The Eindhoven Diving Cup is not only an international tournament, with participants from all over Europe, but also the organization team is international, with a team member in Portugal. Our web administrator José is the owner of B&B Casa Traca. Christine (Tournament Director) and Ursula (Traffic Manager) went to visit her in October 2021, together with their spouses.
We left from Eindhoven Airport, for many of our divers a familiar place, and flew to Porto. With the rented car we drove to José’s B&B in Arganil to meet our hostess for the first time in person. Although José manages the website of the Eindhoven Diving Cup for a few years now, we had only seen and spoken to her through the screen. What a warm welcome that was!
Digital meeting
Nowadays it is self-evident that we meet digitally and work together place-independently, but when José joined our organization team it was not so obvious yet. So we can say that the EDC didn’t need the corona pandemic to discover the advantages of the new way of working. Could we therefore call ourselves trendsetters?
Explore central Portugal
In consultation with José we put together a program for each day so that we could get to know the surroundings while walking or driving. After an extensive breakfast with fresh fruit and fragrant coffee we went on our way. We stood on top of the highest mountain in Portugal (Torre), found the first geo-caches of this vacation, and then made a beautiful walk around the reservoir lake Lagoa Comprida. We never found the real hiking path, but like real boy scouts we climbed and clambered over rocks and stones, enjoying the beautiful view over the lake.
Also our visit to the waterfall Fraga da Pena we will not easily forget. It was literally a road with bumps and potholes. Several times we got out of the car to inspect the road. The car was covered in dust and whatever exit we took, we did not come closer to the parking lot. Afterwards it turned out that we had set the navigation to the source of the waterfall, instead of the foot. The latter was of course perfectly accessible via the normal road and provided with parking places. The walk to the source was beautiful, although our circular walk turned out not to be circular, so we walked back to the car via Sardal, enjoying many different flowers, beautiful views and sunbathing grasshoppers along the way.
Volunteers
Would we have been at this place in Portugal if José hadn’t become an EDC volunteer? Probably not. And that is exactly what makes volunteering so much fun. Not only do you try to realize something beautiful together, but you also get to know new people and in our case therefore new places.
Although most members of the organization team live in Eindhoven and the surrounding area, we have one team member who does not live in the area. Our Social Media Manager Chris lives in Leiden and he too considers remote participation a given. During the event itself he can be found in the pool. Partly due to the pandemic this has not yet been possible for José. We therefore sincerely hope that we can welcome her in the Pieter van de Hoogenband swimming stadium during the first weekend of February 2023, so that all the other team members and the divers can meet her in person.