Season’s Greeting from the WGI President
Looking back at this year of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of our Willibald Gebhardt Institute, I can finally report on great in-person events again. And, despite all political and economic conflicts and adversities, this Christmas we take a optimistic look at the new year ahead.
In 2022, Corona has by far not influenced the work in WGI projects as much as in the years before. We were, once again, able to hold our ordinary general assembly in-person on November 02, 2022 without any restrictions. In the regular elections for two departments, Nils Neuber was re-elected as Vice President “Children and Youth Sports” and Martin Gesigora as Vice President “Finance”. Thus the executive board can continue its work in the proven composition. It is also very pleasing that the cooperation agreement of the WGI as an affiliated institute with the WWU has been extended for another five years until 2028.
A special anniversary highlight was the international conference “European Conference on Physical Education and School Sport” on October 17/18, 2022 in the premises of WWU Weiterbildung in Münster’s old town, which was actually already planned for 2020. The event, which was organized by Roland Naul, featured participants from seven nations who discussed the effects of the Corona pandemic on the physical activity behavior of children and adolescents as well as on school sports in Europe. Furthermore, the focus was on the continued quality development of school sports from different national perspectives. During the meeting, the just published CEREPS “Consensus Statement on COVID-19 Recovery” was also presented and discussed.
The WGI was involved as an associated partner in the very successful 35th annual conference of the dvs section of sports pedagogy from June 16-18 in Münster on the topic of “Knowledge transfer – a central topic in sports education”. Within the framework of the conference, which was organized by the department “Education and Teaching in Sport” under the direction of Nils Neuber and attended by approximately 300 participants, the WGI organized a symposium on the topic of “Knowledge Transfer to Improve the Quality of School Sport in Europe”.
The department “Olympic Sport”, led by Michael Krüger, once again organized an Olympic Study Day on June 21, 2022. The focus was on the topic of “Olympic boycotts”, and featured a very interesting and descriptive lecture by Prof. Henk Erik Meier. On the occasion of the Olympic Games in Munich 50 years ago, renowned experts held lectures from the perspective of the FRG (Andreas Höfer & Ulrich Schulze Forsthövel), the former GDR (Berno Bahro) and Israel (Udi Carmi) within the framework of the Sports History Colloquium.
In the “Elite Sports” department, various projects are currently underway on load analyses for vertical jumps in beach sports. In beach volleyball, for example, the focus is on jump detection and jump height detection using inertial sensors, with the aim of providing coaches with online information on the number of jumps and jump heights during the match.
In the “Health Sports” department, Dennis Dreiskämper and his team continue to work on several projects on the effects of Corona restrictions on motor development in children and were again in demand for their expertise for several presentations this year. In addition, his department, together with Roland Naul and in cooperation with Amika Singh (Mulier Instituut, NL), is currently preparing a EUREGIO application for a major Interreg VIa project on gkgk 2.0 with a corresponding funding volume for up to twelve municipalities as a continuation of the successful WGI project “Healthy children in healthy municipalities” (gkgk), which will be launched at the beginning of 2023.
The WGI was also very active as a partner in other projects in 2022: In May, together with other international partners under the leadership of the University of Luxembourg, we were awarded the Erasmus+ project entitled “EduPASS: Education for Physical Activity and Sport: In-formal and Non-formal Settings”, which will run until the end of 2024. For the WGI, Roland Naul and Sebastian Brückner will drive this project together with the lead partner Claude Scheuer from the University of Luxembourg.
Marie Ghanbarie continues to work very successfully as project partner in the project “Sportpaten”. Neil van Bentem has joined the WGI as a new project partner with the project “Children with insufficient movement experience – movement promotion of children in Münster” and Kathrin Kohake is also a new member with the project “Promoting Safe Sport concept in competitive gymnastics” in cooperation with the Hessian Gymnastics Association. As our long-standing project partner, Jessica Süßenbach is currently developing a new post-COVID project in cooperation with the LSB Niedersachsen.
All these diverse activities highlight and prove the excellent national and international networking of the WGI and its successful transfer work also for 2022! In order to promote the regional and local sports-political networking of the WGI, we will hold a festive event in cooperation with the Commerzbank and in their premises in Münster in the spring of 2023 as a follow-up to the 30th anniversary of the founding of the WGI in 2022; we will inform you about the topic and date at the beginning of the new year. In addition, a German-Korean conference is being planned for June 6-7, 2023 in Münster.
On behalf of the entire Executive Board and Executive Office, I would like to wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a happy, successful and, above all, healthy 2023!
With best Season’s Greetings
Yours
Dr. Heinz Aschebrock