Polski
Magyar
Română
The Polish Yachting Association (the leader of the project), together with the Hungarian Sailing Federation and the “Wind Hunters” Romanian sailing club, started the VolunSailing project under the Erasmus+ Sport program of the European Commission. The project aims to promote and activate volunteering during different sailing events, and to create standards and procedures, ready to be applied in any sailing organizations, from small sport clubs to MNAs and members of EUROSAF and World Sailing.
About obtaining the grant for the implementation of the project we wrote in October: https://pya.org.pl/polski-zwiazek-zeglarski/news/pzz-pozyskal-grant-z-programu-erasmus-sport-na-rozwoj-wolontariatu
The VolunSailing program will be implemented for the next two years. The first work meeting took place last weekend. Unfortunately, travelling difficulties connected to the pandemic prevented all of the partners from meeting in person. PYA representatives and the Hungarian delegation met at the PYA’s offices in Warsaw, while the participation of the Romanian side was possible thanks to the ClickMeeting platform, an official PYA’s partner.
Each of the partners presented the activities of their organizations, including discussing the functioning of volunteering, which allowed the parties to get to know each other better and define the areas of future cooperation. The PYA’s team presented the Association’s Volunteering System that covers three areas of the Association’s work: office, sailing events and sport&training. The functioning of the media department in the implementation of the Association’s projects was also presented.
For PYA the VolunSailing project is another step in the development of Volunteering System for HSF and “Wind Hunters” it will help to implement volunteering in a systemic way. In the discussion on the development and implementation of the project, tasks were divided to prepare for the next meeting, which will take place in Hungary at the end of July. Apart from the work on the project itself, there was also room for Polish hospitality. PYA representatives had the pleasure to show the guests a little bit of the Polish culture by organizing guided tours.
Alexandru Micu, President of the Romanian Sailing Federation in the VolunSailing project represents the “Wind Hunters” club from Konstanz, where he is the commander. One of the requirements of the Erasmus+ Sport program is the involvement of entities with a narrower range than MNAs. Although he participated in the meetings only on-line, he did not hide his satisfaction with the partnership in the VolunSailing project:
‘This is a great project, I congratulate the PYA’s team on the idea and acquisition of the Erasmus+ Sport program. Volunteer management is very much needed in sailing organizations in our region. The meeting initiating our cooperation was well organized. The program was well planned and fully implemented. The online communication platform provided by PYA (ClickMeeting) worked flawlessly, which made our work very effective and pleasant. We have working versions of the documents prepared by the PYA’s team. We will refine the conditions related to the subject matter, which will allow us to create a manual containing a set of documents for those interested in volunteering connected to sailing in our countries. I believe we are on a good way to make this happen.’
Andras Holczhauser, Secretary General of the Hungarian Sailing Federation, visited Warsaw together with his associates. In addition to constructive meetings and discussions, he will remember the positive impression he had during his stay in Poland:
‘We are very pleased that we were able to get involved in the Erasmus+ program alongside our Polish and Romanian partners. The inaugural meeting was very interesting for us, and we can already see the effects achieved by the Polish side. We have several areas that we will work on now to prepare for the next meeting in Balatonfured that we will be hosting. We are excited and we know that the cooperation will help promote sailing in our countries, support clubs and regatta organizers. I want to thank the Polish Sailing Association for their hospitality. We are very impressed with Warsaw and its citizens. Our trip through Poland showed how beautiful this country is. Everything together surpassed our expectations and we are pleased with the partnership in this project.’
The work of the PYA’s team on the application for the Erasmus+ Sport program began last spring, shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic. The time when face-to-face meetings were impossible was used to prepare the formalities. Now the project is entering the implementation phase and the Association’s experience in organizing the regatta, especially before the pandemic, is going to help to develop effective procedures, especially in the field of international volunteer mobility.
‘First of all, I would like to thank our team from the Training and Development PYA’s Department: Anna Kuder, Weronika Dyjas and Maciej Szafran, for inventing the VolunSailing project, obtaining a grant and organizing the inaugural meeting. International cooperation is an important element of the Polish Yachting Association’s strategy. The exchange of experiences leads to the development of sailing, both in terms of organizing the regatta and raising the level of sport competitors. We are gradually developing volunteering in the organization of regattas, achieving considerable success in this field. Young volunteers from various countries played an important role during the Youth World Sailing Championship, hosted in Gdynia in 2019. It was an event organized for young people by a very young team, which we want to be our model solution. Such activity not only supports event organizers, but above all shapes new generations. I hope that the VolunSailing program, the implementation of which we are launching as a leader together with partners from Hungary and Romania, will open up new opportunities for the promotion of sailing’ said Tomasz Chamera, President of PYA.