The Eurofleurs competition takes place in 5 days, and yours truly, is one competitor feeling (at the same time if possible), slightly overwhelmed, and on the other hand, incredibly laid back.  While this may make no sense to the average, sane reader, I'm sure that those who's shoes I'm attempting to fill understand completely. My name's Joe Massie, and I've had the incredible experience of working on the Eurofleurs competition for the previous 6 months. 

Eurofleurs is, if you like, a "junior" version of the Europa Cup - a huge international competition between upto 22 countries from the EU, who gather together in one city every two years to compete in all aspects of floral design, crowning the overall winner the "junior European Champion".  The "junior" part of the Cup is the stipualtion that every competitor must be under the age of 25 at the time of the competition, and at the same time, never have professionally taught floral design in any format.

Being the ripe old age of 20, and never having held a class in my life - this made me the perfect candidate for Eurofleurs, after winning the BFA's Young Florist of the Year in 2007 of course.  The British Florist Association holds the Young Florist of the Year competition every two years, always the year before the Eurofleurs competition, to find a suitable candidate to enter into the competition (or feed to the lions, whichever you prefer, dear reader).

Back in February, the week of Valentines day to be precise, the website for Eurofleurs went live, which mean that the schedule was there for the downloading.  6 tasks presented me - one unnamed surprise task, three tasks that we were named but no preparation allowed, one which was named and preparation was allowed on arrival, and the final task which was named, and which we could prepare for!  While on paper this seemed like a decent amount of work already, a few days after reading the schedule, it hit me as to just how much work there was going to be.  I'd like to make it clear that I have never been labelled workshy - and I'm usually the last to leave the workroom, but at first I admit, I was overwhelmed with the task ahead of me!

Insurance, transfers, budgets, transportation, flights, hotels, ordering of materials, locating suppliers, and putting the actual things together of course - argh!!!!!!!  With the fact that the competition was in a different country, and after some very interesting conversations with individuals whose grasp of the English language could at best be described as "loose", this made for some very, very interesting situations.

To my rescue, came a team of people who I can honestly say have excelled themselves, both in skill, experience, talent, counselling and humor of course - my loosely termed "assistants" (more mentors to be truthful - assistant is an insult to this pair) Neil Whittaker and Antony Williams, my amazing manager Isabel Wilton (whose bark can be just as fierce as her bite), and the ever present and ever observant BFA council to keep me in check.  It was these people who made it possible, along with input from Sarah Horne, Jo Jarvis and Linda Owen, who helped me begin to make sense of the task ahead.

As a competitor in a competition that British florists have always found it hard to climb up to the higher part of the chart, I'm all set for going for gold - however, as people have told me, getting into the top ten will be an achievement in itself!

At this point, less than a week before the competition begins, I'm nervous, for sure.  But on the other hand, I'm really not - because effectively the die has already been cast concerning some tasks.  Theres some comfort in the evidence of the work I've put in - four wrecked pairs of jeans and the stench of wood glue that follows me everywhere I wander (I digress again) - and my frames/structures of course,  that makes me think I've done my best so far.