The general meetings of the Association of European Road Milling Companies (VESF) are by nature designed as international events. Because such an industry meeting is currently not possible in the previous form, the VESF board has switched to a digital format. Thus, the first online general meeting of the VESF took place on 30 October 2020.

Holding an international general meeting online - no one at the VESF had considered this until 2019. However, the regulations on infection control and the rapid spread of the possibilities for digital communication contributed to the fact that at the end of October, almost 50 people took part in the first online general meeting of the milling association. This showed that the VESF is also technically far ahead in terms of IT: parallel to the video conference via teams, all speeches were simultaneously interpreted. All members were able to follow the meeting via a parallel livestream in German, English and French.

In addition to the usual formalities such as the treasurer's report, approval of the minutes and reports from the association's work, the Executive Committee had again put together interesting presentations, as in previous years.

Presentations by member companies on new products or services are part of the regular programme at the Milling Association. Accordingly, this time there was a presentation by Peter Waldschmitt, Sales Manager at M & S Gruseck. He presented the company and the range of cutting tools that are marketed in Europe under the name "XCAL Tools".

In the "Sharing good experiences" section, this time there was an impressive report on the refurbishment of the race track at Silverstone in the UK. Jamie Town, Managing Director at NRP, the UK's largest milling services provider, reported on the work at the race track in summer 2019, where the milling machines had laid the foundations for a high-quality asphalt structure thanks to thorough preparation, the use of 3D control and optimised parameters for feed and milling drum speed.

Last but not least, the VESF had also provided plenty to talk about during the coffee break of the online meeting: A picture gallery of spectacular, unusual or technically remarkable applications of the member companies from the 2020 season showed: Cold milling machines can solve a wide variety of tasks - in the Paris Metro, in the rehabilitation of dams on the Dutch North Sea coast, in the production of gutters for road drainage in the Swiss Alps and many other places in Europe.

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