Living Planet Centre Update

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1 NEWSLETTER MARCH 2014 On Monday 14 October 2013, we moved into our new home. It s lived up to and even exceeded our aspirations for both staff and visitors alike. Open to the public We officially opened our doors to the general public on Saturday 25 January 2014, when we welcomed over 500 people to our new building. Since then, we ve had numerous visitors through the doors (an average of 50 people each day). In the recent February half term week we had over 1,500 a number way beyond our expectations and a clear sign that we re becoming a visitor attraction of interest. Our visitors have been diverse, from families with children, to groups of students, to more mature visitors many of whom have been keen to come back with their grandchildren. There have been many questions about the eco aspects of the building, from the type of wood used in the WWF Experience, to what sort of solar panels are on the roof. One visitor even said that this is how she had imagined and dreamed buildings of our high eco spec to be. Visiting children are given a treasure hunt style quiz that guides them around the visitor experience. When complete, they receive a cuddly toy key ring as a souvenir of their visit. We ve also welcomed a lovely group of children with learning difficulties, who spent about an hour looking around and doing the treasure hunt. They particularly loved the interactive ipads. Some visitors have been surprised that the whole building isn t open to the public, and we ve had a few queries about where the toilets and café are, but on the whole the feedback has been excellent. A sample of comments from our visitors book: 1

2 A wonderful, uplifting, inspiring, informative experience. What a bonus for Woking. I shall love to bring my family and friends here. Thank you. What a surprise a beautiful building! A wonderful, awesome place to visit. Most inspiring. Thanks. Walking the talk Sustainability is central to WWF and our mission, especially when it highlights issues like climate change, natural resource use and our impact on the natural world. At the LPC we re able to showcase sustainability in a number of ways and since moving in can positively report on the following: We ve seen a real shift in how staff travel to work, mainly due to our close proximity to Woking train station. In our previous office, Panda House in Godalming, 63% of us drove, and only 21% took the train. Since we ve moved, 56% are now on the train and only 1 in 4 of us drive. We ll continue monitoring our travel to work together with the University of Bath who study travel behaviour. At the end of January we received confirmation that we d achieved FSC Project Chain of Custody Certification for the timber used in the construction of the Living Planet Centre. Another source of pride is that none of our waste is going to landfill we re largely composting and recycling. Any additional waste is incinerated to generate electricity and/or heat. Promoting the Living Planet Centre We re actively trying to attract our local community to the building, developing relationships with schools, community groups and the general public. In the recent February half term we offered two mornings of family craft workshops as part of our promotion leading up to Earth Hour. We used free, local promotion such as local press, community groups and websites like SurreyMummy.com. This worked well and almost all sessions were fully booked. We re planning to combine this PR approach with some paid activity and have recently taken a listing in the Visit Surrey guide which will go live online soon. Much of this activity will drive visitors to our website, which is soon to be refreshed with new content. This gives us the flexibility to adapt the offer as we progress, developing a tour programme, more family activities and in the future, additional events. To date we ve hosted tour groups from a range of local community groups, colleges and people from the building industry. A formalised tour offer will be introduced soon, offering public tours every Friday. 2

3 Interest in the commercial hire of the LPC has been high, both from the local community and our corporate partners. To date no active promotion of this has been put in place as we re unable to manage such bookings at the current time. Schools & youth engagement Current workshops at the LPC We re offering a unique, engaging and inspiring experience for primary schools and youth groups. Our workshops draw from the work we do to encourage interest in the natural world and inspire young people to become actively involved in caring for the environment and building a sustainable future. Tropical chocolate is a two hour workshop giving children the opportunity to discover how rainforests link to their own lives by exploring products that come from the rainforest. They make their own chocolate truffles and have fun designing and making their own environmentally-friendly packaging. Earth Hour is a two hour workshop linked to our annual global campaign. This encourages pupils to reflect on our amazing planet and shine a light on the things they love and want to protect. For example, the pupils from one primary school wrote environmental wishes on stars and created animal star constellations, as well as putting on a talent show. It was a huge success, enlightening the children on how they can do their bit for the environment and get involved in the global Earth Hour event. Future plans for more workshops We plan to add more workshops to our offering. These include: Why is the rainforest so popular? A two hour workshop where children will work with our experts and award winning author, Christiane Dorion, to create their own e-book on the importance of the rainforest. The best e-books will be published on our website. Meet the Green Ambassadors! A two hour workshop where pupils create their own version of our visitors guide for the new building and explain why they think it s special. A walk on the wild side will be a trail of discovery providing information about the area/plants/features around the Living Planet Centre. Children will find out about the infinite possibilities for improving biodiversity from shrubs and hedges to native flowers, the wetland and bird boxes. Young reporters will be a two hour workshop in which pupils participate in creative writing and filming sessions using the latest Green Screen technology to produce their own news report on the Amazon rainforest. 3

