Capability Brown Festival 2016: update for stakeholders June 2016 Portrait of Lancelot Capability Brown, c.1770-75, Richard Cosway (1742-1821)/Private Collection/Bridgeman Images. 1
The Festival team Lindsay McPherson, our Festival administrator, has left the team. We re pleased to welcome Catherine Hempenstall (left), who has joined us on a temporary basis. Catherine is the first point of contact for all general festival queries, and will be replying to emails sent to the info@capabilitybrown.org address, which remains the first point of contact for any general queries. You can also speak to Catherine on 0207 6852665. The other members of the team remain the same, and are: Ceryl Evans Festival Director Ceryl.Evans@CapabilityBrown.org 0207 6852661 Melissa Tettey Deputy Director Audience Development and Volunteer Programme Melissa.Tettey@CapabilityBrown.org 0207 6852663 Laura Smith Research, Publications and Communications Officer Laura.Smith@CapabilityBrown.org 0207 6852660 2
Our key sites We are working with 36 hub, urban and ambassador sites across England, and they are busy promoting the Capability Brown aspects of their landscapes. For a full list of the sites we are working with, please see the Festival website. We are also supporting 23 audience development projects across England and Wales. These projects are giving sites and connected organisations the chance to trial new and innovative ways of getting different kinds of audiences to visit heritage landscapes. They re also testing different ways of interpreting the landscapes for these visitors once they arrive. Details of all the audience development projects we re supporting can also be found online. 3
Festival film available to view and download The new five-minute film about Capability Brown and his work is now available on YouTube. The animation, They call me Capability Brown, was commissioned by the Festival and created by production company Cosmic Carrot. It is intended to act as a light-hearted introduction to Brown and his work, and features a host of contributors from the National Trust, English Heritage, the Historic Houses Association and The Gardens Trust, among others. Thank you to everyone who took part. The film is available for use free of charge by sites and other organisations, and can be downloaded from Dropbox. 4
Owners manual and education toolkit now live The owners manual and education toolkit produced for the Festival are now available to download. A Manual for Owners: Opening Your Garden or Landscape to the Public has been produced by Tricolor on behalf of the Festival. It aims to provide support and guidance to sites both large and small, private, public and commercial in opening to the public and creating a positive visitor experience. It is intended for use by sites of all scales with varying levels of experience opening to the public. The main manual covers the basics of opening a site, and also looks at the key elements of creating a positive visitor experience. Also available are a series of five appendices that offer a more in-depth look at topics such as interpretation, working with volunteers and PR and marketing. The education toolkit, produced by Neil Dymond-Green, is predominantly aimed at children aged between seven-11, but also includes ideas and information about working with families. Again, it is for sites and organisations ranging from those with absolutely no experience of working with schools or families, through to those with lots of experience who may be looking for new ideas for activities. It can be downloaded as a complete resource, or in sections. Both resources can be downloaded from the Festival website. 5
Coming soon: redesign of Festival website We re just in the process of redesigning sections of the Festival website, following feedback from users. The new pages will be live shortly. Some of the most significant changes will be to our events section. You told us it was difficult to find events, so we re completely changing the layout of the page so it displays in calendar view. The search function will also be improved as part of the redesign, making it easier for users to find events near them. We ve currently got more than 250 events listed on the site - when the new pages go live you ll also be able to load up additional ones without emailing us (although we will have to approve the listing before it goes live). As part of the redesign, we re also making changes to our interactive map, making it easier to tell which sites are open to the public, and creating an area where we can publish additional information about each site. 6
