UCSRN tournament was a great succes

After 6 years, on 30 April 2022 the annual UCSRN Tournament finally returned to the campus of University College Utrecht. UCSRN or University College Student Representatives of the Netherlands is an initiative bringing together students of 10 University Colleges spread out all over the Netherlands. Every year the Social Committee of the UCSRN votes which UC can organize the next edition of the Tournament full of sports and cultural activities. UCSA Board Member Quintie Mijnals was one of the movers and shakers behind the event.

“Within the UCSA board, I am the UCU representative on the Social Committee of the UCSRN. This meant that preparing the proposal and winning over the voters was my job. To help me with this, I set up a UCSRN Tournament Team.” Although starting with only 2 other students, Quintie’s team quickly grew into a team of 8. They also partnered with sports committee Hermes, but also other committees such as UCDJ, BarCo and UCU Beats. “We could not have done it without the help of our beautiful committees on campus.”

After 2 years without the event happening physically, the Tournament of 2022 attracted around 700 participants, including 75 students representing University College Utrecht. The event was formally opened by UCU Dean Susan te Pas

We could not have done it without the help of our beautiful committees on campus.

After the opening ceremony and Battle of the Boards (where UCSA board members of each UC compete against each other), the competition began in earnest. Participants represented their UCs at a great variety of events: from football and badminton to tug of war, from e-sports and chess to painting, improvisation and dance. At the end of the day, all participants were invited to a shared dinner on campus and an after-party at the UCSA Bar.

“We had a beautiful day and we were very excited to see which UC would bring the big UCSRN cup home, but of course, also to see all these students having fun together!” UCU claimed first place in the categories Table Tennis, 5k run, Dance and Field Hockey. But the overall winner who secured the inter-UC cup this year was Amsterdam University College.

Although being an organizer kept Quintie busy throughout the day of the Tournament, she and the 30 other student volunteers still had front row seats to the fun and excitement the Tournament offered its participants.

“The moment I enjoyed the most was sitting right in front of the stage of the Auditorium and being in complete awe when seeing all the gorgeous dance groups from different UCs taking over the stage. The spirit the audience gave off was immaculate, I have never seen that much pride, enthusiasm and respect from a group ever before. It became even better when our Outrageous (one of UCU's dance teams) won this category! I felt like a super proud mom and it made all the hard work way more worth it.”

Would you also like to join (or even organize) upcoming inter-UC events with UCSRN? Get in touch with UCSA. Next up is the Inter-UC Beerfest at UCU in June, don’t miss it!