In April 2024 I had the opportunity to take part in a contact seminar for German-speaking Erasmus+ project coordinators in St. Gilgen/Austria. The seminar was managed by OeAD, the Austrian national agency, and non-profit institution ALE. 

I've been to a contact seminar before and found it very useful. One does not always come back with lots of new partners but sometimes you can be lucky to find the right institutions. This seminar was directed at new and experienced schools and training centres interested in the new type of activity, group mobilities. Interesting for me, too, but also it was important for me to meet Erasmus+ coordinators from German-speaking countries. I was hoping to find partners for an exchange of students with mental health issues, mainly in the field of office management, tourism and maybe house economics, for those students whose English is not good enough for an exchange, or, in the case of office management, where it is necessary to understand the national language well enough to be able to correspond fluently.

Before arrival we received an interesting, creative programme designed to enable all participants to do a lot of networking. All materials (presentations, videos, fotos, links...) were delivered to us via Padlet, a virtual whiteboard. After a lengthy journey from Southwestern Germany via Salzburg, I arrived at Seehotel Billroth in St. Gilgen, a lovely tourist destination at lake Wolfgangsee. I was surprised to discover that the hotel is owned by the Red Cross!
Our first activity was an App-supported group scavenger hunt, designed to get to know each other. After making a short video about the benefits of Erasmus+, funny group photos and finishing other tasks, we entered the boat house where we used remote-controlled MarioKarts in order to fight each other, a fun experience which made us bond quickly as a smaller group. An excellent dinner quickly made us forget the strain of climbing up and down the hill several times during our hunt, and was used as a first networking opportunity. I discovered that most participants were teachers of vocational schools, mainly from Germany and Austria but Liechtenstein and the German-Speaking part of Italy also were represented.

The next day started with another excellent meal and a welcoming by Martin Prinz, leader of the Austrian national agency for Erasmus+, OeAD. Another creative type of activity was used to meet new participants, namely collecting good and bad experiences with mobilities and putting them together into a story, poem, song, video... This was then followed by some input about the new Erasmus+ opportunity of group mobilities. Most of us quickly identified some possibilities of working together within this type of activity, for example visiting EU institutions together with apprentice groups from other countries.

Afterwards we started our Lego Serious Play in smaller groups - a fantastic way of illustrating ideas, expectations and perceptions, and getting people to talk, especially when you are fighting for the one Lego part you desperately need to make it perfect! :) In the end we added hash tags to our creations and explained them to the other groups.

The evening saw a wonderful cultural event, namely a boat tour across the lake to St. Wolfgang and another very good dinner in a restaurant (yes, I agree, we ate a lot!).

Luckily the next day started a bit later, with recommendations for successful networking by Franz Heffeter, leader of ALE, a non-profit which supports apprentices who want to experience work abroad. We then left for Bad Ischl where we visited a local tourism school (training young people to be chefs, barkeepers, service in gastronomy etc.), were spoiled with a perfect five-course menu, good wines and the presentation of a great project in which a group of apprentices created their own restaurant from scratch. I was absolutely impressed by them sanding floors and building furniture, creating a menu and generally doing all the work themselves or with members of their families and friends!

We also heard a speech by Elisabeth Schweeger, artistic manager of Captial of Culture Salzkammergut 2024, and had a discussion with her and her team about the involvement of young people via Erasmus+. Afterwards we were free to visit Bad Ischl or an art exhibition - I chose the latter and saw some impressive art and video installations, often dealing with the effects of climate change on our world, realized using salt and water as material.

Back at the hotel we prepared an open space fair in order to introduce each other's schools and training centres to the others. I was glad to offer honey (made by our students in job preparation measures - with the help of our bees, of course), olive oil and olives (from Crete where our gardeners go every year for a drystone seminar) as well as some Red Cross goodies to the others and had some good conversations about a possible future collaboration. At this stage ideas only, and we'll see how much of these we can make happen. At the moment all I need are four work experience placements for office management students for two weeks, so I will now follow up on my contacts and hope for the best.

I can only recommend taking part in a contact seminar, if you can, but make sure the content and target group are right for you. As the only vocational training centre dedicated to young people with disabilities in this seminar, I might not have much success in the end. But after all those attending know others who are more suitable, so use all your networking skills and be clear about your targets, that might do the trick :)