Coming soon: sustainable transport toolkit The Festival has commissioned Phil Jones Associates with Transport Initiatives to develop a sustainable travel toolkit. This document is intended to be an easy-to-use reference guide for Capability Brown site managers, helping them to realise the potential for green travel to their sites. We hope it will enable sites to assess the greener travel options that are available now and the next steps to advertise, exploit and improve these. In doing so, sites should be better able to protect the environment, manage visitor access and make sites more accessible for non-car users and visitors keen to do their bit in support of conservation issues. Cycling clubs are increasingly popular and are great customers of county estates, particularly if there is a welcoming café. The sustainable transport advisers are working with a number of selected Brown sites to develop the toolkit, including practical sitebased case studies. It will be available in the summer. 7
Sustainable transport skills-sharing session The Festival is running a skills sharing seminar led by the Sustainable Transport Advisers at Burton Constable (pictured below left) in Yorkshire on 13 June. The event will introduce you to this increasingly relevant topic and step you through the Sustainable Transport Toolkit. You will leave with a host of practical new tools and ideas for you to implement at your site. Date: Monday 13 June Time: 10:30am for an 11:00am start Place: Carriage House at Burton Constable Hall, Skirlaugh, nr. Hull, East Yorkshire, HU11 4LN For all enquiries and to reserve your place please contact info@capabilitybrown.org or call Catherine on 020 76852665. 8
Take part in a Capabili-Tea We re asking sites and organisations to take part in the Capability Brown Festival 2016 by organising a Capabili-Tea, especially in August (Brown s birthday month). Working with Hudson s Historic Houses and Gardens 2016, the Capability Brown Festival team has made a number of authentic 18 th Century recipes available for anyone wanting to organise a Capabili- Tea. The recipes are all available to download from the Festival website. If you want to organise a Capabili-Tea, but can t use the 18 th Century recipes, don t worry! You re more than welcome to take part by using the Capabili-Tea name (and branding if you need it) for the event you re putting on. Let us know you re holding a Capabili-Tea by emailing Laura, and share your Capabili-Teas stories by following us on Twitter @BrownCapability and using the hashtag #CapabiliTea. 9
Media coverage: from Al Jazeera to the Daily Star The Festival and Capability Brown sites continue to be featured in a host of national and international press, with more than 600 mentions so far! One of the big highlights over the last couple of months was a report from Al Jazeera s Jessica Baldwin about Brown s global influence. This weekend, a host of Brown sites were featured in the Sunday Mirror while BBC Countryfile Magazine provided a more in-depth feature. There were also articles in Women s Weekly; the Daily Express; the Telegraph and The Independent among others. Regional coverage has also continued strongly with articles stretching from Yorkshire to Dorset. And, if all that were not enough, The Festival also made the pages of the Daily Star, featuring alongside bloomin babe magnet Alan Titchmarsh. 10
Festival channels continue to grow Our communications channels are continuing to grow get in touch so we can publicise your sites and events. Twitter/Facebook Our Twitter account is @browncapability. We ve currently got more than 2,900 followers our numbers have almost doubled since last summer. If you haven t done so, please do follow us, and use the hashtag #CapabilityBrown when posting. We can be found on Facebook under Capability Brown Festival 2016, and are always happy to share content. Newsletter Our newsletter goes out by email, featuring news from the Festival and our partners, as well as showcasing new Brown-related research. We ve got more than 2,200 subscribers. Have you got something you d like to feature in the newsletter? Email Laura.Smith@CapabilityBrown.org. If you haven t done so already, please sign up to our newsletter by filling out our contact form and ticking the box at the bottom of the page. 11
Our Board and partners We are governed by a project management board. Its members are: Gilly Drummond OBE Chairman, Capability Brown Festival 2016 Paul Lincoln Deputy Chief Executive, Landscape Institute Leslie Pearman Senior Adviser, Heritage Estates, Natural England Dr Ingrid Samuel Historic Environment Director, National Trust Gail Caig Capability Brown coordinator, Historic Houses Association Ceryl Evans Director, Capability Brown Festival 2016 Philip Mulligan Chief Executive, Landscape Institute Phyllis Starkey Trustee, Landscape Institute Jenifer White Senior Landscape Adviser, Historic England Emma Robinson Director of Policy & Campaigns, Historic Houses Association We re funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and managed by the Landscape Institute. Our partners are: 12