Germany’s Edinburgh-based Consul General returned to Forth Valley College recently, accompanied by lecturers from professional training school BBS Wilhemshaven on an Erasmus+ funded fact-finding visit.
Consul General Christiane Hullmann, who first visited the FVC Falkirk Campus in November 2024, made the initial link to BBS earlier in the year and was happy to welcome the delegation of three lecturers from BBS Wilhemshaven, led by Monika Mienkowski, to meet peers at FVC and for them to learn more about what the College has to offer, as they are committed to building a partnership around student and staff mobility.
Monika was presented with a welcome gift by FVC Principal Kenny MacInnes on arrival on Wednesday 19 November, and she and her colleagues were given a tour of the Falkirk Campus, before heading to the Stirling Campus where they were shown the facilities and enjoyed a lunch at the Gallery Restaurant.
The day before (Tuesday 18 November) Chris Nisbet, FVC’s Assistant Client Manager, led the delegation on a visit to Babcock in Rosyth where they toured an aircraft carrier. The group also visited Celtic Renewables at Grangemouth and Chris gave a presentation about the College’s Apprenticeship programme when they visited the Falkirk Campus.
FVC Principal Kenny MacInnes, said: “It was a pleasure to welcome Consul General Hullmann once again at our Falkirk Campus and to meet Monika and her colleagues from BBS Wilhemshaven for the first time. It is really exciting to see how the international partnerships we are cultivating are growing stronger and stronger, as our peers from around the world in education and business see what we have to offer. I look forward with interest to seeing these relationships develop as time goes on.”
Jamie Allan, FVC Global Partnership Manager, said: “We were extremely pleased to welcome BBS Wilhemshaven to FVC, which was enabled by the Erasmus+ programme. Not only did they enjoy a tour of the world class campuses in Falkirk and Stirling, they were some of the first guests to enjoy this year’s Christmas menu at our award winning and student-led restaurant, The Gallery!
“It was also fantastic to once again welcome friend of the college, German Consul General Christiane Hullmann, to Falkirk as she was keen to meet the staff from Wilhemshaven following the introduction she made in late 2024. The BBS staff are keen to enable two way student and staff mobility across our shared curriculum areas of specialism, and I look forward to developing the relationship with their institution and more wider with Germany as a whole, a key partner of Scotland in renewables and other sectors, in the coming months and years.”
