BRUSSELS – From 6 to 8 May, FISU hosted a 3-day seminar for the Organising Committees of the 2016 World University Championships.
The seminar was a healthy mix of information with presentations by the different FISU departments and case studies from hosts of previous World University Championships.
In the past three days 31 hosts out of the 34 of the 2016 WUCs as well as delegates from 4 Continental University Sports Federations (EUSA, FASU, ODUPA, AUSF) got detailed theoretical and practical inside information for staging a successful FISU event. During the seminar, the different aspects of these single sport FISU events were tackled, i.e. accreditation, relations with the FISU delegates, sports regulations, services to the delegations, protocol, finances, media & communications, marketing, medical services and human resources.
Next year 34 FISU championships will be hosted on four continents, so FISU Media talked with delegates from those continents about their presence at the WUC 2016 Seminar.
Leonz Eder, WUC CTI Chair, oversees Workforce Management Workshop
For Shinichi Sakata (Japan, Asia), delegate of the OC 4th WUC Waterski, the seminar was time well spent. “This was a useful seminar for me. I learned about the FISU regulations and the WUC concept. I really understand how to organise a FISU championship. I now have some decent background information to instruct my team preparing for the event.”
Gyorgy Kovacs (Hungary, Europe) is in charge of the international elite sports within the NUSF of Hungary. But it’s his first time at the WUC Seminar. “I had good feedback from this FISU Seminar coming from Hungarian WUCOC delegates who were present at previous editions. This year I wanted to see and experience for myself and it was worth making the trip as I learnt some new things regarding marketing and social media.” Gyorgy was accompanied by Zoltan Rakaczki, OC member of the 20th WUC Orienteering who is quite familiar with the FISU WUCs. “I worked at several WUCs as a volunteer, but also as an organiser, since I was on the OC of the most recent FISU championships hosted in Hungary”, Zoltan explained. “So I didn’t come here without any background knowledge, but it’s always good to be present at this seminar as regulations change or are updated and also to refresh my memory.”
Sonja Ottaway, who represents the OC of the 2nd WUC Netball, Miami, USA
“It’s great the standard the WUC brings”, Sonja Ottaway, who represents the OC of the 2nd WUC Netball (USA, Americas) commented. “For me as an organiser, I’ve learnt so much in regards to what it takes to move your event to the highest level. The biggest benefit I’m getting from working with the FISU WUC is the partnerships and agreements that FISU has globally to help me as an organiser to run the event more smoothly.”
“It was a long trip to get here, more than 30 hours of travel from Perth, Australia but the last couple of days were very informative”, according to Tony Jermyn, future host of the 8th WUC Sailing in Perth. “It was fantastic to meet the bigger FISU Family and everybody that is involved behind the massive operation that it is. It’s an excellent idea to bring all future hosts for 2016 together. Moreover, the FISU staff have been exemplary in providing their assistance to help us building our event.”
Workforce Management Workshop
“I’m very happy with the outcome of the seminar. Having 31 OCs present out of 34 is great”, FISU Vice-President and Chair of the WUC ITC Leonz Eder confirmed. We also made some progress with the seminar, we made it more interactive to the benefit of the participants providing an interesting programme with plenary sessions and workshops. The FISU Staff has done a great job in preparing the seminar.”
Great success for the Seminar as 31 WUC OCs were present (out of 34)
“The WUC Seminar was successful as we had over 100 participants from the WUC Organising Committees and it was rewarding to receive positive feedback on the topics presented”, Paulo Ferreira, Director of the World University Championships explained. “We had the distinct feeling that the interaction during the sessions and throughout the entire seminar was essential to the preparations of the events.”
C. Pierre, Press Officer
Pictures : Yvan Dufour