Work

• SOLWAY WETLANDS PARTNERSHIP

  January 2012 | Filed under: Funding Applications, Marketing & Promotion

  Our Learning, Access and Community Engagement Plan for the Solway Wetlands Partnership supported a stage II Landscape Partnership Scheme application.  The south Solway has most of England’s surviving raised bog habitat, extensive coastal marshes and a rich associated cultural heritage.  Our work involved identifying physical access improvements to the wetlands, and working with a variety of stakeholders and community groups to develop a programme of engagement activities.

  

  Boardwalk on Bowness Common

• BUSINESS MONITOR RESEARCH

  January 2012 | Filed under: Research & Evaluation

  To inform preparation of an ERDF grant application to support a programme of tourism sector support, we were appointed by Visit Hull and East Yorkshire and Scarborough Borough Council to research the support priorities of tourism businesses. Our work involved cleaning and developing the VHEY database, designing, distributing and analysing a questionnaire, reporting on priorities and establishing baseline data by business type and geographic area.

• The Sounds of the Breamish Valley iPhone App

  September 2011 | Filed under: Smartphone Apps

  

  In 2010, we recorded local people and Northumberland National Park staff talking about the Breamish Valley and produced 40 x 2-minute sound clips and loaded them onto 5, sustainable sound boxes that have been located at strategic points in the valley.

  Audio provides a un-intrusive means of delivering interpretation and can be delivered in a number of different ways. Focus group research showed that young adults, an audience under-represented amongst visitors to the National Park like to use apps. Will an app about a beautiful valley in the National Park encourage them to visit?  Will other audiences use it too?

  Commissioned by Northumberland National Park Authority, The Sounds of the Breamish Valley App uses the existing sound clips, supplemented by images relevant to each clip, to deliver the audio interpretation of the valley via iPhones (Android version in the pipeline).

  

  Promotion of this ‘pilot app’ will be monitored to obtain user feedback on the interpretation, using the app and on whether visitors are prepared to pay a small download fee, part of which will be paid into the ‘Good Nature Fund’, helping fund countryside management in the area.

  The Sounds of the Breamish Valley iPhone App is now available to download in the App Store.

• BREAMISH VALLEY SOUND TRAIL

  May 2011 | Filed under: Interpretation, News

  The Breamish Valley Sound Trail opened earlier this year. It consists of ‘sound boxes’ at five locations in the valley. These are powered by solar energy topped up by users winding a handle. Each box delivers eight messages which tell the story of the valley.

  Our work included preparing an interpretive plan with target markets, message themes and messages to be communicated at each location. We then interviewed local residents and National Park staff, editing the recordings to produce a series of concise audio messages for each of the sound boxes.

  

  A sound box at Ingram Bridge, in the Breamish Valley

  The trail was installed by the Northumberland National Park Authority and the Cheviot Futures project and includes messages on the impacts of climate change on the Uplands of Northumberland and measures being taken to address them

• RESERVA NATURAL AMAZON HELICONIA

  May 2011 | Filed under: Sales Representation

  Bowles Green Limited has been appointed by the Reserva Natural Amazon Heliconia as its sales representative. The reserve is one of the most remote in Brazil and lies on the Javari River on the borders of Colombia and Peru. A lodge and excursions operated by the reserve give visitors a chance to explore a little-visited and pristine part of the Amazon. Highlights are the reserves birds and the opportunity to see river dolphins. Initially we will be selling the lodge, excursion and guiding products to specialist tour operators in the UK