New board Pre-financing and Guarantee Fund has relaxed terms and conditions

The new board of the Pre-financing and Guarantee Fund (VGF) has relaxed the funds' terms and conditions. The fund aims to give organisers of multiple-day international conferences in Holland additional financial security. It helps conference organisers by covering their initial costs and other financial risks, up to € 90,000. It is also an encouragement to get international conferences realised. The VGF combines two separate schemes, the Pre-financing Scheme and the Guarantee Scheme.  

The changes are:

• The main change is that the VGF is now 100% guarantor, whereas, previously, the organiser had to find a third guarantor for 25% of the guarantee amount.
• The application has to be submitted no later than eight months prior to the start of the conference. Previously, the application had to be submitted twelve months beforehand.
• The conference budget must be drawn up by a party that has verifiable experience in organising international conferences including accommodation, instead of the budget having to be drawn up by a Professional Congress Organiser (PCO).

 

New board members

The following persons recently joined the VGF board:

• Maurits van der Sluis (Amsterdam RAI) – treasurer
• Carola van der Hoeff (International Pharmaceutical Federation) – member of the board
• Sander de Hoop (SdH Event Management) – member of the board
• Professor Willem van Mechelen (VUMC) - member of the board

Ms Atty van der Schoot, previously the secretary of the foundation, was appointed Director VGF, effective 1 January 2014. Mr Hans den Dekker of Shared Lessons Learned is the VGF chairman. Mr Eric Bakermans is an advisor to the fund, on behalf of the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC).  

Enhance brand awareness

The VGF and the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC) have intensified their cooperation. They have appointed Paul Gruijthuijsen who is to enhance the brand awareness of the VGF in the next two years. Actively approaching the Dutch and international conference industry will not only increase awareness of the VGF, it will undoubtedly result in more international multiple-day conferences being realised in Holland, directly and indirectly.