The third full partner meeting of ONSIDE project partners took place in Lausanne, Switzerland on 15-16 November at the House of European Athletics.
European Athletics has been a strongly committed and active partner in a project which is designed to enhance and further the skills of sports official across Europe. The ONSIDE project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Collaborative Partnerships in Sport programme.
The focus of the first day of the meeting was to consider the results of the research phases of the project. Adequate workforce research is the foundation of a successful skills development project and the partners reviewed the results from the four phases of research which had been carried out since the last meeting.
Telephone interviews with nine leading European Federations generated useful data and increased the network of federations committed to the ONSIDE project. The group were most looking forward to learning the results of the national sport federation online survey - as all had made significant efforts to promote the survey in their networks.
Some 247 respondents provided responses across 50 sports. The partner countries (France, UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and the Netherlands) were very well represented. Results were analysed and discussed under key workforce development themes including: recruitment, retention, skills, education, and current challenges.
On the second day delegates debating levels and models of sport officials, led by Jan Vlasblom of NOC*NSF, and agreeing a structure for the Occupational Descriptor of competency standards.
The partners now look forward to the next meeting in Bucharest, Romania in March 2019 wheb they will finalise the first set of outputs.
Ben Gittus, EOSE Director of Standards, said: 'The partners are working together very well as a team to tackle this challenging skills development project. The research phase considered at the meeting has laid a solid foundation as we move in to year 2 of the project.'
Julia Lee, Director at Sports Officials UK, said: 'The two days have been really illuminating and it has highlighted the passion for sports officiating. 247 people completed the survey which in the timescale is really positive. The input from the partners and information gathered will be really useful to progress to the next stages of the project'.