October 19-22, 2016, Piestany
Together in Slovakia
EUROPEA-Slovakia and the perfect venue of Hotel Academy Ludovit Winter in the charming spa-town of Piestany hosted our 2016 autumn seminar. Slovakia being one of the countries in Europe with loads of fresh water reserves and hot water spas has wisely chosen the topic of the event: Water and Climate Change. Even the weather focused on the subject and provided us with abundant rainfall throughout the three days we spent together.
“When it rains bread is falling from the skies.”
One of the lecturers pointed out the importance of water in that way so already the presentation part of the programme gave us a lot to think about. We had the chance to listen to great research reports and elaborate presentations of Slovakian professionals and learn more about the potentials and the problems concerning the issue of water in agricultural production in the Trnava Region.
Exhibition of good practices
Green VET Schools from all over Slovakia came to Piestany to present their institutions and showcase the good practices and novelties applied in their training. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm with which youngsters presented their schools and their daily practices and spoke very-very good English! It really seems that the future of agriculture is in safe hands in Slovakia!
Company visits
Our hosts took us to an innovative apple producing enterprise PLANTEX, in Vesele and to the advanced wine company ELESKO in Modra. A group of participants visited the famous Thermal Spa in Piestany while National Coordinators held their regular meeting in the nearby Green VET School in Rakovice. Many thanks for the very many nice impressions, astonishing facts and great experiences.
NA meeting
Representatives of National EUROPEA organisations got together for a very short but efficient and pleasing reunion. Some of the discussed topics were: statutes, presidencies following Brexit (read the statement of EUROPEA-UK), national websites, Agrolympics in Germany, and chances of cooperation with other Green VET networks.
The most important issue of the upcoming months, however, will definitely be the preparations for the election of a new Executive Committee, which will take place in April 2017. Thus, changing of the guards is just around the corner but one thing is for sure: EUROPEA will go on and will be going strong in the future as well.
Competition in Floristry
Parallel to the EUROPEA Seminar Green VET School Rakovice organised the very first EUROPEA Student Competition in Floristry, which gathered the EUROPEA students keen to show their skills and competences in this exciting field of Green training (read our article on that HERE).
Farewell
Next stop on the EUROPEA circuit is scheduled for April 2017. The spring seminar will be held in Malta; one of our youngest member countries. Once again acknowledgements to our Slovakian hosts, many thanks for the amazing professional and also cultural programme and see you very soon 🙂 !
See the full Programme Piestany.
For great photos taken during the event visit our Facebook page or click here.
Acknowledgements: thanks Jasna for the photo 🙂
