Who: Dyfi Biosphere Reserve Wales – a partnership of local organisations from the area in and around the Dyfi estuary, designated by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, internationally recognised and one of only six in the UK.
The brief: Design and facilitate a one-off strategic workshop to determine a refreshed vision, mission, aims and objectives (an “elevator pitch”), and governance models for the next phase. Half a day online, with 15 partners and stakeholders in the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve partnership, run bilingually with a simultaneous translator.
What I did: I designed a session plan, and created a suite of slides presenting existing information and frameworks for dicussion (for the elevator pitch, operational priorities and governance models). I facilitated the conversation and made notes throughout – it was a rich and wide ranging discussion, as the participants were passionate and knowledgeable about their area, with specific areas of focus based on their backgrounds, interests, and areas of expertise. I turned the notes into a summary document that clearly articulated:
- an updated vision statement, with a stronger focus on the local area;
- a mission statement (or “elevator pitch”);
- some example narrative structures for presentations or interviews, focusing in from the global to the local;
- a summary of operational development and implementation considerations, clustered by themes according to areas of work.
What they said: “There is a lot in this write-up that will be very helpful I think, both things that are agreed and will be helpful for updating the website, and questions that we need to think about. I think it served a purpose in getting us together, we had an inspiring discussion in our breakout group and I think it worked well on the whole.”
Image credit: Visit Wales