Sunshine, the Lys, and a Little Belgian Rain: The Vlerick Alumni Summer BBQ Delivered Again
From One Club to Many
If you have been around the Vlerick community for a while, you will know the Leadership Club's annual BBQ has quietly become a highlight events in the alumni calendar. Year after year, it delivered on a beautifully simple promise: good food, good people, no agenda. Just show up and see what happens.
This edition took that spirit and turned it up a notch. Thirteen Vlerick Alumni Clubs joined forces, from the Adventure Club and the Wine Club to the Digital Transformation Club and the V-entrepreneurs. Whether you are a finance person, a legal eagle, an expat navigating life abroad, or someone who is just really into golf, there was a corner of this evening that felt made for you.
That is not just a fun detail. It says something meaningful about where the Vlerick community is heading: open, connected, and genuinely welcoming to everyone who has been through those doors.
Pastoral Vibes on the Lys
The venue was Auberge du Pêcheur in Sint-Martens-Latem and if you haven't been, add it to your list regardless of any event. A charming riverside garden, lush green fields, old trees casting long summer evening shadows, and the Lys flowing quietly just beside you. About 15 minutes from Gent, yet somehow feeling like a world away from the week.
The French word champêtre kept coming to mind, that gentle, pastoral quality that makes you slow down without even trying. There is something about being surrounded by nature that strips away the professional armor we all wear during the day. Suddenly the conversation flows differently. People laugh more easily. Connections happen that would never happen in a boardroom. Even when the clouds rolled in, no one left. That tells you everything.
Instead, you got the magic that happens when alumni from different industries, different generations, and wildly different career paths end up standing next to each other at the grill. The MBA classmate you hadn't seen in five years. The alumnus you had only known through LinkedIn. The person who has moved across three companies since graduation and has the stories to prove it.
One regular attendee put it perfectly: "This event will make us meet up at least once a year. How cool is that?" And she is right. There is something to be said for an event that becomes an anchor point in your year, a guaranteed moment of reconnection in an otherwise chaotic calendar.
The tagline held true: "No speeches, just great food, great people, and great networking."
In a world where every event needs a program, a panel, and a hashtag, there is something genuinely refreshing about an evening that simply trusts people to be together. No one was watching the clock for the next session. No one was sneaking a look at their phone because the speaker had gone on too long.
No Speeches. Just the Good Stuff.
What strikes you at these gatherings is the mix. Some people are regulars, they know the drill, they have already spotted three people they want to catch up with. Others were first-timers, a little unsure at first, but within twenty minutes pulled into a conversation they didn't expect, swapping LinkedIn details with someone they will almost certainly see again.
That is the Vlerick DNA at work. A shared experience, intense, transformative, occasionally chaotic, that creates a kind of shorthand between people who have never even met. You don't need a long introduction. You both just know what it was like. The Summer BBQ does not just celebrate that connection. It actively grows it.
If you missed this one, you already know what you are doing next summer.