1st Project Meeting

Transnational Meeting in Lisbon

From 24 to 26 November 2014 in São João da Talha, Lisbon the teams from Romania, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal gathered for the first Transnational Meeting. Three days of intense work, but fruitful for the management of the two years, Erasmus+ project, BLEND-IT.

The main objectives of the 1st Transnational meeting of the partners from BLEND-IT project was for all partners to meet, become acquainted to the project and discuss potential issues and significant matters at hand concerning the materialisation of the project.

We have used this meeting for planning the whole project, dividing tasks, signing partnership agreements about communication, student accommodation or other agreements; to discuss how to accomplish the activities and tasks of the project, to discuss monitoring and evaluation of activities and reconfirm tasks for the next period.

1st Day

Mr. Jose Cruz, Portuguese coordinator and director Dina Ferreira welcomed all partners; after everyone introduced themselves and formally initiated the materialization of the BLEND-IT Project. Following that, the main items in the agenda were covered:

1. Presentation of all Partner Organizations.

The AESJT began with a presentation of its profile, while all partners followed with brief presentations of their organizations, by using PowerPoint slideshows so as to better acquaint everyone present at the meeting on the activities of each organization. While presenting each institution, we have also discussed the problems that we deal with in our activities.

2. Project Presentation.

Mrs. Iohana Udrescu presented the project, including aspects related to the objectives of the project, deliverables, tasks, responsibilities and other such. She gave a brief introduction concerning the documents needed to be stored, by also providing some examples to create a better understanding for all partners.

Following this, discussion moved on to the issue of “Students exchange” of the project. Mr. Luciano Zazzetti conducted the discussion, as his school will be the first one to receive a group of students from partner institutions.

2nd Day

The discussion and presentations of the meeting moved towards the organizational aspects of the project and the Erasmus+ Programme. The participants of BLEND-IT project spoke about the bilateral agreement that will be signed by the partners and the coordinating institution, all partners received a signed and stamped contract.

All partners agreed that all deliverables will be translated and available in all national languages of the partner countries and of course English.

Another point was voting the logo of the project. All present partners had a vote they could assign to a logo that was not their own. The winner is the logo proposed by the Italian school. It will be used from now on all documents, products etc. resulted from our project.

Next topic was rescheduling the activities and reconfirming tasks from the project plan. The changes were a must since the project’s duration was cut from 3 to 2 years and since the first meeting was delayed due o contractual issues. All partners discussed and were able to rearrange the timetable with activities.

Team building activities were also done, while visiting the historic town. The aim was for the team to interact, to know each other better and to develop a good working relationship. The day ended with a Portuguese dinner.

3rd Day

On the last day of this meeting, discussions started following the topic “Monitoring and evaluation”. The measures from the application form were reviewed and responsibilities and tasks were assigned.

After a coffee break, we have moved on to the “Organizational aspects: Financial management; Working standards”. Mr. Liviu Udrescu presented in detail the significant aspects of the project that relate to the management, coordination and smooth materialization of all activities and keeping of necessary files and documents.

Finally, Mrs Iohana Udrescu briefly spoke about the working standards of the Erasmus+ projects, according to the Romanian National Agency requirements and expectations.

The discussion and presentations of the meeting then moved towards the “System Moodle”. Mr. Georg Blaga presented the structure of the future course, the approach that he and Mrs Angela Kohl plan to use. Later he presented the learning objectives planned for each module of the course, the possibilities of LMS and the ways to differentiate the students. We have explored the Moodle platform together.

The meeting ended after the last managerial issues – financial questions were discussed. All participants received a certificate of attendance.