This month, the European Fitness Badge was successfully launched at the International German Gymnastics Festival (Internationales Deutsches Turnfest) in Berlin. Over the 6-day festival, the project’s lead, the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB), together with the project partners, including ISCA, tested more than 500 participants of different ages and fitness levels using the Badge’s Basic, Advanced and Approved fitness tests.

Former ISCA volunteer Maria Lourdes Gonzalez, who is now working for DTB, tells us what the public’s reaction was to the first test of the European Fitness Badge. Meanwhile, ISCA is looking forward to “Catching the Badge” at the DGI Landsstævne in Aalborg this month!

Thanks to the great work of Katja Klemm and her group of volunteer trainers, each participant who met us during Turnfest received their certificate together with some good counselling and an explanation on how to improve their fitness level. For us, this was a good opportunity to see how participants perceived the test and how much attraction it generates. Positive results!

Turnfest was also the possibility to catch up with some partners, see the implementation of the badge in action and use the setting for promotional videos that will be ready within the project’s time frame. But we also know that some of our partners have been implementing the test in their organisations, like Ubae in Spain.

We filmed some new promotional videos in Berlin, but our project partner DGI has already done a great job to produce this video run-through of how to use the European Fitness Badge.

Updates will be made on the official European Fitness Badge website as we receive information from the events where they are used, so please let us know if you are holding European Fitness Badge events. Instructors can access all the information they need to carry out the tests on the website.

By Maria Lourdes Gonzalez, Deutscher Turner-Bund Assistant