We will leave for our location on Friday September 10th. We’ll meet at 14:30 around the statue of the ‘Peerd’ (the giant white horse) in front of the central train station in Groningen. You will be able to recognise us due to our purple hoodies with the MESA logo on the back. We will travel to Assen by train and then take the bus to the location (called ‘de Klonie’). For those who are Dutch, you can use your student OV for the trip. If you are an international it is wise to look for a cheap group-ticket on this site:

https://www.ns.nl/producten/meest-gekocht/p/groepsticket-daluren

[ Please read their rules and regulations before buying and using,  it provides you only access to the trains in certain time slots and are 1 way tickets. ] 

Currently, you will need a face mask to be able to travel with the public transport in the Netherlands. That brings us to the next point of this letter; the COVID-19 measures. We are under the supervision of the University of Groningen, which means we have to take the regulations, provided by the government, into account. This means we want you to take a COVID-test prior to the camp. 

To clarify, if you are fully vaccinated, a self-test 24 hours prior to the camp will be enough. However, we want you to be able to show your negative result by photographic proof + your working QR-code that states that you are healthy and are vaccinated / recovered. If you are not fully vaccinated, we would like you to take a PCR test at the GGD and show us your negative testing result that was sent to you by mail. 

If you fail to show us this, you are not allowed to go to the camp.

The camp will cost you €45. This includes housing, food and activities. Please transfer the money to the following bank account prior to the camp with your name + ‘MESA Intro Camp fee’ in the description;

MESA

NL27 RABO 0308 9644 54

We work with consumption cards for drinks, which can be bought for €10. One card contains 10 consumptions, which can be used to buy beer, wine or soda. 

For the theme party, we chose the theme ‘holidays’. By this, we mean that you can dress up like santa, Jesus, the easter bunny and so forth. Basically dress up as something or someone related to a holiday (from any culture). 

To close off this long informative email, another little request from the Intro Committee:

We noticed that not everyone has filled in a phone number in case of an emergency. We ask you to reply on this email with a phone number of a parent / guardian AND with the answer to the question: “are you fully vaccinated?”. With this information we can provide you the safest camp possible. 

We understand that this is a lot, yet we are still very stoked on meeting you and providing you a camp you will never forget! See you guys soon!

Love,

MESA’s Intro Committee ’20 – ’21