Merry Christmas

Another Christmas is almost over - time sure does go quickly. My family and I want to wish everyone a great holiday and New Year. We have lots of new projects starting in 2011, so more on that later. Rest, relax and enjoy the spirit of the day. But be careful of what you wish for - I just wanted a monkey!!!

Never Stop Learning !!

Just a quick note. I recently completed two E-courses offered by Illinois University, the Eppley Center and National Park Service:
- Foundations of Interpretation
- Training and Coaching Interpreters.
Even though I have been doing this for 30+ years, I feel that no matter how much you think you know, you can always learn more. These two courses were a good refresher, and the Training and Coaching Interpreters course gave me lots of new ideas I can apply in my next training course, with the Corps of Engineers in January 2011.
Here is the link for Illinois University/Epply center if you'd like to check it out. http://eppley.org/elearning/course-catalog/interpretation. I am starting a new project as well, but can't talk about it yet :) Lots of new work for a business Christmas Present. More news in a week or so. Merry Christmas.

New Environmental Center Project

JVA has been contracted to develop the Interpretive Master Plan for the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College, in Ganbier, Ohio. The mission of the Center is to support the education goals of Kenyon College providing opportunities for the study of organisms and habitats, and by conserving the natural and cultural diversity and history of the Kokosing River Valley. We will start work on this project right way and target completion in March 2011. You can visit the Center's web site for more information about their on-going program and services at: http://bfec.kenyon.edu/welcomeset1.htm.

Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a while since my last entry. Busy mostly with writing up two draft interpretive plans and finishing up the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park (National Park Service) interpretive plan. JVA UK partner Cris Emberson is in Chili now for about 3 weeks working on a variety of project there, and I will be starting the new US Army Corps of Engineers project in Louisiana the week of Dec. 13th. JVA also has several new projects in proposal stage, and new projects on board for 2011. Given the economics of the times, having interpretive projects into 2011 is encouraging. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Fort Gratiot Lighthouse - New Project

Working as a subcontractor with Museumcroft, JVA has been awarded the contract to develop the Interpretive Master Plan for the St. Clair Parks and Recreation Commission Fort Gratiot Light, located at Port Huron, Michigan. The project will start in November and be completed in February, 2011. You can find out more about the lighthouse at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Gratiot_Light.

New Corps of Engineers Project

We will be starting a new project, subcontracting to MWH Americas, Inc., to develop the Interpretive Master Plan for the Corps of Engineers Atchafalaya Basin Project (Park), a 833,000 acre Basin Floodway. The Basin is one of the nation's last great river swamps. You can see the site brochure at: http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/bro/AtchafalayaBasinProject.pdf for more information on the site. We will be starting this project in the next few week.

Hi,
Just back from Costa Rica. A great experience and the rain forests were just amazing. Had some very interesting interpretive experiences as well. A few photos, including an active volcano in the center of the country, Banana beatle found in the banana fields, and an unbrella tree leaf. New projects coming .. more later.

Off to Costa Rica

Just in the office this week tying off some lose ends and preparing to leave on Friday for 10 days in Costa Rica. Looking forward to seeing the National Parks, turtle nesting areas and hunting for poison dart frogs. Hope to see a sloth too.
More later next week.

Interpreter Training for 2011

We have two new courses for presentation in 2011 at the Snowdonia National Park Training Center in Wales. June 1-3, 2011 - Marketing and Market Creation for Heritage/Interpretive Sites, Agencies and Attractions. August 30- September 2nd - Introduction to Natural and Cultural History Interpretation and Interpretive Guiding. More details will be available on our web site: http://www.heritageinterp.com. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. jv

Time to Write

Just back from the Interpretive Master Planning Course at Plas tan y Bwlch in Wales (Snowdonia National Park Training Center). Just working at home for the next two weeks finishing up interpretive plan drafts and other odds and ends. Getting ready for a trip to Costa Rica at the end of the month. We are planning for next years courses, including a new course on Interpretive Guiding, which we offered a few years ago. The photo is of those course participants during a field trip expeirence to practice tour guiding techniques at Snowdonia National Park. More later.. jv

