History


The constitution of S.Z.V. Aquifer
By: Maarten van Gessel

It all started with a student party at the Woeste Hoeve. About 80 student swimmers from all over the Netherlands came together for a student swimming competition in Wageningen in the summer of 1999. The competition was part of the Dutch student swimming competition (NSZK). Wageningen won that competition, from one out of four, an achievement that is never seen again.

By itself, this was a huge achievement for a city without a swimming association. Apart from that, swimmers from around the Netherlands are still talking about what happened in the nightly hours after that competition. Litres of beer were drunk by the swimmers that night. Not only one, two or three swimmers; every single swimmer stayed till the end of the evening. Because of this party, there finally came a swimming association after 5 years.

Students from all over the Netherlands, and old students from Wageningen, persisted that a student swimming association should be founded.

During the Dutch student competition (NSK) of 2002, a few students from Wageningen started. At that competition, Wageningen won the final male relay and because of that most of the medals. This was once again a good reason to shine at the party. In the early morning hours, they came up with a name for the future association. It became “Aquifer”. Somewhat intoxicated, they decided that Aqua meant water and vert meant green (in French). Green for Wageningen, water for swimming, awesome! Together they yelled Aquifer, which is a common word in Wageningen that freely translated means ‘a water carrier’.

The name itself was just the beginning: there was the forming of a group, a board, the search for a training hour, a lunch with the board of Thymos and the constitution of the statutes. After a lot of work, the statutes where signed by notary George Fierst van Wijnandsbergen in Wageningen so we became an actual association from 2002, September 1th onwards.

This was only the beginning, but from now on…
it can only get better!

Fun fact: Aquifer’s association drink is an aquifire shot! It consists of 50% Sambuca and 50% Blue Curaçao.