Compelling stories gain momentum

The SCT Cultural Heritage project is gaining serious momentum as some of the regions most compelling heritage stories are being rolled out for visitors in the coming months.

The latest phase of the project will see development of physical and digital material to engage visitors in our unique stories and push them to other parts of the shire and to stay longer.
In particular the story of Old Tom and The Killers Of Eden will be featured as the backdrop to our incredible whaling and pioneering history.
Other stories include the Geo-features of the area and the current and historic contributions of our unique marine environment.
The heritage strategy directly tackles our over-reliance on short peak-season beach recreation and strengthen's our position in a high yield, low volume - all-season market utilising our rich heritage assets.
According to Tourism Australia research, domestic visitors looking for unique heritage experiences will be the only growth area in domestic tourism to 2020.

Bermagui Workshop

We had a great workshop in Bermagui last Thursday evening.(11.10.12) A big thankyou to everyone who braved the rain, the winds and the sudden return to winter to participate in the first of our community / stakeholder consultations.

The workshop generated a great amount of material and ideas. We will be processing this over the next few days and preparing for the next workshop this Thursday at 4.30 at Bega in the Council Chambers.

Some of the questions raised in the meeting about Signage in the Shire are answered in the Shire’s Tourism and Facility Signage Plan December 2010. This document is 24 pages however about half of it illustrations and it is a very easy read.  Along with the other background reading it can be downloaded from http://www.sapphirecoast.com.au/heritagetourismproject.php

Norway Inspiration

http://www.nasjonaleturistveger.no/eKatalog/Nasjonale_turistveger2010.html#/1/zoomed

Here a is a document that my colleague Anthony Osborne picked up at the recent National Landscapes Gathering in Western Australia a week or so ago. The projects are based in Norway and while a national project demonstrate thinking outside the box , the role of good design and the relationship of landscape in building the experience. Enjoy.

http://www.nasjonaleturistveger.no/eKatalog/Nasjonale_turistveger2010.html#/1/zoomed

Dates & Places for Workshops Set

The dates and locations for the community and stakeholder consultations workshops to develop the design briefs for the strategy have now been set. They are

October:

11th - Bermagui 4.30 - 6.30pm - Bermagui Country Club

18th - Bega 4.30 - 6.30pm - Council Chamber

25th - Bemboka 4.30 - 6.30pm - Memorial Hall

November:

8th - Merimbula - 4.30 - 6.30pm Club Sapphire

15th - Eden - 4.30 - 6.30pm -  Fisherman's Club Changed to the Eden Country Club

Please pass this information on and let people know they need to register for the workshops so that we have an idea of numbers - for further information and registration email: stories@sapphirecoast.com.au

Workshop Readings

For your convenience the reference documents are now available to download from  Sapphire Coast Tourism's Web site
http://www.sapphirecoast.com.au/heritagetourismproject.php
To save you some time we have pointed out the relevant parts of particular interest for the project and some highlights.

a.     The Sapphire Coast  Heritage Strategy

The aim of the Sapphire Coast Heritage Tourism Strategy is to identify key heritage tourism stories that will inspire the “Experience Seeker” market to visit the region, extend their length of stay and increase spending in the local economy;

The deliverables of this are:

·      A strategy that delivers heritage tourism and leverages the Australia’s Coastal Wilderness brand in order to encourage additional visitors to the destination;

·      Identification of key heritage tourism experiences that align with the needs of the “Experience Seekers” target market to extend visitor’s length of stay and dispersal across the region;

·      A suite of strategies to effectively deliver, develop, market and manage key experiences that are distinctive for the Sapphire Coast and create a competitive edge for the destination.

b.     The BVSC Draft Development Control Plan 2012

     

      The draft of this document went on Public Display in September 2012 and, together with the LEP, forms the land use planning and development controls for the Bega Valley Shire local government area.

This plan seeks to ensure that future development is consistent with the desired future character and community vision for the Bega Valley Shire’s towns, villages, urban settlements and rural areas.

        The document is comprehensive and of particular interest to the Heritage Strategy are:

section 2

section 3.1  Residential Locality Objectives

section 4.1  Rural Development Objectives

section 5.9  Signage and Advertising

section 5.9.4  Applications for signage page 162 an info graphic on signage applications

section 7  site specific requirements in particular 

section 7.3.4.3  colours

c.  The BVSC Adopted Tourism Signage Plan

The Tourism and Facility Signage Plan is an element of the Tourism Options Review completed by Bega Valley Shire Council in 2010. Its final conclusion was the rationalisation of existing uninformative, confusing and outdated signage and replacement with consistently coloured, coded and branded signage, which will ease the visual pollution and traffic confusion in the Shire.

        The info graphic mentioned in section 5.9.4, page 162 above, gives a straightforward overview of the regulatory expectations regarding signage. Reading C concurrently with B – 5.9.4 - helps clarify what could be seen as a quagmire.

