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.