Our first Agile Open Unconference on Friday September 27th, was a great success. With almost all tickets sold, several TrailBlazers colleagues present, and a large organizing committee, all corners of our office were being used to accommodate several larger and smaller groups of people, who were inspiring each other with new knowledge, practical experience, and old-fashioned 'gezelligheid'. A smaller selection of participants joined the pre-conference diner and game night on the Thursday evening. Of course we played the TrailBlazers game, among other ones. With many thanks to all the energy and curiosity that the participants contributed and a special thanks to Natalia Gulchevskaya en Richard Metcalf for their help preparing the event and facilitation during the day.

We got a full house at the Java Meetup on Thursday evening, September 19th with Keynote speaker Hanno Embregts. Luckily we arranged some extra chairs so everybody got a seat. The highly appreciated diner beforehand was served as an Indonesian buffet catered for by Pondok Java from Weesp. Hanno took us on a very interesting trip passing all the developments in Java concurrency, starting from version 1.4 and via Runnables, ExecutorServices, CompletableFutures and ForkJoinPools, all the way to virtual threads.

Last weekend, our office was the stage for a Christmas dinner with an extra festive (read: magical) touch and special character! In honor of Ruud and Inmar’s birthdays, the annual dinner was transformed into a Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts-themed event. Curious how they turned our office into a magical world à la Hogwarts? The magical journey began right at the front door, where we passed through the entrance to Platform 9 ¾. Once inside, it was a full exploration of scenes and objects from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series. From the floating candles of the Great Hall, the Proclamations, and the crests of Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff, to Dobby the house-elf. Even the smallest details weren't overlooked, and there were references to the famous film series even in the restrooms. Everyone dressed up as their favorite characters from the films, some more convincing than others. So convincing, in fact, that someone even bleached their hair to look more like their character (Ruud). The Sorting Hat determined our fate for the evening, assigning everyone to one of the houses. We then unleashed our magical powers and lit the floating candles with the well-known spell: 'Lumos.' The food? The chef and assistants from caterer Kookers, just like last year, treated us to a delicious four-course menu with appetizers beforehand that would have melted even Hagrid’s heart, all paired with matching drinks. It was an evening full of fun, magic, spells, and laughter, and the office stayed lively for a long time afterward!

It was time again for our annual autumn event: the largest Java conference in the Netherlands. A day where technology and sustainability came together at our booth. Participants blended their own fruit smoothies and took a chance at winning a little extra luck with our Tony's Chocolonely raffle, where various sustainable prizes were up for grabs. For our TrailBlazers, it was a day filled with inspiring conversations with visitors and valuable software insights from presentations and masterclasses. By now, our memories of J-Fall are happily cycling along.

TrailBlazers is celebrating its 5th anniversary, and that calls for a party! On July 1st, we traded our computer screens for the fresh air and gentle ripples of the water surrounding Weesp. Together with colleagues and partners, we set our course for an unforgettable boat trip. As we navigated the waterway from the Vecht to Amsterdam, we thoroughly enjoyed delicious snacks, drinks, and shared stories, adventures, and memories we've built together over the past 5 years. This celebration on the water perfectly reflected the spirit of collaboration and fun that is embedded in the DNA of TrailBlazers! We are incredibly proud of what we've achieved together and are grateful to everyone who has been part of these adventures. Here's to an even brighter future, and cheers to us!

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!