Outdoors @ Bartiméus

Bartiméus is an institution for the blind and the visually impaired. It houses around 350 people and aims to improve the quality of their life by providing personal advice, guidance and knowledge. It’s located in the midst of beautiful nature in Doorn, Netherlands. (Visit them at http://www.bartimeus.nl/)

 

On Friday 25 February, I got an opportunity to visit and help out at Bartiméus. It was arranged by the customer where I presently work. Bartiméus had an 'Ijskoud weekend' (Ice cold weekend) - a winter party on 26 and 27 February. We were to help out with decorating the place for the party.



The party consisted of several sections; the chapel, the school, the huts, party tents and the skating place. Our team was to help decorating all of these and help set up the party tents. After a briefing from the co-ordinator and a cup of tea, we were on our way.





I helped getting the decorations from the cellar and like a true developer contributed in one of the core services – inflating balloons. They need a lot of them and they needed them fast. The work-floor consisted of three balloon-inflating machines, lots of blue, white and silver balloons, lots of balloon string slipknots and four enthusiastic teammates (surprisingly fellow developers). Three of which kept themselves busy with the inflation of balloons and one of whom responsible to make bunches of five balloons. In a period of three hours, we inflated over six hundred balloons. Impressive eh! Our core services transformed Bartiméus into a party place ready to rock.

I truly enjoyed this outdoor activity. Still jump at every balloon burst though! Thanks Bartiméus.