EHFA held its 2009 annual general assembly in April, when the membership met to elect the board, approve the accounts and the annual plan, admit new members and vote on any changes to the statutes. The general assembly was the association's ultimate decision-making body: the board answered to it, and nothing in the association's governing document could be changed without it.
The notice was published on 15 April 2009 and set the meeting for the Moevenpick Hotel in Essen, Germany, on 22 April 2009, from 13:30 to 16:30. Members wanting details were directed to the secretariat.
The 2009 assembly fell in the middle of the association's most active period of development. EU funding secured the previous year was being spent on the vocational education and training work, the qualifications framework was being drafted, and the register was being built. Assemblies in that period were as much about explaining the standards programme to members in markets that had not yet engaged with it as they were about formal business.
The association's meetings moved between member countries: the European Fitness Forum was held in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain in successive years, and the assembly met in Germany. That put the annual business within reach of members in different markets rather than keeping all of it in Brussels, and it gave the association's work a national audience each time it moved. The calendar as a whole is set out under events.
The general assembly met annually; the 2010 assembly was held in Essen, Germany. See EHFA structure for how the assembly sat above the board and the technical bodies.