        We are particularly interested in

3. Town Signage/Information Bay (page11)

6. Town exit signage/information Bay (page 17)

3. Brand, information and Icons (page 18) (sic)

     

d.      The Brand Toolkit, Australia’s Coastal Wilderness

      This relatively short, well designed and thoughtful document is what should be driving this project. What is our competitive advantage?

Find the uniqueness – your Destination Positioning

The first step involved locals distilling what Australia’s Coastal Wilderness has that isn’t found anywhere else in the world.

Destination Positioning workshops were held throughout the Landscape.

The goal was to discover and document the core positioning that distinguishes Australia’s Coastal Wilderness from other Landscapes throughout Australia.

This agreed Destination Positioning is not about an advertising campaign, a new logo or even a tag line. Positioning is the engine that drives the way you offer and deliver your product now and for decades to come. It permeates all experiences, creative approaches, communication and marketing.

It’s what differentiates you. It’s your competitive advantage.

This is the unique voice of Australia’s Coastal Wilderness. Positioning underpins the words and images we use to sell our Landscape to the world. The more consistently we all use those words and images, the stronger our message.

e.     Australia’s Coastal Wilderness Experiences Development Strategy

This is a comprehensive document and everyone should read it.

Australia’s Coastal Wilderness Positioning Statement

“This hidden pocket of Australia’s endless coastline is where you can get close and share your love of nature.  Immerse yourself in the natural beauty of tall forests, lakes and beaches in this unspoilt coastal wilderness”

Looking at Australia’s Coastal Wilderness through the three Tourism Australia lenses (below) it is clear that the destination builds on Australia’s ‘pillars’ of people, environment and lifestyle. It appeals to the core Australian holiday ‘motivations’ for self-fulfilment, relationships, health, freedom and provides a range of settings to deliver many of the core ‘experiences’, especially beaches, nature and Indigenous.

There is no place in Australia that can deliver this experience like Australia’s Coastal Wilderness. The natural beauty and its unique mix of isolation and sensitive development with its relative proximity to the major population centres make it truly unique.

Stories and Signage

It is hard to believe that it is over three months since our last post. A lot has been happening behind the scenes.

1.     The Stories  - our editorial team has been mining the rich material from our research team and developing them into accessible stories. The first two of these

Geoheritage Journeys http://www.sapphirecoast.com.au/geojourney.php an

Marine Journeys http://www.sapphirecoast.com.au/MarineJourneys.php

Are now available as downloads from Sapphire Coast Tourism web site. http://www.sapphirecoast.com.au under things to do.  We are thrilled with the depth of information and feel sure it will appeal to not only our visitors but also as a wonderful resources for locals.

Work will continue on packaging the other stories over the next few months. Feel free to pass this information on to others. Concurrently:

2.     The next stage of the project is to work with the Bega Valley Shire Council in facilitating the development of a design template for a shire wide uniformed approach to signage while at the same time acknowledging the specifics of what makes each local special.

2.1       The Cultural Heritage Working Group’s specific focus is the Shires entrance ways /information bays at Bermagui, Bemboka and Eden and the major centres of Bega and Merimbula. To do so however we need to come up with some underlying core ideas as a start for a uniform approach and then the individual details for each town and village.

This is a great opportunity to consolidate and rationalise the Shire’s approach to design while at the same time taking into account the specific identity, values and expectations of each community as well as meeting State and regulatory agencies specific requirements

2.2       We will be organising five  community workshops in October and November     starting in Bermagui then followed by Bega, Bemboka, Merimbula and Eden. to develop design briefs for branding, town signage and information bays.

In the workshops we will be looking at icons, style and colour and most importantly what
represents the town visually and defines its “personality” and attributes.

2.3      These workshops will be informed by the following resources.

a.     The Cultural Heritage Strategy downloadable from the site

b.     The BVSC Draft Development Control Plan 2012
c.  The BVSC Adopted Tourism Signage Plan

d.      The Brand Toolkit Australia’s Coastal Wilderness

e.     Australia’s Coastal Wilderness Experiences Development Strategy

It is really important that anyone attending the workshops is familiar with this material.

Stay tuned. 

Comprehensive and Rich Material

You will be pleased to hear that we now have the drafts from our five research/authors and the material is  comprehensive and rich. It has been a privilege to read it all and it is wonderful raw material for the next stages of the project.

I would like to say a big thank you to the writers and the reference groups from each area for their feedback.

Over the last few months I have been asked by many people what this particular part of the project is about and simply put - imagine it like this:

Imagine you visit a“place” either made by humans or by nature. You can appreciate it for itself and your appreciation is based on your own knowledge. Your own  knowledge is gained for example through experience, education, training, level of initiation, level of imagination or belief.  Every individual has their own lens through which they see things and the depth of seeing or understanding determines their interpretation reflected in the stories they tell about it.

