Expensive bike parking
Quickly parking your bicycle outside the rack? From 1 January 2024, this could have more costly consequences for bike owners. The city of Maastricht is raising the fee for getting your bike back from the depot (which is where incorrectly parked items are taken) from 25 to 50 euro.
A total of almost 2,200 wrongly parked bicycles were removed and taken to the depot this year (up to 23 October). How many of those belong to students? “Of course, you can’t tell that just by looking at the bike, but it is especially the hotspots in the city centre where we feel that student bikes represent more than half of those removed,” says Stefan Gybels, board and communication advisor for the city.
How much effect the higher ‘fine’ will actually have, is the question: the city reported that when the lower amount of 25 euro applied, only 54 per cent of the wrongly parked bicycles were reclaimed. So, why the raise then? “At the bicycle depot, we always ask why these people parked incorrectly”, says Gybels. “The offenders regularly say that they are aware of the rules, but because of the low fine and the very slight chance of being caught, they just take the risk. Working from the principle that the offender pays and to send a clear message, we are raising the amount.”
Fuss about Splinter
Scrum masters, product owners, agile coaches and everyone who deals with marketing and communication: according to the anonymous columnist Splinter at SAM, the newspaper for HAN University of Applied Sciences, they have an absurd position, or a ‘bullshit job’. The column caused a lot of controversy last week. Not (or hardly) because of its content, but more because of the reaction that Hans Valkenburg, head of the department of Marketing, Communication and Information at HAN, had placed above the column.
In it, he states that he “completely disagrees” with the column: you cannot “anonymously and unfoundedly” thrash the work of colleagues and “moreover, in an anonymous way, this column creates an unsafe working atmosphere for many at HAN.” He advises the newspaper to “stop publishing anonymous columns”.
The reactions to the action of the public relations official are harsh. “Using your power when something doesn’t suit you. (…) Why don’t you find a job in the business world,” is one of the replies underneath the column. In daily newspaper Trouw it appears that HAN’s Executive Board is not charmed by the interference. A spokesperson calls it a one-man crusade that is not supported by the board. “We do not want to restrain SAM in any way.” The editor-in-chief hopes that this can be included in an editorial statute, because there is no such thing at the moment. Furthermore, the columnist is allowed to stay.
Heart-warming
Last weeks, visitors to the University Library in the city centre and in Randwyck tripped over large plastic containers with second-hand coats. Why were they there? A campaign has been taking place the past few weeks – 'Give a coat, warm a heart' – in which municipalities and organisations in Limburg collect winter coats for people living in poverty. The University Library participated for the second time this year. “As was the case the first time that we participated, in 2018, those donating were mainly employees,” says University Library employee Alice Maris-van der Hijden, who took the initiative to take part in the campaign. “If you come to live here in a student room, you would not normally have a second winter coat with you.”
The campaign organiser, the ‘Samen voor Maastricht foundation’ reported last Monday evening, that a total of more than 35,000 winter coats had been donated in the whole of Limburg. How many of those were from the University Library, Maris-van der Hijden doesn’t know exactly. “There were a few bags full. That is good, but it could certainly be better. If every faculty was to participate next year, we could make many more people happy."