UM Summer Camp 2023 - Looking back

An adventurous week:

It is with great pleasure and a little melancholy that we look back on a successful second edition of the UM Summer Camp that took place in July 2023. This year we welcomed 50 eXplorers, twice as many as the year before! We saw familiar faces from the first edition (WizzKidz), and many new faces.

On Monday 17 July at 8.30 am, the UM Summer Camp officially kicked off at the Tapijn Kazerne. Parents and children got to know the X-Crew (student supervisors) and the team, and vice versa. Soon, the eXplorers set to work with their group to come up with an original name and yell. And so the "Watermelon Summer Vacation Scientists", "Super Investigators", "Binoculars", "Crystal Hunters", "The Discovery Team", "Ladybugs", "B-B-B Broccoli Fans", and the "Compasses" were born.

Thanks to cooperation with both internal and external parties, we were able to provide an adventurous and diverse programme for them again this year. The base location was the Tapijnkazerne and from there workshops were held in the morning and group activities were done in the afternoon (sometimes outside of our home base). New this time was a fully catered morning at the Inner City Library and a full day at UM Sports. Colleagues from both departments provided a full programme, which was a great success. Thanks to the attention and creativity put into the workshops and activities, our eXplorers were well covered during this week and could expend their energy frequently.

The workshops "Learning with Lego", "Pick it up: Together we keep it clean" and "Capoeira" were particularly well received, as were the group activities "Explore the City - scavenger hunt", "launch rockets" and "live stratego" organised spontaneously by the X-Crew. During the week, we saw our eXplorers make friendships (sometimes in the most unlikely combinations), help each other through challenges, and emerge as true living Wikipedias with their amazing factual knowledge about the world.

Mostly thanks to our X-Crew with their contagious energy, enthusiasm and team spirit, each unique eXplorer was guided with care and attention. In their own way, they managed to bring each eXplorer out of their shell, and partly because of this, the parents were treated to a smashing closing show on the last day of the summer camp. Not for nothing were they therefore rated 9.4 out of 10 by parents and eXplorers alike.

We consider ourselves lucky to have been able to put together a great team again this year. Our student assistants also worked hard behind the scenes, right up to the last minute. And Facility Services, the colleagues from Tapijn and Eurest also helped out in several areas during the week, for which we are very grateful. Thanks in part to great cooperation, good organisation and a flexible attitude, things went smoothly and this week flew by! The fact that the UM Summer Camp 2023 as a whole was rated with a 9.3 out of 10 speaks volumes. We gladly dedicate this result to everyone who did their bit to make it another super edition.

It is and remains extraordinary what UM Summer Camp leads to in such a short time: a united group with almost all unknown people - children, colleagues, students - and an unforgettable week! Thank you so much!

Netty & Darshini