Organisation - June 27, 2013

Relay baton

The Dutch equivalent of 'All good things come to an end' is 'Everything comes to an end'. The English variant has a somewhat wistful tone while the Dutch expression is primarily fatalistic. But however you look at it, after three years and more than 70 articles, the time has come to hand 'the column on page five' over to someone else.

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The period I spent writing this column more or less coincided with the Bleker era. But even though I was sorely tempted, I did not confine these brief musings to gripes about nature policy in the Netherlands. A wide variety of topics were covered, sometimes with a Wageningen focus, sometimes taking a look at the wider world. A work of art on campus could just as easily result in a column as Drumnadrochit on the north bank of Loch Ness in Scotland or Robben Island in South Africa. And I couldn't resist occasionally drawing connections between my thoughts and my personal life, the cherry tree in our garden with its single cherry that was then eaten by wood pigeons, or my childhood memories of my beloved jackdaw Sjaak.
After three years, this is my last column for Resource and I will be passing on the baton to someone else. I wish my successor the best of luck and I hope their tenure as a columnist is both pleasurable and successful. He or she will soon discover what a fascinating community Wageningen is, providing much food for thought and reflection in the broader context in which it has to function.