Noesis

Noisy November/Delightful December – Activity update

One could argue the months of November and December are the best ones to play some chess, with generally kinda poor weather and way fewer activities to draw you outside. Well, that is exactly what Noesis has been up to and below we will provide you, our interested reader, with a nice overview to reminisce as you are sitting in 40 degrees in the summer and there is no quick Noesis club night to visit.

Save the Date: Chess tournament in Auditorium

No, your eyes do not deceive you; on April 30th of 2023 S.C.C.E. Noesis in collaboration with our Nijmegen colleagues of SSVN Tussen de Torens organizes the IMC Dutch Student Chess Championship! It’s a chess tournament for all chess enthusiasts who are in higher education (i.e., MBO, HBO, University). Last year our participants spanned a rating range from near-master level (2250 KNSB) to beginning chess players (~600 at chess.com) so there is a nice challenge for everyone. To get a glimpse of the amazing atmosphere of the tournament last year (with over 100 participants, check out our article from last year. 

Registration will open very soon, so keep an eye out on this website and hopefully we will see you very soon.

The playing venue of the IMC Dutch Student Chess Championship, the Auditorium building in Eindhoven. Photo by Bart van Overbeeke.

Christmas dinner

Vibing at the Christmas dinner table.
Bas of team Risotto Gambit carefully inspecting the beer he won during the pubquiz.

Being an association is not only about the core activity you organize, but also about fostering a community. That’s why it was great that after an online edition, due to reasons that I probably won’t have to explain, we were able to have the Noesis Christmas dinner organised in real life. Tucked away in the cozy living room of Luna, members enjoyed a dinner facilitated by the activity committee as well as some cold beers. A very gezellig evening that was topped off with a nice pubquiz which was won by team Risotto Gambit, consisting of Krijn, Joost, Simon en Bas. Congrats!

Constitution drink

One important ceremonial duty of every board is to organize a constitution drink. Here everyone can drop by the board, congratulate them and have a drink with them. This whole process is combined with the prospect of “brassen”, where people can steal certain objects belonging to the association. This can for example be the stool next to Gijs on the picture, but also one of the board members themselves.

Unfortunately, Youri got brassed, and the beadle stick got broken, so the order committee has something to think about, but ultimately everyone had a great time and if you could not make it this year be sure to drop by at the constitution drink of the third board of Noesis!

The board doing board things while Beadle Gijs looks on.

Towards 2023

Of course, in this recap we only picked a few highlights of our activities organized in the past few months; besides the ones mentioned above, activities were organized like free play during the exam weeks to unwind a bit after the stressful studying sessions. The Hand and Brain tournament organized with Quadrivium was a lot of fun, and also more standard club nights like the rapid tournament or the educational night with Jitze provided ample good times.

Looking forward to the new year, there are many great (to a more or lesser degree chess-related) activities again to look forward to at Noesis; we for sure had a blast and hope to keep on meeting you in January and the rest of the year!