EUROPARC Siggen Seminar "A new nature message"

We are pleased to be able to pass you on the long promised information about the second part of this year’s EUROPARC week at the Siggen Estate in North East Germany. What’s more registration for this event is now officially open.

The second EUROPARC seminar at the Siggen Estate in North East Germany will take place from 13^th – 16^th July 2011 courtesy of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation (DE). Places at the seminar are free of charge as is the board and lodging at the Siggen Estate from the Wednesday to the Saturday. Due to limited places this event is targeted at individuals dealing with the communication within their organisations only. EUROPARC Members will be given priority over the places available. Eurosite members are also offered free places. Participants will need to pay for their own transport costs.

Entitled ‘A new Nature Message’, the two day seminar is based on the branding biodiversity document and approach created by the communication company Futerra. In fact, a representative from Futerra, Helen Spoor, will spend the whole of the first day with us introducing us to this innovative approach and using case studies and exercises to help us understand how we can apply it to our own communication activities. Futerra have developed the ‘love not loss’ concept from their experience and based on psychological evidence looking at what drives people to conserve nature.

On Thursday Helen will take us though a biodiversity communications master class. Participants will learn how they can make their communications more effective through a set of presentations and practical activities using case studies. The second day will ask participants to input into the EUROPARC Communication Plan – applying the skills we learnt on the first day directly to the document. In addition, participants are asked to bring communications activities with them that they may wish to improve. The second part of the final day will look at improving these examples using the tools provided by Helen on the 14^th.

Please note that this is a full two day seminar. We therefore ask participants to please stay until the seminar ends at 17:00 on Friday 15^th July. Participants may stay overnight on Friday 15^th July if they wish to travel home on Saturday 16^th.

The deadline for registration is Tuesday 31^st May. Please note that registration does not mean that you have a place on the seminar. We will collect all registrations and contact participants regarding their acceptance onto the seminar by Friday 3^rd June.

The full programme and registration form are available here.

Please contact Morwenna Parkyn if you have any questions.