Drenthe without windmills, it’s hard to imagine. The fact that there are still 38 mills in the province that run regularly would not have been possible without the Guild of Voluntary Millers. But the average age of millers is rising and that is a danger for the future.
The guild exists fifty years and that will be celebrated next month with all kinds of activities. Roelant van Eijk, chairman of the Drenthe department of the guild, is immediately enthusiastic when it comes to the guild. “We are a training institute, teaching people to run and maintain mills.”
And that is sorely needed. After the Second World War, mills are needed less and less due to the advent of engines and electrification. They turn into warehouses or worse, they disappear. “A windmill depends on the wind, with an electric motor you turn the link and you have power,” explains Van Eijk about the demise of the windmill. “But what stands still, it deteriorates. That is why the guild was created in 1972, in order not to lose the profession as a miller and the knowledge that goes with it. If you want to keep mills, then we have to do more than paint them now and then. “
Today the guild in Drenthe has about 125 members, of which about eighty are active as millers. They all received training in the guild. Van Eijk: “But most people who want to become millers are already old. Raising the state pension age has not made it any easier. By then you will be 67 and you still have two to three years of training to complete. Then the millers who graduate are already of age.”
That is why the organization is busy looking for younger millers. Every now and then one pops up, like 16-year-old Sander Boom. He has been walking around the mill in Diever since he was eleven. As soon as he is allowed to train as a miller at the age of fourteen, he joins. He hopes to graduate next month.
“The Guild of Voluntary Molenaars has facilitated me during my studies. You used to have the miller’s and baker’s school in Wageningen, but it no longer exists. Today, only the guild still trains millers,” says Boom.