In mid March, the project and tourism managers met in Djerdap National Park, Serbia. Several excursions – through the stunning Djerdap gorge, to the massive Iron Gates I hydropower plant, to the Lepinski vir archeological site, and to a local house with handicraft made by the river itself – put the frame for discussing several tourism activities:
The digital info corners – touch screens to be put in the visitor centres of all Protected Areas – were brought a step forward with the decision what information to include. The presence of programmers at the meeting was a very valuable input to the discussion. The Djerdap National Park coordinates the further set-up of this tool, which will help communicate the transnational dimension of nature, its value and its protection along the Danube River.
A second topic was the assessment tour and quality guidelines. During a three-week-travel in May and June, numerous environmental education sites with relation to the Danube's nature will be visited and their managers interviewed. The gained knowledge should contribute to extended cooperation, new ideas, more targeted product development, and last but not least the elaboration of quality guidelines for educational offers of the Protected Areas. During the meeting, the travel itinerary and sites to be visited were fixed and responsibilities for organizational issues divided among partners. Regarding the quality guidelines, a first discussion was started on what quality means in such diverse fields as methods & pedagogy, accessibility, or organizational issues. Considering both indoor and outdoor, guided and unguided offers, the inputs from the groups will be considered for the first draft guidelines, which should be discussed in autumn this year.
For the third time now, the task force meeting was connected to a project manager training: The focus was on moderation skills this time, which are needed in every workshop, meeting, or conference. With a growing network, a well-prepared and competent moderation becomes ever more important to reach good results. After the one-day training that already included some hands-on exercises, several participants had the chance to test their newly acquired skills by the moderation of a working group in the Task Force Meeting afterwards.
It has again been a fruitful meeting, which additionally gave the chance to all partners to get to know the area of a new partner in the project and network!
