Our last email contact with you was dealing with the welcome aspect of the visitor experience and it was a whopping two webinars worth. This item is short and sweet but still packs a wallop.
We believe that successful interpretive planning requires the design of the total visitor experience- pre, during and post visit. It needs to:
· reflect a holistic individual,
· offer visitor interactions between place and visitor, and
· be developed using the curation of mission-based, outcome- driven experiences. and
· incorporate a sense of welcoming,
One element of welcoming is the need for inclusion, for feeling like family and for providing the sense of community, safety and kindness.
I follow British-based Positive News and want to share with you an article about the Kinder Shop in a Cumbrian town where the currency is kindness. This resonated with me on the concept of community, as I believe it has relevance to heritage sites that need to UP their connection status and level of caring within their local population.
You can accomplish more through more people by tapping into the wider community of resources available. You also can align quickly with more support by widening your net of people contacts and become less insular. Reaching out for assistance makes everyone stronger and builds relationships that are so so important these days.
Enter the Kinder Shop pop-up and the concept of exchanging goods for time. Here, all the goods were donated by local businesses and priced as volunteer time at nearby charities, with the suggested number of hours displayed on the ‘price tag.’ This concrete initiative was a way to promote kindness and understanding within the community.
They found a catalytic way of thinking about linking volunteerism, the time-starved person and everybody’s interest in getting a deal. The response was overwhelming, with 1,143 hours pledged to help local charities in just one day.
What about primarily promoting understanding in the neighbouring community about what you do at your site? Does your heritage site or does your neighbouring community have a space that could act as a pop-up, where you could display donated goods from local businesses Then the exchange for donated time could not only be for assisting your site but also your “community” of land trusts, archives and affiliated conservation organizations.
Do you have a wish list of projects that need to be done but no person power to do them –, exhibit upkeep, trail maintenance, wildlife cam viewing/recording, bench painting, planting flowers, researching artifacts, help in the bug room, etc.
In the case of a natural heritage site what about promoting earth kindness by exchanging local business free goods for donated time to undertake community projects that you co-ordinate? Think of this as an extension/outreach project to build strong interrelationships and for being visible in your community… it is worth its weight in gold. How about building & mounting bat boxes, constructing bee hotels, or a native plant seeding day?
I have always been slightly perturbed when I would hear the lament from grumbling staff that they are being required to “do more with less.” My comeback was always so let’s do “more with more”. A bit like the glass half empty concept versus viewing it as half full. We may be given less money, and less staff but that doesn’t mean we can’t look for more. Yes, that takes time but can be a blessing in disguise.
Less budget does not have to mean less resources – it can just mean more partnerships. Having the money to buy what you need is the easy way. However, how might one find the resources to do the things that need doing without money exchange?
We need to start thinking of “exchanges” both in terms of what we and potential partners could offer, in addition to what we and others need in terms of time. The more co-ordinated mutual support, network we have built up - the stronger we all are from a social health, community spirit and desire to thrive perspective.
How DO you unearth a mountain of goodwill using the currency of kindness? How can you become a catalyst of people resource exchange and be a matchmaker in the process? And who DO you direct it to?
For more info on this great uplifting news source and this specific topic go to The shop where the currency is kindness - Positive News