Constitution borrels

 

A constitution borrel (CoBo) is a borrel in honor of the new board, at which all kinds of boards meet to congratulate them and wish them good luck. This is also known as ‘recipiëren‘. The board of a brother or sister association, an old ACD board, or even a committee of the ACD reports to the pedel (or beadle), the one who holds the pedel staff. The pedel puts them in order and then announces that they are allowed to come recipiëren. Traditionally, recipiëren consists of three parts: the visiting board offers a gift and has to tell a story for as long as possible, after which the chairman tries to talk back for twice the amount of time, and finally everyone drinks a shot together. After that, the board may write in the guestbook. The gift should be kept for five years.

Brassen is also an important part of a CoBo. According to tradition, a board that has done the recipiëren may try to steal something from the association, known as ‘brassen‘. Think of stealing the guestbook, the pedel staff, or even the pedel or one of the board members themselves. If this succeeds, they have to write a bras letter to the board that has been robbed, who then have to provide something in return, for example in the form of organizing a borrel. The new board therefore calls in guards to prevent theft. Often the occurrence of brassen is accompanied by wild struggles.

Thus, a CoBo can be a wild, but pleasant phenomenon. One last thing is very important to complete the story: free beer. But this is often finished within an hour…