Only 18 months to go until young skilled workers from all over Europe gather at the European skills championships to compete for the gold medal in their skill or trade. When around 600 young people showcase their expertise over three days of competitions, everything must run like clockwork. Our workshop managers will play an important role in making this major event a success: they are not only responsible for organising and setting up the workshops, but will also ensure the smooth running of the competitions. This requires not only a high level of commitment, which is displayed afresh by all managers at every meeting, but also extensive preparation. Our workshop managers convened once again this week – on two days and in two cities. On Monday, our Head of Competitions Stefan Praschl and project staff member Thomas Wurditsch updated our workshop managers in small groups in Innsbruck, and then on Tuesday they moved on to the next group in Linz.

A very important item on their agenda was to lay the foundations for the Competition Preparation Meeting (CPM). During this meeting, in March 2020, the most important technical delegates, decision-makers and workshop managers will gather for a few days to discuss the remaining important details concerning the planning of the workshops and the overall focus of the event.

At the recent meetings, the workshop managers also had the opportunity to exchange their experience gained in Budapest, where they shadowed their Hungarian colleagues during EuroSkills 2018. Thomas Wurditsch brought everyone present up to date with the current situation regarding sponsors and gave an overview of the most recent competition area layouts for the individual skills and trades.