This moment was carefully captured, because on our first TrailBlazers day of 2023 we approved the budget and our goals for this year! To celebrate we added a nice New Year's drink to it. We've split our goals into these areas this year: Recruit and meet Learn and innovate Finance, reserve and invest Collaborate with external parties Organize and structure The overall theme in all our goals is growth! With this theme in mind, we want to invest in professional growth for our TrailBlazers and of course for our customers. We also want to continue to grow in social involvement and impactful initiatives. Wondering if your ambitions match ours? Give us a call!

During the TrailBlazers Christmas dinner, we enjoyed delicious dishes with all of our colleagues and a number of partners. We were spoiled enormously by 2 great cooks from Kookers.nl (Weesp, the Netherlands) who turned part of our office into an instant professional kitchen for the occasion. The culinary delights that we were served certainly raised the bar for our own Christmas dinners and the matching wines flowed abundantly. We had a very pleasant evening and we wish others the same. That is why we also donate the budget that we spent on this Christmas dinner to the food bank Gooi en Vechtstreek. After closing 2022 on such a high note, we are very much looking forward to the new year!

Well packed and armed with a few shovels, we travel to the Achterhoek. The destination: our food forest in Neede. An important task awaits us: planting the first trees of our forest. In cooperation with Trees for All, we and other sponsors are helping the Mekking family transform their former cattle farm into a food forest for the future. Together, we are realizing a total of 11.4 acres of food forest. And that’s important, because food forests help store CO2, improve soil quality and restore biodiversity. They also contribute to a healthy living environment, where residents and visitors are in touch with nature and can enjoy local products. It’s still a while away, but our food forest will eventually produce a variety of nuts, fruits, seeds and berries.

With a nice mix of family and friends of colleagues, neighbours, clients and other relations, our new place in Weesp was properly inaugurated during the officewarming. It was an evening full of fine moments with a beautiful speech by the chairman of the VvE, an overflowing gift table, delicious snacks and drinks and traditional (good and not so good) "Weesper jokes". We would like to thank everyone who attended for a wonderful evening. We really feel at home and welcome in Weesp!

We like to bring positive social impact to the younger generation. In collaboration with the Devoxx4Kids foundation, we therefore provided a workshop at an elementary school for the first time. To a group of about 150 students from the upper grades of elementary school 'Jong Geleerd', our team showed how much fun programming is. Using the Java programming language, the children learned to make modifications (so-called mods) in Minecraft and play with them. With these kinds of workshops at schools we create awareness and inspire children in a fun way. After all, kids are the developers of the future!

It was time again for the fall edition of the largest Java conference in the Netherlands, and of course we were there. The Pathé in Ede was packed with speakers providing information, inspiration and master classes during J-Fall 2022. Our blue squad in tropical shirts manned our busy booth and had many interesting and inspiring conversations with visitors. The Lego-challenge was also played fanatically again: participants could help build the TrailBlazers food forest with their creativity.

Devoxx in Antwerp, how we enjoyed every minute of it. Not only did our nerve-racking Lego Challenge attract a lot of attention, we also met a lot of nice people. We were able to tell our fellow enthusiasts about our special way of working together and our drive to make an impact. But above all, we had a lot of fun together. For us, this edition of Devoxx could not have gone better!

At the TrailBlazers Day on September 22 we were pleased to welcome Inmar Los as a new team member. Inmar starts November 1 and she will join Ruud and Wiro in TrailBlazers related matters, such as finance and human resources. Besides Inmar, we are also very happy with the arrival of Sam Dadfar. We secretly welcomed Sam already at the TrailBlazers day in August. He will start as a Java developer starting October 1.

Our new place in Weesp was well inaugurated during the monthly TrailBlazers day. Quarterly figures were shared, inspiring sessions were given and appointments were made. Our friends from the branding agency Schwung came by to present the 3 initiatives that came out of the impact session and there was a lot of catching up to do. A beautiful, sunny TrailBlazers day in a very nice place!

All of our stuff left the Almere office, the door of the office has been closed for good and the building in Weesp has been taken into use. We have really moved now! We informed our business relations of our new accommodation with a VIP (Very Important Package)...

Yes indeed, we are moving! As of August 1, 2022, we will trade our office at the Wisselweg in Almere for a beautiful canal house in Weesp. This new place gives us more space to make a positive impact. Today Ruud Rol received the key with a big smile. A beautiful milestone for TrailBlazers!