On the first weekend in September PROJECT-E’s Team Europe came together for the meanwhile traditional bi-annual Strategy Weekend. This time the city of Heidelberg, Germany gave us a warm welcome and the basis for a couple of days of planning, evaluating, looking back and looking forward and – having fun meeting old and new friends!

Twice a year, all members of the European Team of PROJECT-E are invited to meet on a weekend to discuss the project’s strategies. This year the Strategy Weekend took place in the beautiful town of Heidelberg and it was a good opportunity to catch up with the members of the various departments and of course with our Country Representative, Sena Kinati.

Most of us arrived in the evening on Friday and were already looking forward to the Ethiopian dinner – a tradition of the Strategy Weekend we are always trying to stick to! Thanks to a lovely Ethiopian restaurant, we managed to get Ethiopian Take-Away (Yes, this is a thing – or at least from now on it will be!) and gather at the Neckar River to eat and chat.

On Saturday, we kicked off the Strategy Weekend content-wise and met in the rooms of the University of Heidelberg. Each department presented its development since the last time we met for the Strategy Weekend in Vienna in January. Of course, also Sena got to present the recent development at the Hospitality Institute in Addis Ababa. Additionally, three workshops were organized by Sena, Tameem and the Management Board, which covered the topics of the digital working space for Team Europe, developments and challenges for the work in Addis and further improving the work of Team Europe. Indeed, we had so much to talk about that we were asked to leave the university building, because it was already closing for the night. Of course, that did not stop us from brainstorming and discussing further and so we continued working outdoors and even at Moritz’ place later-on, accompanied by some snacks and drinks. This way, the evening smoothly transitioned into the  “social part” that is not to be underestimated, mingling and discussing all different kind of things.

Sunday then was already meant to be the last day and we could not believe that time flew this fast again. We used the remaining time for getting together in our respective departments and planning the next six months of work as concretely as possible. Now our To-Do lists are well-filled again and our goals and milestones are cast in stone, we were able to return to our home towns with a clear conscience again, looking forward to reaching the next steps in the coming months!

Written by Marco Fölsch.