Mid term meeting –

Mid term meeting Athens December 2015

This took place just before Christmas and was hosted by the the Greek partner ‘Citizens in Action’. Our thanks go to them for an excellent job.

Sadly the UK member of the coordination team lost their passport and was unable to physically attend the meeting, they did however attend via Skype.

A busy and intensive few days of reviewing current progress and planning the next steps.

One of the changes for partnerships within the Erasmus+ programme is less funding for face to face meetings between partners. The drawback for this is the meetings are more intense with less time to socialize and more importantly, less opportunity, in our case, to look at SSE experiences in the partner countries.

Despite the intensity of the meeting, overall satisfaction among partners regarding progress made so far, is good. Although we are a little behind, the timeline has been revised and all are confident of achieving the outputs specified within the schedule.

The meeting could best be summed up by the comment:

‘good partnership + commitment + energy = Team work, results, fun’

Updates

Research – this has taken a little longer than expected but the compilation of research from the partners has been completed in both English and Spanish. It was agreed to complete a summary version for translation into all 5 partnership languages. This is currently underway.

The research documents, both full and summary versions, will be available in March 2016 at the same time as the Portfolio of competencies is published.

Avatar Example

Portfolio – Work is ongoing, following both focus groups and individual interviews – Generic job/role profiles have been completed with specific competencies; knowledge, skills and attitudes, and; transversal SSE competencies identified for each profile.

Planned as an E-portfolio each profile will be identified with an Avatar (which at present are being designed). (A sneak preview of my favorite to date – I stress this is only my personal favorite and may not make it into the final document).

This is planned for completion and publishing alongside the Research document in March 2016.

Training Modules – Work has begun on these and they will link to the competencies focusing on Attitudes, skills and knowledge. Due for completion in October. Trials of some of the activities are initially planned for April, June and July, to be followed by validating and translation.

Virtual Game – This is very much at the beginning stage and current thinking is to link to the Portfolio profiles and avatars. A mixture of SSE awareness raising and challenging attitudes through completing challenges within a virtual environment. Trials of the game are due to take place in July, August, September with completion in October.

Final Event – November is the month of SSE in France and the town of St Etienne hosts an SSE fair attracting around 5000 people during the last week of November.

We have agreed to host our final event as part of this larger fair. Our intention is to have a stand and workshops showcasing the project outputs; research, portfolio, Training modules and Virtual game during the event.

We are looking to raise additional funds to support attendance of individuals from SSE business’s who have participated in the focus groups / interviews and supported the project. And, who would benefit from attending our workshops / seminars  and networking within a wider SSE audience.