YEMP – Steering Committee and Coaches

We usually set up a steering committee for the project which takes care of the preparation of the YEMP and takes all important decisions. The Steering committee in our case included:

  • 2 people from our Youth Committee, both former YEMPers, one of them chosen as chair of the committee, one of them also working in the festival office
  • the SEcretary General of the European Choral Association – Europa Cantat
  • Somebody from the festival office (ideally the person dealing with staff issues)
  • Somebody from the Estonian Academy of Music which was the partner for the YEMP offering free rooms for the YEMP training weekend and workshop for trainers, plus their expertise in cultural management studies
  • The two coaches (see below)

 

For each YEMP we choose two coaches, ideally one coach from the host country, one coach from uproad who has experience with the EUROPA CANTAT Festival, more ideally a man and a women – which was not possible for 2018, for example. They:

  • must be available for more than 2 weeks before and during the festival
  • are volunteers (not paid, but all costs for travel, accommodation and meals covered for any preparatory meetings as well as the 2,5 weeks with the YEMP training weekend, the preparatory week, the festival itself and the evaluation day with staff party the day after the end of the festival
  • join the steering committee to prepare the YEMP (see above)
  • attend the YEMP training weekend and are there the full time of the YEMP until the day after the festival
  • Observe the YEMPers during the training weekend and take first notes on how they can help them / coach them, and help with the distribution of YEMPers to their tasks
  • Partly offer sessions during the training weekend
  • Support the staff office the week before and during the festival
  • Mostly support and coach the YEMPers during the two weeks of their “training on the job”. We usually distribute the YEMPers to the two coaches (according to language skills, experience etc.). The coaches regularly meet them and ask how things are going, also sometimes give them tasks and make a final evaluation with them, discuss with the steering committee in case of bigger problems what to do (e.g. change the position of a YEMPer, give them some extra support etc.)