Partners

EHFA was paid for by its members and by its partners, and the difference between the two mattered. Subscriptions kept the association in existence; partnership was what allowed it to do things. The association put the point directly: without the support of its industry partners it could not have achieved the goals it had set itself, and without the national associations of Europe it could not have claimed to speak for the industry.

Partnership was graded rather than uniform, and it was public. Companies joined at a level that matched what they had committed to, and they were listed at that level, so that a supplier supporting the association at gold level was named as a gold partner rather than as a vanguard one.

The association worked with organisations of three different kinds, and this part of the site follows that division. Industry partners were the companies of the sector - operator groups, equipment and technology suppliers, and a training provider - supporting the association at published levels. National associations were the federations and trade bodies of the sector in each country, and they were members as well as partners: they held votes at the general assembly and their officers could sit on the board. Association partners were the other bodies in the group and the subjects that went with them, including the association's engagement with European education policy and with the Structural Funds.

Partners gave money, and they gave more than money. Standards and registers only work when the organisations that employ and equip instructors use them: an employer has to be willing to ask for a register entry when it recruits, and a supplier has to be willing to train staff against the same standard it sells against. Companies inside the association were the ones who could say whether what came out of the standards work was usable in a real club, and the large operator groups were the ones whose adoption of the European Register of Exercise Professionals gave it weight beyond the association's own membership.

The association could not have run its programme on subscriptions alone. The larger partner commitments funded work that member income did not cover, and they brought suppliers into the same meetings as operators, which is where a qualifications framework has to be agreed if it is to hold at all.

The association published its supporters by level, recorded its thanks to them, and pointed readers from that list to its industry partners and to its national association partners. Companies that gave sponsorship rather than joining at a partner level were acknowledged separately. The names were not decorative: a sector made up of many small operators and a few large groups needed to know which of the large ones were putting money behind the standards.

What those organisations said about the association is collected under partners about EHFA, and the conditions attached to each category of membership are set out in the association's statutes.