First Team Meeting

Thank you to all of you for replying so promptly with availability for the Greece Exchange Meeting. Due to diary constraints the best date for the meeting is 09/03/06 at 2.00pm, the meeting will be held at RRC and it will last approximately an hour and a half.

Setting a date that suits everyone is impossible so we will have to ask people to make sacrifices to attend if necessary.The issues for the meeting will be fundamental ones like;

What exactly is the exchange about?
Who are our partners?
What do each of us have to do?
What does each of us want to get out of the exchange?

We will bottom and finalise these issues and others at this meeting. I will confirm the flights and the accommodation after this meeting as time is of the essence. So we all need to be there if possible.

Is the date of the exchange set in stone?

Sarah Caley has difficulties with the end date of the exchange. I explained to her that I entered a seven day long exchange date for bureaucratic purposes, but it may be possible to shorten this. Also the initial meeting that we will hold will discuss the date, duration and the content.

Introduction

The team of participants that has been selected for the Greek STEEP exchange (targeted for April 24-May 1) is as follows;

James Rebanks, RRC
Phil Gray, East Cumbria Countryside Project and Wild Cumbria project
Sarah Caley, Tourism and Conservation Partnership
Mark Atherton, NWDA
Keri Smith, CTB
Jan Darrell, Friends of the Lake District
Dave Kennedy, Wealth of Wildlife Project/Cumbria Wildlife Trust

For the Greek trip the timescale is quite tight for the preparation and organisation. Given the this timescale we need to meet asap to discuss the exchange and what we want to get out of it, and also to set ourselves some preparation work so that we hit the ground running. At this meeting I will make it clear exactly what we are trying to do and what the funding makes possible, and also what each of us can do to make this a success both for our own benefit and for our host’s benefit as well.

My colleague Kelly Allison will try and coordinate a meeting time in the first few days of March (official start date for the project is March 1) that enables as many of us as possible to meet.