by Anne van Oorschot

26 May 2016. The fun activity connected to this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) was a tour of Tilburg’s Pop and Dance Center – 013. We met outside the door of  013 and enjoyed the beautiful weather, chatting while we waited.

Gijs, an employee of 013, was our tour guide and told us a bit about the pop club. Built in 1998, it was the first theater built expressly for pop music and attracts visitors from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and from further afield for some artists and festivals. After the renovations carried out in November 2015, 013 is larger and more leading than ever in the pop and dance scene.

013  is a club, and has an artistic agenda rather than a “for profit” mentality. The artists get the entrance fee charged for their performances, while 013’s income comes from modest subsidies and the sale of drinks at the venue. The recent renovation reduced the number of performance halls from 3 to 2, but both now have a larger capacity.

While they are generally a “standing room only” venue, their spaces are sometimes rented out for events that require seating and it was strange to see their big hall all full of chairs! One of their most popular events is the Roadburn Festival (coming from April 20 – 23, 2017) and then it’s really hopping at 013!!  

It was a fun opportunity to get a good look at all the “nooks and crannies” of this unique venue and fur to take a TIC photo on their main stage. Those with no plans for Saturday evening even got free tickets to an after party at 013 of the gypsy festival.

After our tour, we wandered around the corner to the Studio Tilburg where Patricia was waiting with snacks and drinks. In addition to chatting about what we had just seen and what’s going on in each other’s lives, we had a short meeting with an overview of the past TIC club year. Here are some highlights:

• Membership is slightly down from 2015, but TIC still supports 73 expats in the area.
  
• tíc has members from 22 different nationalities!
• 1/3 of our (adult) members are employed by Tilburg University.
• A financial report was given by Emerald, our Treasurer. One highlight worth mentioning is that while our dues revenue is down from last year, thanks to the continued subsidy from the city, we were again able to offer a wide range of events at an affordable cost to our members.
• Thanks to Patricia’s hard  work in organizing a wide range of fun events in the past year!! A (partial) list includes: 2 excursions, 1 TICkids event, 10 socials, 6 borrels, 1 lecture, and 7 book clubs.
• Event participation is 22.7% – up slightly from last year.
• We are partnering more with the city and the Holland Expat Center South in organizing events.
• Elections were needed for 4 Board positions: President, Secretary/Membership, Event Planner and IT Manager. Yolonda and Anne were re-elected, respectively, to the first 2  positions, with vacancies (due to no candidates) for the latter two. If any members are interested in helping out with some aspect of the 2 vacant positions, their contributions would be very welcome!

#tilburginternationalclub #expatlife #013 #poppodium #annualgeneralmeeting #Studio