European Fitness Forums

The European Fitness Forum was EHFA's own conference, and it moved. Each edition was held in a different part of Europe, so that the association's work met the sector region by region instead of always in Brussels. Three had been held by 2010: in Hilversum in the Netherlands, in Prague, and in Madrid.

The first forum took place at Hilversum in the Netherlands as the North European Fitness Forum, and the association organised it alone. Its subject was the register. The programme was built around the European Register of Exercise Professionals, presenting it to the sector as the initiative that would give an industry grown faster than any shared idea of competence a route to professionalism and credibility. The proceedings could be obtained from the secretariat on request.

The second forum was held in Prague as the Central European Fitness Forum, organised by EHFA and EREPS together. It brought training providers, accreditation bodies, academics, suppliers, exercise professionals and operators into one programme, and its purpose was to set out how the industry would be professionalised and what the register offered the people in the room. The audience is the point. A meeting of operators alone would have discussed marketing; a meeting of educators alone would have discussed curricula. The forum put both in front of the same proposals.

The third forum went south, to Madrid, and was held on the campus of the European University of Madrid. Its working sessions addressed current trends and the question of what would improve the sector's business, and the programme included a visit and dinner at the Real Madrid stadium, where an official of the stadium spoke. A CD-ROM holding the proceedings and presentations was sent to every registered participant on 8 June 2010. The forum has a page of its own, including the comments participants left afterwards.

The forums were where the standards framework met the people who had to work with it. A framework drafted by a technical council is a document; a framework that operators, training providers and national associations have argued over in the same room is one they have a stake in. The association used the forums to test drafts, to explain decisions that members in different markets would otherwise read as imposed from Brussels, and to bring the training providers it accredited into contact with the employers who would hire their graduates.

The series belongs with the rest of the association's event programme and with the work described under EREPS. The framework the forums explained, and the council that held authority over it, are set out under standards.