Hello and happy winter! It's Emma here with a quick XP update 🚚 🦢🧤

I hope you are feeling good today, and that you had some nice moments of rest and celebration last month, and that your Monday wasn't too blue this week. It's been a while since our last newsletter, so let me update you on what has been happening in and around Extra Practice lately. First of all, we have moved out. And then in! As most of you know already, we found ourselves a new location just across the river from our old beloved corner on Zwaanshals. The space is larger, newly renovated and well insulated, and has a beautiful view of the Rotte and its many swans. We are and feel sooo lucky and can't wait to share the new XP with you all.

(I guess 'moving' is the topic of this month 🚛 so I thought moving images would be apt)

📹 Kirsten & new studio view

Feeling sentimental, I was looking back at some moving images of the lovely wrap-up event we hosted with Yara in December (thank u again Y 🌯). One of my favourite moments was when, some time between dinner and dancing, everyone picked up a piece of furniture and we collectively moved them across the bridge to the new space. It felt like a special ritual, almost ceremonial, yet so practical and helpful at the same time – a combo I think is essential to Extra Practice (I now even see it echoed in our name?) and I look forward to creating more of that mix in future XP events. Anyway, big shoutout to everyone who carried a box, chair or table top – thanks for moving out/in with us!

📹 Moving ceremony

The next day we moved the rest of the stuff by cargo bike and on foot. There was something so nice about moving every single object with our own bodies and energy (ok except for the electric energy from the borrowed municipality bike). The process felt very simple and grounded, you know?

📹 Jack moving on electric Rotterdam cargo bike

With all the talk and content around the turn of the year prompting me to 'zoom out' and see 2023 and 2024 as these big entities to review and project on, I was watching the moving videos in that zoomed-out, year-in-review kind of mood. And of course –you guys know me by now– I couldn't help but see some sort of metaphor in it: that maybe our old space is like 2023, and the new space is like 2024, we are taking only the things we want to keep to the new space/year, and let go of the rest (like in those IN/OUT lists that are so in). And now there is a lot of new open space for all those future things we want to do and make. Very exciting, but also quite confronting, to get this clean slate and think about what you really want - both as a group and individually. It's on our minds, but for now we can still escape in practical matters like painting walls and building floors.

📹 Gijs & Emma painting & flooring

In our 'regular' newsletter this would probably be the section where I asked all the XP members for their INs and OUTs for XP'24 or something like that. But not in this one, because we need some time to define those with each other first, and focus on getting out of moving-limbo; there is only half a floor, the walls need more paint, our stuff is in boxes and (quite essential) our block has no heating yet.

So we have mostly been experiencing the new XP from that zoomed-out perspective, not yet being truly IN it – which is also how I feel about 2024 right now – but we are carefully starting to zoom in again. 

📹 Jack's model of the new space

The other day we reassembled the big table in the new XP and had one cold meeting there with our coats and gloves on. Plans for the space are slowly forming and we're working out ways to apply for external funding or some sort of grant. That would allow us to put more time and energy (and money) into Extra Practice 2.0 and move forward 🚛 wherever forward is! So that's what we'll be working on these coming weeks, next to painting and flooring and getting the physical space as ready as possible. Stay tuned for our grand opening....

Love from limbo,

XP

🗓️ JANUARY AGENDA
If everything works out, the new space should be ready (enough) to host another themed co-working events this month! Keep an eye on our IG page or website for the next ThemeWork session and block January 26th from 15:00. This one will be specifically focused on getting our Q4 TAXES done again 🧾🧾🧾

Bonus content: Emma's sentimental poem she read at the Wrap Party 🌯

I remember when I found this space on Woonstad.nl

I remember racing to Almondestraat, ringing their bell

My heart was racing while I told them what I had just seen

Feeling both excited and afraid of being too keen

I guess afraid that none of them would actually feel

What I was feeling, and that they’d find it a stupid deal

That Woonstad wasn’t cool enough, not like ‘stad-in-de-maak’

That it would be too commercial, and not artsy anti-kraak

That they would find the space way too expensive for its size

That we could find something way better and for half the price



I remember when we got the Woonstad call in Ameland

Collectively excited, the beginning of a bond

Back then, did we know?

How much stronger it would grow?

That this was the start of what you call a ‘community’ ?

And how grateful for this choice our future selves would come to be?

Sometimes I try to see my life through other people’s lens

And realise how special it is, working with my friends

I get this existential, sentimental, weird sensation

It’s like I feel nostalgia for our present situation

Today that feeling’s here as well

Perhaps stronger than ever

Cause we are once again embarking on a new endeavour

Or maybe cause we’re aging, and becoming real adults

But instead of kids or houses, we’re investing in our ‘cult’

Don’t want to be dramatic but I just want it expressed

How much I love each one of you and how much I feel blessed

I know now that our Zwaanshals space has been the perfect size

That Woonstad is amazing, and that it was worth the price

To say it in a Dutch way: “it was every penny worth”

No matter the address

East of the Rotte or West

Extra Practice might just be my favourite place on Earth

🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯🌯  

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