Back to Wales

If it's the end of Aug-first of September it is time for my training course at the Snowdonia National Park Training Center, in Wales, UK. I will be heading off on Sunday and be there for the week teaching my course on Interpretive Master Planning.
Fall looks to be very busy with both current projects, several new projects starting up, and several projects in the proposal/bidding stage, including some work in Hawaii with the Corps of Engineers. Here is a general pic of the training center in Wales. More later next week. - jv

Heading to Atlanta

This week has been slow - just working on planning documents and catching up on paperwork after returning from South America. At the end of September we will be heading to Costa Rica for 10 days. In the meantime, next week we are heading to Atlanta and a visit to the Atlanta Aquarium. At the end of the month I am off to Wales, UK, to teach my Interpretive Planning Course at the Snowdonia National Park Training Center. We hope to begin our "Landscape Museum" project in Georgia in early September as well. So lots on the plate. More later. jv

Santa Fe de Antoiqua - Columbia

The conference on heritage tourism that was held at the historic colonial city of Santa Fe de Antioqua was a great success. Even though I was the only US speaker, I met many wonderful people and despite the language barrier we managed to have some great conversations. Columbia is a real undiscovered treasure for heritage tourists from the US, Asia, and Europe to discover. The small historic cities that were focused on during the conference are real historic treasures too. We experienced some really great regional food, music and cultural events. And the folks who put the conference together were wonderful and very professional. Also, there were no issues about security of safety either. This is a place ready for tourism development. All in all, I was impressed by what I saw and experienced and hope to return again. Some pics of the conference hotel.

Off to Columbia

Tomorrow I am off to Columbia, South America to participate in the Congreso de la Red de Pueblos, Patrimonio de Columbia. Some photos are shown on a previous blog entry. Will post more once I am there. Cheers, jv

Chestnut Trust Field Work

Spent the past week at the American Chestnut Land Trust working on their interpretive plan and walking trails. They do have some amazing trails for the region. The land they manage were historically tobacco farm fields and they are interpreting the recovery and succession of those historic farms and fields back to a natural environment. Hot work in the 90+ degrees days. Some trail views.

Dalton Landscape Museum

I was just notified that JVA was awarded the contract to do the Interpretive Master Plan for the City of Dalton (Georgia) Civil War Landscape Museum. The Landscape Museum concept is a fairly new one. Think of the city, region of County as "the museum", and each historic site or facility within it as the "exhibit galleries". Then each of the exhibits in that facility as the gallery exhibits. We will begin this new and innovative project in August with an extensive inventory of Civil War sites (historic homes, depots, battlefields, cemeteries and other related locations within and just outside of the City Limits of Dalton. Having done a few other projects in the area for Prater's Mill, I am familiar with many of the historic sites that will be included in the plan. Ultimately a driving tour "museum guide" will be developed as part of the heritage tourism plan for the city. The photo is of a civil war Confiderate Army Artillary cannon implacement earth work site located near Dalton, and a graphic of how the site would have looked when active.

Off to Columbia, South America

I have been invited to present some sessions at the Congreso de la Red de Pueblos Patrimonio de Colombia for the town of Santa Fe de Antioquia, Columbia. All of the town is a historical site; the architecture that has survived through the years gives Santa Fe de Antioquia the aspect of a city "suspended" in the colonial era, which is the reason the city was declared National monument. My sessions will focus on heritage site interpretation for the town. I will be working there from the 27th of July to the 2nd of August. You can learn more about this historic town at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_de_Antioquia. Here are a few pics of the town.

Back in KY with Abraham Lincoln Birthplace

Back in KY working with the NPS doing the Interpretive Plan for the Abraham Lincoln Brithplace National Historical Park (and the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home NHP). We were on the trails today - 95 degrees here today too. Hope to have the draft interpretive plan done by next week. Heading home on Thursday. Here are some photos from the park and visitor center.

