FOSST

Meet FOSST. This organisation is actually the umbrella sports organisation of all sports associations. Their main goal is to stimulate sport among all students. They do this in several ways: providing assistance, organising events themselves and being closely involved with the 'Sport Center'. We spoke with Vincent and Monica. They are the board members of FOSST this year and explained to us in detail how the organisation works. They also gave us a sneak preview of new plans for the Sport Center. Curious? Then read more.

What are you doing in FOSST?

“My name is Monica and I am the PR manager. I basically manage all the socials and do the advertisement. I also help with the advertisement of different associations and the Sports Center.”

“My name is Vincent and I am the Chair. My job basically is that everything runs smoothly within the board, so that everyone can do their functions as requested. I mainly focus on external relations management. Next to that I am on a board where I represent sports for all the student sports associations. I also take part in the municipality sports council on behalf of all students. I am a bit in between here and there.”

What is FOSST in general?

“FOSST is the association that manages all sports associations. So, basically, we try to help the other sport associations as much as possible with most of the administrative stuff. With that comes a big financial part. We kind of try to manage the money with them.”

“Next to that a big goal is to unite all sports associations. We try to do this by helping small organizations with promoting their events. Additionally, we have some events that we organize every year. These include Racketlon and the Carnival Volleyball Tournament. The main goal of those is also to unite and include everyone.”

“Finally, we act a bit as the point of reference for sporters that come to the Sports Center. If people have cool ideas or initiatives for new clubs or sport events, then we are there to guide them.”

“So basically anything related to sports within the context of student life”

What is the goal of FOSST?

“Our main focus is to stimulate sports among all students. We don’t only take into account the members of associations, but actually everyone who has a Sports Center membership. So, for people at the University, Avans and Fontys. In that sense, it is actually for everyone.”

“We don’t only do this for the sport aspect of the physical health benefit, but also more the social stuff. So, the binding of students and the experience.”

What is the role of you guys in the Sports Center?

“The main focus is on trying to get as many people moving as possible. We really try to look at what facilitates students the best and in what way we facilitate them the best. We constantly think along with the Sports Center how we can bring sports towards the students in a more easy and open way.”

What does your organization look like?

“We’ve got members, though it is a bit different. The members are the sporting associations. We are the board and our members are, among others, Merlijn and Shot. With them, we have meetings to catch up on how everything is going in terms of sports. On the other hand, we also helped them with changing the accounting software for multiple associations. That is an example of the help we provide. We also have board evenings, where we try to get the board members of the sport associations and the Sports Center together on formal and informal stuff. If the relationships with other associations are good, then we can help them more easily, so we really try to do this.”

If people have an idea to facilitate sports, what should they do?

“I’ll give you an example of someone who was interested in setting up a chess association. This person came to us with that idea. We then had a meeting, did  some promotion and organized a chess meetup to see if people would be interested in joining the association.”

“The main point is to see if people would be interested. That is the biggest part where we come in. If there are enough people interested, then we get into close contact with the Sports Center with regard to facilitating the event. If people are interested in setting up such an event, they can always go to our website. On the website, they will find every contact detail!”

What is the structure in your board?

“We have got a Secretary, Treasurer and Chair. Besides that we have an PR Manager, Sports Manager and Event Manager. We started with seven people, and now we are with six people. That is because one of our event managers started working. We are more of a part-time board at the moment and are looking to build that up again!”

What are the main activities within your organization?

“Carnival Volleyball Tournament really is our biggest tournament. We usually aim at around 700 to 1000 people to participate. We rent the whole sports center. Two halls will be allocated for the volleyball tournament, and afterwards we have a really big party. It always takes place on the Thursday before carnival. So, it really is a good kick-off. This year, unfortunately the event didn’t take place, but we might try to do a one-time only summer version.”

“We organize this together with the volleyball association Gepidae. Obviously, many of their members participate. However, we try to share it with everyone. The only prerequisite is that you need to be a member of the Sport Center. Last year, it sold out in 7 minutes. It has got a bit of a name.”

“Additionally, we organize Racketlon. This is a tournament in which you play four racket sports, namely squash, tennis, badminton and table tennis. This is a 2 vs 2 competition, where you can win if you are the best on average.”

“Then we also have SSA battles in September. This is a tournament with different disciplines for each sport, there would be a gala at the end.”

What’s in it for the future?

“For now, we really want to focus on the events ourselves. So, we really want to have a solid basis on which we can really. From that, we want to build everything up and organize even more stuff. We are already busy with contacting other associations to organize events. We are always open to different ideas.”

“Also we are aiming to involve more internationals within the board year experience. We do this by striving for 50/50 distribution of nationals and internationals within our board. And we hope this will become more common among other student (sports) associations over the years.

“One of the things we are really busy with is making plans for the new Sports Center. The board of directors (College van Bestuur) of Tilburg University is planning on making a decision pretty fast. Now, we are really limited in the sense that the building is too small for the amount of students that want to make use of it. The annual subscriptions and the other subscriptions makeup for more than the capacity can handle. So, there is a really big urge to relocate or extend. There are already some concrete plans for that. We are really busy with it, as the decision will be made soon.”

Want to know more about FOSST? Then take a look at their site!