Make a Mark Brussels Recap
Brussels, Belgium makes their mark on Europe.
On Saturday, March 16, Gwen Dubois and her team organized the first Make a Mark event outside of the United States—Make a Mark Brussels. Read more about what Gwen has to say about her experiences below.
It was an honour to have this European premiere and we were very eager to get started.
One of our partners, Muntpunt, was the setting for the first part of this amazing day. It was the perfect location. We had our breakfast, snacks and lunch buffet at ‘Mallemunt,’ a beautiful space on the top floor.
We had makers from Antwerp, Ghent and we even had one maker that traveled from London to participate.
Thankfully, we had an incredible coffee sponsor in Apex Coffee. They even had a surprise for us. They made a special blend for our event — Let’s Make a Stain. For all non-coffee drinkers, we had the pleasure to offer tea from MiniMarieTea.
We had the joy of working with volunteers from Muntpunt, (and even Gwen’s mother and her friend), to make sure there was plenty of food for the day. The breakfast was on-point and fueled the creatives’ brains.
On top of the breakfast treats, we gave everyone a custom made pin, courtesy of PINCE, and designed by Stadsgardeville, a collective of Brussels artists. They also designed the logo for our Brussels chapter — the black hat from Magritte, a world famous painter. They felt that the philosophy of the surrealism art form had much in common with Make a Mark, with imagination, everything is possible.
Following breakfast and the welcome, makers flew off and chose a space to work. We had the luxury to be able to choose between many great meeting rooms. One of them, the ‘Literary Salon’ was shared by a few teams.
To take notes and write down brilliant ideas, Redopapers gave us beautiful notebooks and notepads.
Halfway through the morning, it was time to welcome a very special guest — the Viceminister-president from the Flemish Governement and Flemish Minister of Culture, Media, Youth and Brussels, Sven Gatz. He wanted to see what the Brussels Make-a-Thon was all about. We did a tour with him and every team explained what they were working on and for which nonprofit.
For the snacks, we asked l’Estaminet, a catering company from Schaarbeek to provide us with homemade and seasonal snacks. The vegan chocolate muffins, the carrot cake, the cheesecake and other cookies were all so good!
After hours of hard work, it was time to eat. Luckily the lunch buffet was filled with fresh soup, hummus, kale chips, salads, quiches. All vegetarian and even vegan dishes that provided energy to continue the marathon.
We welcomed the nonprofits at ‘Mallemunt’ with excitement. This was their chance to see the makers’ work from the morning. After the check-ins, the nonprofit representatives walked to the Beursschouwburg to take part in two workshops: a social media and marketing talk by Cîme, an organic skincare brand by two ladies from Brussels (thank you, Isabel!) and a sketchnoting course by Visuality (some people even rediscovered their love for drawing).
Panic in the library! Yes, the deadline is here. We made an announcement giving makers some extra time to finish their projects, and they were certainly appreciative.
After sending in their presentations, we gave all the makers a goodie bag to thank them for their precious time and work. It was filled with goodies from Brussels brands: a second-hand book and a notebook from Muntpunt, beer and a bottle opener from Brasserie de la Senne, stickers from Brussels Ketjep, a notebook & pencil from Mofelito Paperito and a few samples from skincare brand Cîme.
After projects wrapped up, it was time to walk to the second venue of the day — Beursschouwburg. This was a nice occasion for everyone to be out in the sun, breathe some fresh air and talk about their impressions and emotions after a full day inside.
This could not be the first Brussels Make-a-Thon without some exquisite fresh french fries, sponsored by Brussels Ketjep. Of course, their amazing sauces were there to top things off.
Finally, the moment everyone was waiting for. We started by thanking every partner and I must admit, there were some tears of joy on my part.
We showed each teams’ work and it was such a pleasure to see what they made. We were really impressed by the level of quality delivered by each team.
Check out some of the amazing examples of the work completed in just 12 hours by volunteers.
The day after the event, we got a nice surprise. One of the makers made an after-movie of his experience at the Brussels Make-a-Thon. Another maker took extra photos.
Want to see more photos from the event? Check out the Facebook album below.
Thank you!
- Piet for all the help with the preparations and organization
- Eline and Jan for your help with communication
- Erika for registration and welcoming everyone with a smile
- Joke and Hanne for being excellent hosts in the evening
- Céline for being our social media queen for the day
- Marieke for the beautiful pictures
- Ann, Nadet and Katrien for your help during the whole day for catering
- Sung Mee for the cookies and waffles
- Jeroen, Katrien and Nena for the ongoing mental support
- Frederik for his after-movie
- Bram for the extra photos
And thanks to our organizational sponsors: Abstract, Balsamiq, Sketch, Real Thread and Mindsense.
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