Working Groups

EHFA's board met a few times a year. The programme it set ran continuously, and the working groups were how. Each group took a defined piece of the association's work, met between board meetings, and reported back to the board and the general assembly.

A working group was not a committee of the board. It was composed of people from member organisations with a direct interest in its subject - national association officers, training providers, operators and technical specialists - convened by the secretariat and chaired by a board member or a co-opted expert. Groups were set up when the board identified work that needed continuous attention, and wound up when that work ended.

• European affairs. The association's engagement with the European institutions, including consultations, position papers and the sector's contribution to policy on physical activity and health. See European affairs.
• Education and vocational training. The EU-funded work that produced the qualifications framework, run with national partners and reported through the EU projects pages.
• National associations. Coordination between the association and its national members, including the National Associations Forum, at which members compared how the standards framework was being applied in their own markets. See national associations.
• Standards and accreditation. Carried by the Standards Council and its Technical Experts Group rather than by a working group, because the work was technical and ongoing.

Groups worked to a remit agreed by the board, with a named chair and a published objective. Most produced documents - draft standards, responses to consultations, project deliverables - that went through the association's own review before publication. Where a group's output touched the qualifications framework, it went to the Standards Council before the board.

The arrangement is the reason a small association with a secretariat of a handful of people could run EU-funded projects across a dozen countries at once: the work sat with the members who had the expertise, and the secretariat held it together.