Your stories are what informs us about what you are seeing or have seen.

Now imagine that you are visiting a place with someone else who has a different way of seeing. They know the landscape with a completely different set of “knowings” and as a result guide and enrich your knowledge and experience by the stories they tell. It could be a geologist, an experienced bush walker, an artist, a marine biologist, a conservations or a developer, dreamer, magician or a con man.

The material we have researched and developed in this part of the project can be seen as different layers of knowledge or ways of seeing aspects of the Sapphire Coast as part of Australia’s Coastal Wilderness. That is the layers of stories that weave their way through and underpin the landscape of our key heritage stories - The Meeting of the Waters, In the Shadow of the Mountains, The Killers of Eden, The Bundian Way and Naturally Inspired 

The next step in this process is to develop and identify the tools and techniques to make this information accessible to our visitors and stimulate them to explore more

Editorial Position

The Sapphire Coast Cultural Heritage project is calling for expressions of interest for an experienced editor to edit our iconic stories that are currently being written by experts in each field. This contract position requires a creative and audience focussed approach to suit the tourism market. See below for the target market brief and outline of each story.

Brand Australia experience seeker target market.

These people:

> are experienced international travellers.

> seek out and enjoy authentic personal experiences they can talk about.

> involve themselves in holiday activities, are sociable and enjoy engaging with the locals.

> are active in their pursuits and come away having learnt something.

> are somewhat adventurous and enjoy a variety of experiences on any single trip.

> place high importance on value and hence critically balance benefits with costs.

> place high value on contrasting experiences (i.e. different from their day-to-day lives).

These people typically:

> come from households that have higher than average household income.

> are tertiary educated.

> are open-minded and have an interest in world affairs.

> are selective about their media consumption.

> are opinion leaders within their peer and social groups.

> are not characterised by nationality, preferred holiday style/mode or age.

Our Stories:

Marine Heritage

Cetaceans of the Coastal Wilderness.

Marine Richness – mixing the currents

Historic Heritage

Old Tom and the History of Whaling

Life in the 19^th Century

Geoheritage

The Geology and Landscapes of the Three Mountains

Gondwana Splits – the Geomorphology of the south east coast

Indigenous Heritage

Bundian Way – the ancient highway

Balawan, Mumbula and Gulaga, the Sacred Mountains

Cultural Heritage

Nature, Inspiration and Art

Music and the Coastal Wilderness

Please send your expression of interest and a current CV by April 16th to: stories@sapphirecoast.com.au

Meet Our Authors!

March has been a busy time behind the scenes and we have now contracted our writing team for our iconic stories!

This is an exciting phase of the project that will see all the hard work and research become our first "product" that is now developing from the intangible to the tangible. A big thank you to everyone who has made time to form our working briefs for each story.

We had a great response to the call for writers and are pleased to introduce the following fantastic people assigned to each story:

John Blay - Bundian Way

John has conducted 15 years of research and has written a book about the Bundian Way which is pegged to be published

this year. John also writes material for the Land Council, State Heritage Office, and the Management Committee. John brings extensive knowledge of this subject and we are thrilled that he is onboard to write for our project.

Toni Houston - Meeting of the Waters and Cetaceans of the Coastal Wilderness Heritage of the Sapphire Coast Region.

A professional writer across a broad spectrum of genres for over 20 years. This includes multiple credits in documentary and television, as well as publications and awards. Bringing a strong background in marine research and experience to our project Toni has specialised in marine and natural history subjects for many years. Toni also wrote and directed the film "AQUA".

Angela George - Life in the 19th Century and The Killers of Eden

In addition to a Bachelor of Arts (History/English), a Graduate Diploma of Applied Science (Museum Studies) and a Certificate in Non-Fiction Writing and Publishing, Angela has been involved in the heritage management and interpretation field locally for 20 years, including researching, writing and publishing on various topics.

Dr Anne Marshall - Naturally Inspired (Visual and Performing Arts)

Anne has had an extensive career as a practitioner, educator, facilitator, writer and researcher in theatre and music; visual arts and crafts; arts administration. Specialising in visual and performing arts: history, theory and practice, and comparative cultural studies. Anne was Chair of the South East Arts Region Board (SEAR) until 2008; Chair of the Far South Coast Community College until 2009 (remained on Board); and is on the Indigenous Arts Advisory Board at Bundanon, and a member of AIATSIS (Canberra) and the Indigenous Community Volunteers.

Dr Anne Felton, Geologist - In the Shadow of the Mountains (Gulaga/Dromedary, Mumbulla and Imlay)

The first female Honours Graduate from the ANU Department of Geology, Anne has researched and written a multitude of works for the ANU Geoscience Department, which is the highest rated discipline group in Australia and in the top ten of it's class in the world.

