At least once a year we hold the seminar “from tree to barrel”.
In order to make this day as attractive as possible for the participants, some preparation is necessary.

Planung

Set the timetable:

First of all, we have to choose from a large selection of topics, about which we want to give a lecture on this day. For this it is important to know who will be there as a visitor. If, for example, the majority of the guests are winegrowers, it makes little sense to talk about the charring of whisky barrels.

When the rough timetable of the lectures has been drawn up (usually 3 or 4), the preparation really gets started: the individual speakers work on their presentations, look for pictures, texts and visual material together. Then the rooms have to be planned: all lectures take place one after the other in the same room, or parallel in different rooms. If separated: how? Do we let the participants decide or do we determine that?

I can tell you: it reads much less complicated than it actually is… At our last seminar we divided the groups into English and German without further ado. With the side effect that one day before the event, the entire main presentation had to be translated “quickly” into English. But that wasn’t a big problem. If the Eder company has one in addition to great barrels, that’s linguistic diversity. Or do you know a 40-man company in which 10 languages are spoken fluently?

Languages

Palatine 😉 (German), English, French, Polish, Turkish, Italian, Czech, Albanian, Romanian, Lithuanian

Logistics and food

Ok… Lectures and rooms are planned so far. Now it’s on to logistics. Normally we have about 40 participants. Precisely enough to fill a bus. So all participants are instructed to be at a large place early (very early) in the morning of the seminar so that item 1 on the agenda can be tackled:
The trip to Annweiler at Trifels into the forest.
Because the event has been going on for several years now, we also have partners who go hand in hand with us. One of them is the bus operator. Only a phone call from his niece (my dear colleague Laura) is necessary to clarify the details. Until now, he has always brought us reliably into the forest and back to Bad Dürkheim.

Kaffee

Let’s go on with our checklist… and what is very important and always there when many people come together? Right! Hunger!
This topic leads every year again to hot discussions between all participants. I am sure, if we would not slow down one or the other food-organizing colleague, our participants would fall into the food anaesthesia before lunch…
If we have then decisded for this year’s menu, our event will slowly become a round thing.

Final spurt

About a week before the seminar we prepare the exhibits, such as our smelling bar or the help-yourself station. Again the question arises, what goes where, where does it not disturb the course of events and the running operation and what is needed at all?
Also in the week before the event, we create the obligatory name tags so that later you know who you are dealing with. There’s a simple reason why this happens at such short notice: If there are cancellations, it’s during this time.

And then it can actually start:

The day before the seminar, the first participants arrive. With the participants, who had a further journey, we offer a sociable dinner in a regional restaurant (really very sociable and often humid). Then we go to the surrounding hotels, on the seminar day the alarm clock rings very early – at 7 o’clock departure is to Annweiler into the forest.
There the participants learn something about the oak wood and its characteristics. The absolute highlight is of course the live felling of a 200 year old oak.
Afterwards we all drive together again to Bad Dürkheim, where our team leads through an eventful and instructive day.

The legendary "Come Together"

Our seminar will be concluded by the legendary “Come-Together” after the event.
What is legendary about it? I’ll tell you when you get there. The next “from tree to barrel” event is on January 16, 2020, by the way. We are looking forward to seeing you!

See you!

Angela Pfahler

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