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Christiane Kutz-Böhm spent the two weeks at the ISAF Secretariat, from 22 February-5 March. Christiane spent time working with each of the five ISAF Departments - Administration, Competition and Events, Marketing and Media, Training and Development, and Technical and Offshore - to get an insider's perspective on the day-to-day work of the ISAF Secretariat.

Christiane's trip was part of a new initiative to give ISAF Members an opportunity to learn more about the ISAF Office and Staff and follows on from a similar work experience placement successfully complete last November by Jinyoung Hong of the Korea Sailing Federation.

At the end of her stay in Southampton, we spoke to Christiane to find out a little more about her experience.

Could you tell us a little about your background, how long you've been at the DSV and what your role is?

I finished my Tourism & Event Management degree at European Business College Hamburg, Germany in 2007 then went to New College Durham to complete my BA (Hons) degree in Management, Business and Administration a year later. Following this, I did an internship at a regional tourism organisation in Southern Germany before I joined the German Sailing Federation (DSV) as Administration Secretary in October 2008.

Working in the DSV General Secretariat, I am engaged in the membership administration of 1,300 sailing clubs, the work with our honorary members, the preparation of board and committee meetings as well as some marketing and media activities. These include the response to press queries and enquiries regarding student research projects, the preparation of press releases for the website, the management of our website and also the draft of speeches and greetings for board members and Festschriften of our member clubs.

Could you tell us a little bit about your two weeks at ISAF?

It was definitively a great experience. The two weeks I spent at the ISAF Secretariat were very interesting and varied and gave me not only a good insight into the organization but also some suggestions for my work at home. I believe the individual contact will improve the already good cooperation between ISAF and DSV in the near future.

Is the ISAF office very different to the DSV - is there anything either organization could learn from one another?

Apart from some organizational aspects I did not see great differences. Both organizations are very similar in terms of their structure, their working methods and partly even their tasks, although they are operating on different levels.

To find out more about opportunities for placements at the ISAF Secretariat please contact ISAF at www.sailing.org/contactisaf.