Partners gather for first ONSIDE project meeting of 2020

Partners in the ONSIDE project made a flying start to 2020 with the sixth full partner meeting taking place in Birmingham, UK, on 8-9 January, hosted by Sports Officials UK.

One of the key outputs of the project will be a brand new set of occupational standards for the role of sport official and day one of the meeting was dedicated to detailed discussions around the skills and competences of sport officials, looking at generic competences that apply to all levels and all sports.

The standards will be presented under four main headings, known as Key Roles:

A - Personal Competency Development

B - Relationships

C - Competition

D - Information

Consultation on the standards will take place in February and March 2020 and interested stakeholders should contact the project team or any of the partners to view the standards and take part in the consultation.

On day two attention turned to the educational outputs of the project and package leaders Sports Officials UK led discussion of the Training Module Handbook and e learning which will be developed for the project. Topics earmarked for e learning modules include communication, conflict management, observation and decision making, honesty ethics and fair plan and team work.

Educational outputs will be tested with sport officials at two test events to take place in the UK and Malta in June and September 2020.

Planning for the final conference for the ONSIDE project was also progressed towards an event for the sports officiating sector to be organised in November 2020.

At the meeting the strong connection with the International Federation for Sports Officials (IFSO) was cemented further and indeed the final conference of ONSIDE will be organised as a joint ONSIDE/ IFSO Congress.

The partners found the meeting productive and also enjoyed their time in Birmingham, particularly the dinner boat cruise on the Birmingham canal system organised for the evening between the two meeting days. The next meeting will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria in May 2020.

Janie Frampton from Sports Officials UK said: “This was a very valuable meeting to progress the two areas of standards and education, there is a lot to achieve in 2020 but we have got off to the best possible start with this partner meeting in Birmingham.”

About the ONSIDE project

The ONSIDE project aims to research and define the concept of sport officiating in Europe, develop occupational standards to outline generic skills and performance requirements, and finally, create innovative education products for both face-to-face and online.

The ONSIDE project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Collaborative Partnerships in Sport programme.

All project partners: European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE), Sports Officials UK (SOUK), Association Française du Corps Arbitral Multisports (AFCAM), European Handball Federation (EHF), European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), European Athletics, SportMalta, Dutch Olympic Committee, Dutch Sports Federation (NOC*NSF), Romanian Football Federation (FRF), British Wheelchair Basketball, National Sports Academy Vassil Levski.