, I would add more opportunities to add to the pages through those envelopes and maybe smell, etc. Obviously, I would also make sure our writers get paid the big bucks! We just have to add some senses, get more money, and then spread it around more.