American Chestnut Land Trust Interpretive Plan

I just finished the start-up meetings here in Maryland with the American Chestnut Land Trust. This group had begun with a few hundred acres of protected land and grown to over 3000 acres of land protecting and conserving important habitats and watersheds. With a paid staff of just three talented people, and a core of dedicated volunteers they now have about 15 miles of trails as well as offering guided walks and more. We finished our initial site visit and conducted a focus workshop to begin teasing out the main interpretive objectives that the interpretive plan will focus on accomplishing. Here are two photos of some of the landscapes. I will be back toward the end of July for a week of site interpretive inventory work and moving the plan forward.

Advanced Interp. Course

Heading home from Huntsville, AL. We finished our Advanced interpretation course yesterday and we had a great group of participants from Corps of Engineer parks and offices from around the US. One participant came in from Alaska and one from Hawaii as well. Our team of instructors (Pat Berry, Nancy Rogers and myself) want to thank the participants for their course engagement, ideas, and contributions to helping make the course a real success. I get to rest a few days, then on to Maryland to start interpretive plananing with the Chestnut Trust. More on that next week. Here is the group photo of the participants and instructors.

Corps of Engineers Interpretive Course

Hi folks,

We finished our COE "Introduction to Interpretation" course here at the Tom Bevill Center in Huntsville, Alabama. We had 26 COE staff from around the US participate in the 3-day course. Here are some pics of them in action - critiquing the visitor center exhibits at our host field trip site - The Wheeler Wildlife Sanctuary - and planning/design of outdoor interpretive panels. This coming Monday we gear up for our Advanced Interpretation Course for Corps of Engineers Managers.

Interpretation for the 21st Century.

Conducted a one-day workshop on "Interpretation for the 21st Centruy" hosted at the National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. We had about 25 partidipants resprsenting about 10 different organizations and museums in Wales. Here is a photo of the group I had the pleasure of presenting to. Back home in Michigan now - have a week in the office, then two weeks in wonderful Huntsville, Alabama for two Corps of Engineers Interpretation courses. Have a great weekend.

Roman Legion Museum

Had a great day working with the Roman Legion Museum in Caerllion, Wales. Visited some of their remarkable outdoor Roman fortress remains, including an awsome amphitheater and the excivated remains of the Roman Legion Barracks (photo). The site dates from around AD 75, and the museum itself have amazing artifacts on the Roman occupation of Wales. You can visit their web site: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/roman/ for more information. Tomorrow I have a one day workshop at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, then head home.

Interpretive Media Course - Wales

Hi folks. The interpretive media couse was a lot of fun and the the course participants a real treat to work with. Some of the topics included planning and designing an interpretive panel, as well as new technologies, web site development and more. Here are a few photos of the class (working on their panel project) - sample of a draft panel design - and a group photo at the National Slate Mine Museum of Wales, where we went to do a critique of their interpretive media for the museum manager.

Off to Wales.

Well, I had a nice few weeks working here at my home office catching up on things, but my itchy feet are taking me to the UK on Monday. I will be spending most of my time in Wales teaching a course on interpretive media at the Snowdonia National Park Training Center (Plas tan y Bwlch)for three days, then off to Cardiff to do a day of site critique/advisory services for the National Roman Legion Museum, and finally a day workshop for museum staff in Cardiff. More details are posted at my web site: http://www.heritageinterp.com. Here is a photo of the training center grounds in Wales - a great site and location when it is not raining. More photos from there later on.

New Project - American Chestnut Land Trust

JVA was just awarded the contract to develop the Interpretive Plan for The American Chestnut Land Trust (ACLT). The trust protects over 3,000 acres of wetlands, forest and farmland in rapidly developing Calvert County, Maryland. The crown jewel of the land trust is Parkers Creek — the Calvert Cliffs and sandy shoreline in the vicinity of the mouth of Parkers Creek look much the same today as they did 400 years ago when Captain John Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay. You can visit their web site at: http://acltweb.org/about/index.cfm

On to Nova Scotia

This week will be spent working with FORM Media, as a sub-contractor, providing interpretive planning consultation services to develop and deliver Mi'kmaq Interpretive Programming in Nova Scotia Provincial Parks. I really enjoy working in Nova Scotia, and this project working with First Nations is especially interesting. Likewise, FORM Media is a very well respected Canadian interpretation planning firm and I look forward to working with them.

