2024 reflection

It has become a tradition to write an end of year reflection and post it here, on LinkedIN. Typically I do this by thinking back and taking the time to reflect, processing what happened and making plans for the year that is coming. Unfortunately, this year was so crazy that I had to go back to my agenda to figure out what happened at the beginning of the year.

Start of the year

One of the first things in my agenda was The Port Deventer drinks together with Stijn Van Gils . We were invited by Niek Theessink to join drinks down town. Stijn really wanted to dress up for the occasion and got himself a fitted shirt. With the passing of my dear friend and mentor, Roel Meijers, I had started wearing bow ties. For this occasion, I also wore one and lent one to Stijn. I still believe he was the best dressed man at the party.

At the time, I was already doing a lot of work in The Hague at Doc-Direkt/RvIHH. I stayed in hotels once a week and had the good habit of doing a lot of evening walks. That resulted in, among other things, the photo posted above. January was a busy time with a lot of high stress meetings where we tried to get alignment internally and with vendors supporting us.

Mother - so it begins...

Unfortunately, this period was also marked by the start of a difficult period when my mom got sick. The short version of the story is as follows. On 19 January I received a phone call from a stranger, asking if I knew a mrs. Verhoeven - my mom's maiden name. I learned that she had been found out in the cold, standing still and confused for hours. Police and ambulance were on their way.

I had immediately cancelled all my meetings, jumped in the train (I was in The Hague at the time) to explore and see what was going on. In the hospital we learned that it had been severe stroke. We also learned that there was little chance that she would ever make it back home.

This, of course, brought back memories of 2022, when I lost my father in a very very short period of time. Months of uncertainty followed. She was "moved around" a lot, going from the hospital to places where she was taken care of by groups of amazing professionals. I can't even begin to explain how much I respect what these people do and how they do it. Kudos. It made life a lot easier for us - particular in times where we had to travel a lot (Deventer - Tilburg is quite a distance).

The upside of the situation is that we had more opportunities to meet with my bonus brother/sister in Alphen, friends in Riel, and that we reconnected with a part of the family that we had barely spoken to in the last 20 years.

Leiden

A personal highlight early in the year was a concert in Leiden. My colleague Ton Eusterbrock likes music a lot. Yet he confessed that he didn't have much experience with classical music yet. I got tickets for Rachmaninov's Vespers in the beautiful city of Leiden. the concert was spectacular. But, we also stumbled across something very interesting: a plaque the commemorates the fact that Plantin - one of my heroes - worked in Leiden for several years, and printed the first works in Arabic in the Netherlands.

Geocaching

One of my biggest hobbies is Geocaching - something I share with Eva Beekman . Coen and Patricia introduced us to it shortly before my dad passed away, and we never really stopped. This year, we "scored" less caches than expected. In part that was the result from all the stressful situations we had to deal with. A highlight in this respect was a trip with Coen where we used a paper map and compass to navigate and try to grab a few caches. Lesson learned: you really need a 1:10.000 map with all the details, or else it won't work.

There is more to be said about this interesting hobby, though. Caches come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and they ar hidden in some weird spots. There is a fun category called diving caches which are exactly what you think they are. Unfortunately, I do not know how to dive. Also, I don't have the equipment that is needed. With a friend, Hans van Drunen , we tried to fix that. We did a brave attempt but failed to find the cache we were looking for. Hopefully we'll have another go at it next year.

First aid

Sometimes timing is terrible. When the year started, we had no idea how busy things would be. We had enrolled in a first aid course at Het Oranje Kruis in Deventer. This course typically lasts several evenings - that we could have also used to recover and rest. Yet, we decided to do the course anyway. After several lessons, Eva Beekman , Stijn Van Gils , and myself passed. My other son, Koen van Gils , wasn't interested in doing this course. When we graduated, we also joined a group so we can help out with big events in Deventer.

Mother - funeral

After months of struggling, my mother passed away on 10 May 2024 at the age of 73. We were present when she passed away. This marked the end of her struggles, and started a very busy period for us where we arranged the funeral, managed her affairs, cleaned out the house, etc.

My mother was deeply religious, so we decided to have a service in church and an "old school" funeral. The card included the following text from Job 1:21:

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Taking care of the arrangements around the grave site took many months due to logistics. Now, December '24, we finally have that arranged. The only thing left to do there is to arrange for flowers in spring.

Trip to Antwerp with SA

Another highlight that must be mentioned here is the trip to Antwerp that we did with the Strategy Alliance team. Antwerp is one of my favorite cities in the world. I love the city in general, and Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerpen in particular. I had talked about it so much that my colleagues were more and more curious and had to see this with their own eyes. On 7-8 June, we went to Antwerp for a fun dinner, a visit to the museum, and a small tour t through the city. It felt special to share my passion for this city with my colleagues.

Stijn's graduation

Another major achievement is the graduation of Stijn Van Gils - a.k.a. "mini me". He graduated with honors at the Havo with a 10/perfect score for mathematics, something that had never happened before in the history of this school. Impressive.

Stijn dressed up for the occasion with a very nice jacket from OLAV in Deventer. Looking sharp, and all set for new adventures. First the trip to the US, and then forwards and onwards to HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (Hogeschool Utrecht) .