An active board member of the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, Anne leads large groups on her Beach Geology Tour on the shores of Twofold Bay. Anne is working with Bruce Leaver on our Geo-story.

Each 6000 word story will be due towards the end of May and then an overall editor will be assigned to the task of maintaining the continuity of tone across all stories. Watch this space....

Author Contracts

After much community consultation, our author briefs are ready to be assigned to contracted writers. We are now in the process of contracting the authors for each of our identified stories and aim to have them assigned to the identified stories within the next two weeks.

If you're a writer and would like to apply, read on...

Below is a reference to each of the identified stories:

The information will be pitched to align with the expectations of an educated, environmentally aware target market, matching the profile of the Brand Australia ‘experience seeker‘

This project will produce succinct (5000 word maximum), high quality and authentic information packages suitable for ready adaption for unlimited usage across signage, printed material, international/national media releases and downloadable packages on the Australia‘s Coastal Wilderness and Sapphire Coast Tourism websites.

The project is lumped into 5 themes, each of which will addressed by an author under the oversight of a community reference group convened by the Heritage Committee:

Marine Heritage

Cetaceans of the Coastal Wilderness.

Marine Richness – mixing the currents

Historic Heritage

Old Tom and the History of Whaling

Life in the 19^th Century

Geoheritage

The Geology and Landscapes of the Three Mountains

Gondwana Splits – the Geomorphology of the south east coast

Indigenous Heritage

Bundian Way – the ancient highway

Balawan, Mumbula and Gulaga, the Sacred Mountains

Cultural Heritage

Nature, Inspiration and Art

Music and the Coastal Wilderness

The authors will undertake research based on the available literature and, where relevant, through consultation with experts and the community holders of information related to the iconic stories in the Heritage Strategy.

If you are interested in writing for this exciting project please email your expression of interest with an outline of your experience and list of published work to: stories@sapphirecoast.com.au
Also, mention which particular story you are most interested in and why.

You can also download our strategy document that is available on this blog.

* We will also be engaging the services of an editor to oversee each story to present the whole project package with clarity and continuity to the target audience.

Arts Group Story Telling Time

Our Cultural Heritage Arts brief is now in circulation amongst the community!

We invite local arts people, visual, performance, film-makers, authors and poets to participate in building this brief that will be given to a contracted author.

Your stories could obviously be history based as outlined but in particular the story you have as an artist living in the region is vital in illustrating the regional arts.

Just a few questions that can shape the type of stories we are looking for:

Why/when did you come to live in the region?

What creative inspiration from the surrounding wilderness influences your work?

How much of the natural environment is reflected in your work?

Where do you exhibit/perform?

Have other local artists inspired your work?

How has living in the region changed you as an artist?

What emotion does the natural surroundings evoke in you?

Are you part of an arts organisation and how long has it been operating?

What sets this region apart from other places that you have worked?

We appreciate you are all busy, but if you could send us your stories/comments over the next week, we can then start the busy task of collating the information to finalise our authors brief. You can email to Andrew Gray: agray@sear.org.au.

We look forward to hearing your stories - the more the merrier!

Festivals and Events: Naturally Inspired

At the first SCT Board meeting for 2012 this week the importance of Local Festivals and Events throughout the Shire was discussed including:  The Bermagui Seaside Fair,  The Cobargo Folk Festival, Sculpture on the Edge, Four Winds Music  Festival, the Merimbula Jazz Festival,  Candelo Village Festival, The Eden Whale Festival were mentioned as well as a number of sporting/ extreme events including the George Bass Surfboat Marathon, The Merimbula Classic, The Tathra Wharf to Waves Swim as well as discussion of a number of other potential  significant events.

It was recognized that all these festivals and events already attract visitors as participants and audiences, most of them are run by dedicated volunteers and nearly all of the festivals and events have the potential for growth.  If you are involved with the organization of a festival or event in the region here are ten questions we would like your input on:

1.     What is the name of your festival or event?

2.     What distinguishes your festival and event from any other festival or event on the eastern sea board ?  

3.     Why do people come ?

4.     Where do they come from and how do they get here ?

5.     How would you like to see your festival grow or developed?

6.     What resources are you aware of in the shire that are available to help you ?

7.     What resources would you like to see developed in the shire to help you?

8.     How can you help ?

9.     What is the economic impact of your festival or event on the local community ?

10. What role do you see for Sapphire Coast Tourism?

Story Briefs taking shape

This week our working group has been moving full steam ahead with the foundation "Story Brief" taking shape for most of our identified stories. Meeting of the Waters and Shadow of the Mountains are well underway with input from the marine, historical and geology members of the group who have actively sought like minded people to contribute to the story.

Well done everyone who has made time for this project over the Christmas break - what a great start to 2012!