4 WWF teachers panel We very much want to be part of the Woking community and ensure that any school visitors have a rewarding experience that enriches and supports the work happening within the school. We greatly value help in trialling resources and having a sounding board for new ideas and projects. To help develop our school workshops we have teachers from sixteen schools in and around Woking on our Living Planet Centre teachers panel. The first meeting took place on 30 January at the LPC and the group will continue to meet once a term. Twilight event with Woking schools In November 2013 we hosted twilight events with local schools and youth leaders. Over 20 schools and 40 youth leaders attended. The purpose was to share information about WWF s national work with schools and youth groups and to provide details of workshops and activities available at the LPC. It also provided an opportunity for people to meet the schools and youth team. We re working across the local community to develop a programme of events that engages the public. We ll be working with The Lightbox to host a concert by Trinity College Cambridge choir in July, plus with the local Rotary Club to host a fundraising lecture in September with WWF Fellow and guest speaker Terry Waite. These events will aim to bring new people to the LPC and to the work of WWF through audience engagement at these events. Promoting biodiversity The Living Planet Centre provides an excellent environment to attract biodiversity and a group of staff experts has formed to come up with a management plan. Once spring is in full swing and our planting has become more established, we re hoping that mammals and invertebrates will be attracted to the site, the trees surrounding the building and the wildlife pond adjacent to the canal. We already have three bat boxes in place, as there are bats in the area. We ll also be putting up bug and bird boxes around the site to attract a range of creatures. These include a swift box on the roof, as well as a variety of boxes on the surrounding trees. These will be in place soon. Many birds have already been spotted on site, from kingfishers to peregrine falcons, pied wagtails and even a red kite. Our bird feeders are also used frequently by a number of birds including great tits. 4

5 THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT FOR MORE INFORMATION Please feel free to contact Planting on site is mostly in keeping with the native species found around Woking, and is at a variety of heights and thicknesses to entice bugs and birds. The bamboo at the back of the building provides a shelter and a screen to hide birds and the glass of the building (so birds won t fly into it). In addition to the wildlife pond, which will be used for ponddipping by schools in the summer months, we re attracting wildlife in less obvious ways. The roofs of the two bike sheds and bin store are green roofs made of sedum matt. This attracts biodiversity and reduces rainwater run-off. New ways of working Sarah Brunwin, Capital Appeal Director, Why we are here To stop the degradation of the planet s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. wwf.org.uk WWF-UK charity registered in England and Wales number and in Scotland number SC039593, a company limited by guarantee registered in England number Panda symbol and WWF Registered Trademark of WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund). We were determined to use the opportunity of the new building and its design to change the way we worked, but did have some genuine concerns before we moved in - could we make the transition from a cluttered Panda House with owned desks and unlimited storage to one where staff were expected to clear desks each day and store their files in 2 linear metres of storage and everything else in a 400 x 400m locker? We re delighted to report that, so far, the answer is a definite yes and staff have really taken to the new space and new ways of working. We also felt it was a significant achievement, in the de-clutter that took place before the move, that we reduced our storage by 57% and either shredded or recycled 6.9 tonnes of paper. As is often the case in these situations, we wondered why we hadn t done it before! 5 LIVING PLANET CENTRE UPDATE MARCH 2014 WWF.ORG.UK