My year in VYY’s events

Does your heart beat for community and fun? Are you organized, skilled at scheduling, good at communicating, and love seeing people enjoy themselves? Do you like attending events and making them happen? If you answered yes, you could be VYY’s next Board member responsible for events!

I’m Aleksi Rönkä, VYY’s 2025 Executive Board member in charge of events, the Board’s “cool” uncle, and the holder of the title “Most Annual Balls attended”. Welcome to read how I became responsible for events, what my tasks included, and what my year in the Board was like.

Mama didn’t raise no coward!

My background is from BBA studies from Jamk University of Applied Sciences, where I was a tutor in 2019 and organizer of an interdisciplinary pub crawl (3miot) in 2022. That’s when I got inspired to organize events and work in an executive board. Unfortunately, I graduated in 2023 and had to leave my active student life behind me.

My goal was to get into university, and in the spring of 2024 I applied to Vaasa. Oh the joy when I found out that I had been accepted to study business law in the Master’s programme! I immediately decided that I wanted to become an active member of the Student Union.

The application period for VYY’s Executive Board was on, and I got to know a former board member who recommended the task to me. I got the contact info of the formateur Jenni and inquired more about the tasks. After a long, lovely call, I slept on it and wondered whether I should apply. Applying for the Executive Board felt like a dive into the deep end. I was a Master’s fresher with only a couple of months of experience from the University of Vaasa and academic life. 

But mama didn’t raise no coward! I submitted my application and went for the interview. Eventually, I was chosen and the Representative Council accepted me as the Board member responsible for events in 2025. I was nervous and excited about the upcoming year.

A present, approachable VYY

My year started with orientations and getting to know my Board colleagues and VYY’s staff in Konttori. In January, I hit the ground running and got to work on my first event, the Party season opening.

I learned how to create events on Kide.app and admin our events calendar. Some nerves started to creep in about our annual Wappu Crawl. I’d heard it’s the most challenging task on my To do list. Luckily, the entire Board was involved in planning and organizing, so I was never stuck doing things alone!

Good things happen when you plan, communicate, and do things together. That’s why Wappu started with a meeting, where all organizations within VYY sat together to talk about the events and schedules of the Wappu Crawl. Out own wappu events include sima yoga, HerkkuAppro, the Wappu picnic, the Topelius graduation hat ceremony, and Wappu silliz. 

A visible, present VYY is an approachable VYY. Wappu was full of action with organizing our events and attending others. My tasks included contacting different parties, negotiating, guiding, scheduling, and being involved.

When Wappu ended, it meant that the spring term was coming to an end. I turned my gaze towards the upcoming fall in a joint meeting. Spring term 2025 was full of work, big lessons, and wonderful experiences. In the summer, there weren’t many Board duties, and we all focused on our jobs, studies, and of course relaxing. I also got together with my Board colleagues for a weekend at the cottage.

Fall events and fresher week fun

Come August, the Board was back in business and ready to welcome our freshers. Because our tutor project handles most fresher events, my job was to be present and supportive in representing VYY. The fresher weeks were a fun time, where we held event stands with other organizations. I got to chat with many new VYY members!

The Board member responsible for events organizes one fresher event: The Lyre Ceremony. It’s a dignified event that I also got to host. In the ceremony, we celebrated the start of our new students’ academic life, and freshers got to attach VYY’s cockade to their student hats to symbolize their study place. We heard celebratory speeches and beautiful singing from the student choir Vaasan ylioppilaskuoro. 

This autumn, I was also in charge of

• The overall party, which is our first joint student party of the fall semester
• SporttiAppro, which focuses on moving together and touring sports and activity venues
• End of the party season, which is VYY’s end of semester party.
• The Independence Day Parade, which completes the year.

Time went by too fast 

My year in the Executive Board was full of action. At times I felt like the year went by too fast, and I definitely didn’t have time to get bored! I enjoyed getting to spend time with my fellow Board members and VYY’s staff and make events happen. After every successful event, I felt amazing and calm, especially after hearing that our event-goers had a good time. Going to events together also brought us Board members closer together, so I expect next year’s Board can look forward to that as well.

I can warmly recommend working on events and in the VYY Executive Board in general to everyone!

Aleksi Rönkä
Board member, events