Family Weekend 2024

On Saturday, May 25th and 26th, 2024, we organized our first international Family Weekend at StayOk in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. A total of approximately 60 people attended from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Slovakia.

In a beautiful forested area, we started on Saturday afternoon around 1 PM with a welcome reception. The children immediately found each other and started playing. This gave the parents plenty of opportunity to get to know each other and catch up.

We had organized a number of games with the goal of working together and getting to know each other. Examples of these games included carefully dismantling a tower of wooden blocks (Jenga), passing ping pong balls to each other using a stick with a cup, and laser tag in the forest.

Afterwards, it was time for a joint BBQ where various parents took care of the food on the BBQ. After the BBQ, it was time for the Pub Quiz, where again, various questions had to be answered in teams.

After the Pub Quiz, there was more time to socialize.

The next day started with a joint breakfast, followed by a trip to Apenheul. Guided tours were organized in different groups and in various languages. The guides told wonderful stories, such as a monkey giving birth in a hospital. Everyone received vouchers so they could decide what, where, and when they wanted to eat or drink. We agreed to have lunch together as much as possible. After lunch, everyone received an ice cream.

All in all, it was a wonderful first international Family Weekend!

With great thanks to Laurens, Naomi, Anja, and Alexandra for the organization!

Thanks to additional funding from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), we can organize three events this year!

During our members’ conference in 2022, many members expressed the desire to organize more events to meet each other in person. Our Family Weekend is the first event in 2024.

On July 6th, we will once again organize our international Family Day, and on October 26th and 27th (actually starting on the evening of October 25th), we will hold our international members’ conference.

The Family Weekend in Apeldoorn was our first event with the CMTC-OVM organization. It was a weekend full of action! Not only children but also adults had a great time. We met many wonderful people and were able to exchange ideas. Hopefully, we will see each other again soon!

My daughter and I definitely thought it was a valuable weekend. An atmosphere in which you got to know each other was created much more than just a day away. Because we missed the afternoon program, we had to search during dinner and afterwards, but that was completely made up for in the Apenheul!
Thank you very much for the organization again!! 💋

It was a wonderful weekend! We felt very comfortable and had a lot of fun. But we also had valuable conversations and a lot of time to exchange ideas with other families and those affected. That is always so valuable and important!

We really loved the weekend! It was so incredibly nice to finally be able to speak to all the families for a longer period of time! We all really enjoyed playing games together and the food was fantastic! The area in which the hotel was located was perfect for relaxing!
Sunday in the monkey park was once again perfectly organized by you! We thank you so much for all your effort and time, your ideas and your commitment! Thank you that you exist! See you all in October!

It was a wonderful day because we enjoyed being together with our fellow companions. It feels so good. ❣️❣️❣️

Thank you for the fantastic weekend! It was a great event and brought us much closer to the other affected individuals. We exchanged a lot and received new information. We always call it ‘Fleckenfuß Meeting.’ Thank you for this opportunity.