On 17 and 18 October, the fourth meeting of the POINTS project was held by the European Olympic Committees (EOC) EU Office, in Brussels. The aim of the meeting was to continue the development of an Educational Programme for Single Points of Contact for Integrity (SPOCs).

EOC EU Office Director, Folker Hellmund, opened the meeting by welcoming representatives from 14 partner organisations and providing an overview of different integrity activities at national and European level. Then, POINTS Project Manager, Valentin Capelli, continued with the latest activities held in the frame of the project.

Following a presentation of the state of play regarding the Guidelines for SPOCs - the final version should be ready by mid-November and made available for the wide public - this meeting contributed to give practical information on the educational programme that Single Points of Contact from partner organisations will follow in the first half of 2019 as well as to prepare the main components of these activities. Another topic discussed by partners was the nomination of SPOCs within their organisations. Finally, the project management announced that the work is ongoing to update the SIGGS self-evaluation tool which should be ready for a test phase during the first months of 2019.

Key elements on Seminar 1: Competition Manipulation

The first day of the meeting introduced basic aspects of the seminar on Competition Manipulation, which will take place in February 2019, in INTERPOL headquarters, in Lyon, France. The goal of this seminar is to provide participants with a solid understanding of the key elements of Competition Manipulation and to make them think about ways that they, as SPOCs, can handle potential situations in this area. After active discussions about their roles as SPOCs and having agreed on the key aspects, this first day ended with the SIGGS working group, which addressed the update of the SIGGS self-evaluation tool.

Key elements on Seminar 2: Good Governance

The second day of the meeting continued to develop the specific objectives of the future seminars, starting with the Seminar 2 on Good Governance, which will be held in April, in Germany. The aim of this seminar is to provide participants with a solid understanding of the key elements of Good Governance and to help them create a connection between good governance and the role of a SPOC. For this purpose, they will be made familiar with the tools at their disposal to support their work. In the afternoon, participants discussed the ways in which some of the practical elements of the educational seminars would take place, including case studies, group exercises and practical simulations.

Key elements on Seminar 3: SPOC role and competencies

The second half of the second day was devoted to the responsibilities and competencies that SPOCs should have to fulfil their roles effectively. The main elements that were discussed in preparation for seminar 3 were knowledge, skills and abilities. Participants were asked to brainstorm the competencies they think that a SPOC should have. The brainstorming was then followed by a common discussion on practical ways to train and test these competencies.