There will be a change of management at VHS Herrsching in September. Michaela Wirries succeeds Petra Hofstätter.
Herrsching - "I would have loved to hand over an adult college bursting with strength," says Petra Hofstätter. And she was on the right track until the corona restrictions upset everything. The 63-year-old has been Managing Director of the Adult Education Center (VHS) in Herrsching since 2012, and in September she hands over the helm to Michaela Wirries (48). Petra Hofstätter is inviting you to a general meeting for the last time this coming Friday.
Petra Hofstätter is particularly pleased that last year was so successful. The crisis now, you could have saved it, she says. "Organizing, planning, developing strategies - that would have been exactly my thing," she says, but admits immediately, "if I had been 20 years younger." At the end of her working life, she would have wished otherwise, instead she is now a crisis manager. “There is a complete rethink. The VHS will no longer be what it was before the Corona crisis. ”Petra Hofstätter speaks of a“ gigantic drop in participants ”. Nobody knows whether the good numbers from the previous year will ever be repeated or whether the regular participants reoriented.
Especially in the field of languages and health, there are always participants who have been loyal to the VHS year after year. "Not everyone can afford a gym," Petra Hofstätter knows. The VHS courses are a good affordable alternative. So far. "According to the fifth hygiene regulation, we are now only bringing four to six participants to the face-to-face courses." Otherwise, it would have been twelve or 13. "The course fee is then of course different," she regrets. The VHS is currently working with the lecturers on a system that alternates between face-to-face and online courses. However, a stable network is needed for live streaming. The lecturers are currently working with the Zoom platform. The goal, however, is to use VHS's own “edudip” - a separate room for webinars - via the VHS cloud. "It is safer, but it is not yet as user-friendly as Zoom," knows the managing director of Herrschinger Adult Education. It is all a feat at the moment. Also the summer program she is currently working on and which will be available from Friday, June 19th.
Petra Hofstätter will present her balance sheet to the board and members on Friday. Michaela Wirries will also be there and introduce himself. The successor had already joined the most recent online team meetings. She will take up her position on September 1. From then on, Petra Hofstätter will remain in the administration ten hours a week until the end of this year to familiarize her colleague.
48-year-old Michaela Wirries has a master's degree in education and is currently teaching at the Starnberg vocational school. Petra Hofstätter, with her commercial training and subsequent studies in cultural studies, was also outside the industry when she first worked part-time in the administration in 1997 and took over the management from 2012. Just a year later after the change of staff at the time, she had to vacate the beloved office in the Kurparkschlösschen with two office employees - currently there are three - and move to the former Café Flora in Kienbachstraße 3. The big advantage of the new location is that it is barrier-free. Still, it was love at second sight. Today Petra Hofstätter and her team feel very comfortable there.
At Kienbachstrasse, everything is currently geared towards hygiene measures - in line with the ministry's specified catalogs. Petra Hofstätter is in close contact with her colleagues in Starnberg and Würmtal, but also in Landsberg about the implementation. "It's a give and take," she says. She could always rely on that. And her successor will certainly be happy to fall back on that.