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World Heritage UK: Chair’s update

February 6, 2017 Published by Beth Thomas

Dear friends of World Heritage in the UK

Having successfully got past a dark and dismal January, I thought it a good moment to do a quick update.

Newsletter

Firstly, the Winter 2016 / 2017 World Heritage UK newsletter can be downloaded here. This is a growing publication and my thanks Chris for pulling it together.

Members of WH:UK automatically receive this when it is issued (so apologies to many of you for the cross posting), and have the opportunity to contribute appropriate stories and information… an excellent reason to join up if you haven’t done already.

Bath Technical meeting

March 8th is the date for this year’s technical workshop, with a focus this time on issues around planning and how it is approached in the UK in respect of World Heritage Sites.  We know that this is a huge subject, and we may only scratch the surface at this meeting, but we would like to use this to start to develop a Position Paper to put to Government around the issues that World Heritage Sites face.  Numbers are looking good, but there are still plenty of places so please book up here.  The event is very good value, especially so for members… (another excellent reason to join up).

World Heritage Day 2017

Those of us in the business know that World Heritage is woefully known and understood in the UK, even though many of our Sites are world famous and all are globally important.  World Heritage UK is committed to remedying this, and one simple thing we can all do to try to make more of World Heritage Day, April 18th, to raise profile of the Sites and the concept of World Heritage more generally.  In 2017, the theme is “Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Tourism”, chosen in relation to the United Nations International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development and in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. We are looking at a plan involving events, social media and the website, and will get back to you as we progress more, but if you have ideas about how we as a community can do this well, or want to help do it, please send them to Chris at chris.mahon@worldheritageuk.org.

Give as you live

As we are a charity, we need to raise funds to supplement our membership fees so that we can do more to support World Heritage Sites.  One way of doing this is through charity-giving shopping websites, and we have recently signed up to ‘Give as you live‘ www.giveasyoulive.com.  Basically, it is a portal for a load of online stores, including John Lewis, Argos, M&S etc, and also a price comparison website.  Any purchase you make from any of these hundreds of store and services, which started at www.giveasyoulive.com will generate a commission for World Heritage UK, as long as, when you sign in, you identify World Heritage UK as your chosen Charity.  So, in essence, it is free and very easy to use, has all of the online stores you might use anyway, might even save you money, and supports your Charity at the same time.  What’s not to like!  Please do sign up here and start shopping… thanks.

Volunteers

Finally, in order to make the most of World Heritage UK we are always looking for volunteers to help with specific tasks. At the moment, I would really value someone with a bit of experience with WordPress to take on a role with the Website, and make to more up to date and exciting!  We could also benefit from someone who can support Chris with the Facebook side of things, and start to make good links between Sites – to complement the excellent work our Twitter volunteer Coralie is doing. Please do let Chris know if you have a bit of time and want to help in any capacity, and I’m sure we can match your skills to a role.

Many thanks and I hope to see you soon at one of our meetings,

Best wishes

Sam Rose (Chair of World Heritage UK)