On the first week of October, Helena Novotná, the ESF Communications Director, visited the Little League Headquarters in Williamsport, PA, USA. The main motive for the visit was a learning experience in the fields of softball promotion, marketing, public relations and administration.

President of Little League, Stephen Keener, welcomed Helena with a great willingness to share the experience Little League has collected over decades.


Stephen Keener and Helena Novotná

Dan Velte (in the cover photo), Senior Director of League Development and Regional Operations, arranged a number of meetings for Helena. She met with people whose job is to take care of Marketing and Communications, Media Relations, Web Development, Digital Media, Multimedia, and Licensing.

„I had the chance to not only see how communication is done by such a huge and successful organization, but also to speak to people who supervise training, education, and development. I was very excited to learn about Little League’s Urban Initiative, and what personally inspired me the most, was the Challenger programme,“ said Helena.

Helena met with Sara Thompson, Director of Softball Development, and described to her the situation in various European countries. Little League and the ESF have been cooperating for several years in coordinating development and most recently have engaged in discussions on grant programs for European Federations. The future for more extensive and concrete programs is promising including in the areas for which Helena made the trip.

Helena will bring the marketing, promotional and public relations experiences back to Europe and hopefully begin to implement some of the ideas she has learnt. 

During the last two days of her visit, Helena attended the New District Administrators‘ Training. „This was a great experience for me, which gave me the insight on how Little League works on different levels,“ said Helena.

„I am very thankful to everyone who made this possible: to the ESF; 1st VP Gabriel Waage, Kristian Pälviä and Sara Thompson, who were at the very beginning of the Internship idea and to everyone in Williamsport who shared their experience and know-how to help us get better in Europe,“ said Helena.

-Helena Novotná-