BEGINNING OF TRAINING
The International Trainers’ Pool of ELSA
How it all began
The need for training of ELSA members, notably to ensure effective transition between Boards and skilMichael Zammit Maempel Secretary General led officers, has been an ELSA International 2000/01 & issue of importance sinSofia Amaral Secretary General ce the early years of the ELSA International 1999 and 2000 association’s existence. The idea of establishing a body of experienced ELSA people, who could become trainers of the next generations of ELSA officers can trace its origins back to 1994 and was featured on several Internal Management Workshop discussions at the International Council Meetings. However, it only came to life some 15 years later, at the end of 2000, with the appointment of the first batch of trainers to the International Trainers Pool (hereinafter ITP). With the introduction of the Bologna process, it seemed that the involvement of law students in ELSA would become even shorter, thus making it even more pressing to have a system which could reduce disruptions caused by poor transition between Boards, avoid information loss and ensure that officers would be fully ready to discharge their duties from the start of their term in office. The aim was to ensure quality and continuity in ELSA. In order for the ITP to come to life, two questions needed to be tackled: how to fund it and how to bring
in the necessary expertise to train the ITP trainers. ELSA’s Premium Corporate Partner at the time, Clifford Chance, was also focusing on improving quality and focussing on training of its staff. Therefore, the International Board of ELSA (hereinafter IB) took the initiative of approaching them regarding the possibility of supporting the creation of the ITP, and Clifford Chance enthusiastically agreed to the idea of having professional trainers train future ITP trainers at the newly opened Clifford Chance Training Academy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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The idea of establishing a body of experienced ELSA people, who could become trainers of the next generations of ELSA officers can trace its origins back to 1994 Getting skilled ELSA alumni to join the ITP wasn’t an easy task. But, after an intensive search and many contacts, it was possible to find a group of 15 people from different generations to take part in the first Train the Trainers Weekend which took place from the 14th to the 17th of September 2000 in Amsterdam. Putting the event together was a challenge not AGILITY MAGAZINE
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