Beauty and the Beast at Bonnet Carre

Some of the pictures from Bonnet Carre Spillway this week. The beauty is some of the great natural areas and some awsome wildflowers. The Beast is the sand and clay mining going on at other parts of the spillway drainage basin. All stories to be told via our auto tour and cell phone interpretation.

Back at Bonnet Carre Spillway.

Back in New Orleans and working on the interpretive media for the Corps of Engineers Bonnet Carre Spillway project. This week Matt Kaser, our outstanding designer, will be reveiwing the interpretive panel designs for the project. We will also be working on the self-guiding auto tour, doing digital interviews with staff for the audio auto tour and for cell phone interpretation about sites in and around the Bonnet Carre project. The weather here is great, with the afternoon temps. being around 80 degrees.

Baekdudaegan Arboretum Symposium - Korea

Hi,
Back from Korea and participation in the International Symposium on the development of the Arboretum project. We finished the first phast of the interprtive master plan, which we presented. That included the main interpretive theme, policies, and storyline as well as exterior exhibits and demonstrations planning. We hope to begin phase II (planning and writing of the media we planned including self-guiding walking tours both printed and audio, visitor center exhibits, and more) in the next few months. This week is a week in the office writing label copy for our New Orleans project - Bonnet Carrie Spillway - and a few other odds and ends. A pic from the seminar. Till later... jv.

Back to Korea

On Friday (tomorrow) I will be heading off to Korea again, to continue our interpretive planning work for the Baedkudaegan Arboretum. Our team will also be making a presentation at the Baekdudaegan Arboretum Planning Symposium, in Seoul on March 31st. Will post an update later on next week. Hope your upcoming weekend and week is a good one. - jv

Civic Tourism

At the recent Susquehanna River Symposium I had the pleasure to spend time with Dan Shilling, author of the book Civic Tourism. This is an important concept that we have been enploying in our interpretive planning for the Susquehanna Greenway (all 500miles of it). His book focuses on being sure to develop tourism opportunities with community involvement, support and implementation. "Civic Tourism is an extension of and tool for other "place-based" approaches, such as cultural heritage tourism, ecotourism, and geotourism. The mission of Civic Tourism is to "reframe" tourism's purpose – from an end to a means; that is, from an economic goal to a tool that can help the public enhance what they love about their place. I found the several days of chatting with Dan, both formally and informally, beneficial and stimulating, and can certainly recommend his book "Civic Tourism - the Poetry and Policics of Place". You can order it from Dan's web site at: http://civictourism.org/

Susquehanna Greenway Symposium

Hi folks,
In Lewisburg PA this week working on our Greenway Interpretive Plan implementation (driving tour, interpretive panels, and more), and participated today (Thursday) in the Susquehanna Greenway Symposium, giving an update on our interprtive planning media and services development. Back to Michigan tomorrow and I have a week of writing on several projects before leaving for Korea again at the end of the month.
Just a quick pic of one of the greenway river views. Most of the powerpoint presentations from the symposium will be posted at the Greenway web site: http://www.susquehannagreenway.org. More next week.

The Redwood Forest

Today, Friday, was our last day visiting the many different Open Space District preserves. The redwood forests here were wonderful, and lots of spring wildflowers coming out (still 4' of snow on the edges of my driveway in Michigan!). Here are a few pics of todays sites, including the Banana Slug (about 6 inches long), Trillium and a general view of the area the trails go through. I will be spending next week in the office writing up the interpretive systems plan draft for this project.

More Open Space Preserves

Another day out in the field looking at the special stories and experiences the preserves offer. The California Newts were breeding and we saw lots of them, heard Coyotes howling and crossing a road and visited the Open Space Nature Center. Here are some of todays pics.

Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District

Hi folks,

This week I am working with the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, located south of San Francisco, California. We are working on the Interpretive Systems Plan for the District, incorporating about 18 different preserves. It is "spring" here in California, a big change compared to last weeks work in chilly Korea. Today is Monday, and we have 4 more days of site visits and analysis to go. Here are a few pictures from some of todays visits. You can visit the Open Space District web site at: http://www.openspace.org.

Korea Trip and JV book may be published in Italy!

Hi folks. I have been contacted by Marta Brunelli PhD, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione e della Formazione Università degli Studi di Macerata, in Italy about publishing my text book "Interpretive Master Planning" in Italian! As you may know, the book was just published in Chinese last year. Besides being a real honor, it is nice to know that our successful interpretive planning strategies are being used in other countries and by other interpreters. I will keep you posted as this project moves along. Getting ready for my Korea trip on Saturday. We will be looking at interpretive planning for outdoor exhibits and demonstrations for the Mountain Sanctuary and Climate Change Center project. The photo is of a planning review at the Mountain Sanctuary site last month reviewing the draft development plans.

Korea and California

Hi folks,

Enjoying a quiet day off (Presidents day). On Saturday I head back to Korea for a week to work on the planning for the Mountain Sanctuary and Climate Change Center, then home for a day and off to CA. JVA was awarded a contract to develop a Interpretive Systems Plan for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District's . Details are available at my web site: http://www.heritageinterp.com. More from Korea later.

Bangor Historical Society Plans New Museum

Just back from working with a team from Architecture + Design to conduct an interpretive planning focus workshop for the Bangor Historical Society in Bangor Michigan. They are great folks who want an innovative approch to celebrating the history of their city and community. This will include a new museum building and includes a "the city as the museum" program that will locate interpretive panels located in the downtown area interpreting historic buildings, and developing a variety of interpretive walking tours. To learn more about the historical society you can visit their web site at:http://www.bangormihistory.com/

Back from Alabama - New Project Comes In!

Back from Alabama with our Army Corps of Engineers training course. The photo shows the class going on their tour of the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge where they were going to do some exercises in Interpretive Trail Planning and Interpretive Panel Planning. While there I learned we were awarded the contract to develop the Interpretive Systems Plan for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, Los Altos, CA. The open space district has about 25 preserves in its system. We will start work on that project in a few weeks.

Heading Home - then Alabama

At the Heathrow Airport in London getting ready to head home - for a day - then off to Alabama to teach our 3-day Introduction to Interpretive Services course for the US Army Corps of Engineers. As noted in the last post, JVA was awarded the contract to develop the new advanced interpretation course for the COE as well. It has been cold and rain most of this past week - lets hope Alabama weather is warmer.

New Training Project

US Army Corps of Engineers - Advanced Interpretation Course for Project (Park) Managers. JVA was just awarded a contract to develop a new interpretive training course for Corps of Engineer Project Managers and management level staff. This course is now the next advanced level course from our introductory Interpretive Services Course we currently teach for the COE twice a year at the Huntsville, AL Tom Bevill Training Center. The first course will be offered in June, 2010 the week after our introductury course at the Huntsville location. The contract calls for developing a new 4-day training lesson plan, course manual, schedule of instruction, course resource CD, new powerpoint presentations and related field trip logistics for on-site learning experiences in interpretive planning. The photo shows one of our COE courses which includes lots of hands-on activities, like planning interpretive panels.

The Great Fen

This week I am in England doing interpretive training for the staff of The Great Fen/Wildlife Trust. The photos show some of the scenes of this 17 square mile site. Mostly peat farmland (I have never seen such black soil), the plan is for restoration of the area into a Fen habitat, with new interpretive center, trails, interpretive and environmental education programs and more. Quite a bit different from the Mountain Sanctuary we were working on in Korea last week.

Chilly Korea

Made it to Korea and we are starting work on the new site. We are starting to call it a Mountain Ecological Sanctuary and Climate Change Discovery Center. The site itself is huge - but the visitor area is about 200 acres. They are expecing to attract about 700,000 visitors a year! We hope to have the interpretive plan done by April. In the meantime, it is really cold here, but the site is beautiful. A few pics of the Mountain Ecological Sanctuary.