The big trip

When Koen van Gils graduated, we had a 3-week trip to Washington, New York, Leicester (MA), Boston in the USA. Of course, Stijn Van Gils wanted something similar. This time, the trip started in New York. From there on, we went to Philadelphia, Port Allegany, Geneseo, Leicester (MA), and finally Boston.

The trip was more than epic, with all the cool adventures you can imagine. There are simply too many highlights, but I want to mention:

• New York: the Empire State Building, the USS Intrepid, 9/11 memorial, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge.
• Philadelphia: Liberty bell, Rocky steps, gun range, the "art of the brick" exhibition, and the Phillies-Yankees baseball game.
• Port Allegany: the trip itself (the drive through PA was amazing), Kinzua bridge, and of course the Inn on Maple street (highly recommended!)
• Geneseo: Niagara Falls (which brought us close to the Canadian border), star gazing in South Bristol near the observatory, and Letchworth national park.
• Leicester: family and floofs (all of them - including my new adopted sister!), Dave and Busters in Providence, the epic family party (what happens in Leicester ....), Brownstone Adventure park (CT), and Top Golf (Providence again)
• Boston: the ducks, the Feway tour, the RedSox game (lost, unfortunately), the trip to Fort Warren/Georges Island, and of course lunch and roof top drinks with Becky Frieden .

It is hard to pick a photo from this trip. I made a photo book which is now on display in the living room. I decided to go with the RedSox because you can never go wrong by picking a great team (these were our actual seats, just behind the dugout).

RvIHH, closing the project

Shortly after returning from the US, I resumed my work in The Hague. With my SenK team, we had a trip to ... Antwerp! The museum has two listings on the Unesco World Heritage list. One for the collection itself, and one for the archives. Highly relevant for our group! We had a "show and tell" about a specific book (by Houwaert) which impressed even our archivist (and that is saying something!).

This marked a big transition for the organization too. Immediately after the trip, the new management team was onboarded. Several new colleagues joined our team too. Work at RvIHH remained challenging and exciting. I won't go into too much detail here. There were highs and lows, hard work, and slow progress. December 2024 also marks the end of this engagement. There are plenty opportunities for future collaborations. There are too many people to mention here for my "thanks you's", but I want to do a shout-out to Dany Venema , Paula van Lieshout , Alfred Stern , Patricia Panhuis MBA , Marcel de Wit , Melior Hoekstra , Sofie van Londen , en Jim Vlaming . Keep up the good work in 2025!

Cooking

Cooking remains a big hobby for me. Those who have followed my annual posts/who know me have probably seen and heard many stories about grilling. Indeed, the BBQ is still a big favorite.

I have a new hobby, though: fresh pasta. Just looking at my photos makes me hungry already! So far I've made fresh ravioli, pappardelle, spaghetti, and lasagna. Yes, it can be tedious but a) it keeps me away from the computer, and b) it tastes sooooo good! I did get myself a nice pasta maker.

I don't know why, but no one seems to complain when I'm busy with this hobby...

New niece

A highlight that had me bouncing up and down is the birth of my new niece: Kennedy Jordan! I haven't even met the little Kennesaurus yet and I'm already head over heels with her. Like her mom, grandma, and grand-grandma, she is too cute for this world. There is a good chance I will go visit my family in Leicester again in spring. Then we'll spoil her rotten!

Koen and music

This year, Koen van Gils started his studies at the Herman Brood Academie: light and sound engineering. In the house, we now have lamps in different lights that make the place more ... lively. End of November, I took him to Almere where Ton Eusterbrock co-organized a jazz event. Koen got to help with the light and sound. Cool to see him in action! More to come for certain. I'm very happy for him, and proud of all that he has achieved this year.

Academic work

This year, I didn't have much time for my academic work. A pity, because I had so many good ideas. I did promise Eduard BABKIN to reach out in early 2025 to pick up our discussions. Can't wait! Before that happens, I do have the update of a book (Data management: a gentle introduction) to finish, though.

I should mention a few small highlights:

• It was fun to participate in the PhD defense of Henk Plessius
• It was fun to attend the PhD defense of Eric Onderdelinden and catch up with many old friends,
• I had a lot of fun recording videos for the Antwerp Management School students on a) how to conduct an expert session with Meetingwizard , and b) how to use AI responsibly in your master thesis project, and
• I will have a lot of fun at the PhD defense of Frank Grave later this week.

Conclusion

All. in all, this was a long, tough, and stressful year for me. I am grateful for all the friends and family that supported me. I'll probably forget quite a few of you, but a few deserve special mentions (I'll try to mention those that I haven't mentioned previously in this post): Raymond Slot , Ton Eusterbrock , Rick Tijsterman , André Veelders MSc , Els Kraft , John Immerzeel , Petra Belgraver MA , Karin Verhagen , Hans van de Langerijt + Sabrina, Ton van Dijk , Debby Bronswijk , Niek Theessink , Steven De Haes , Hans Mulder , Yuri Bobbert , Morgan Djotaroeno , Robert Kuijvenhoven , Arun Rampersad , Erik Fransen , Mark van der Veen MMIT-Trilingual , Pascal Smit , Ronald Baan 🕊️ , Harold Sanders , Eduard Mulder , and Ted Wolterink . If you're not listed - my apologies! As said, there are too many people to thank this year.

I can't wait to start the new year - with positive energy and full of opportunities.