Circular Letter # 7-2012 – 18 June 2012

For the attention of all national coordinators of the European Heritage Days, a joint action of the Council of Europe and the European Commission.

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to you in preparation for the 5th annual EHDs Forum.

Its theme this year will relate directly to the Faro Convention and the concept of building heritage communities. It should also include much more the work done by you. Therefore, instead of the round tables we traditionally organise, four workshops will be held after the plenary session, each devoted to one of two sub-themes: "From Audience to Participation"; and "From Participation to Empowerment". The list of speakers for these Forum sessions is still being finalised, however, we would like to include you at this stage in the discussion, proposal and submission of workshop topics themes that would illustrate these Forum themes.

Our intention is, in fact, to have the workshops deepen the two morning sessions by providing illustrations that give substance to them. Because we want to link the EHD Programme directly to the discussions, the object is to have case studies that relate to actual EHD projects in respective countries. In this respect, we will favour the exploration of European Dimension events and will feature any which have developed following our work on this subject in December 2011.

Several of these events are in development, but the Secretariat would be happy to have examples of others which you wish to initiate or are already developing. Please be proactive in this and contact the Secretariat if you have ideas which can be explored in the Forum workshop. We would look forward to receiving descriptions of these until the end of June 2012.

The Forum workshops will be facilitated by Paulina Florjanowicz, whom most of you know. Paulina has been asked by the Council of Europe to direct this aspect of the Forum activities. If you have questions please contact her at pflorjan@tlen.pl.

The names of the following EHD coordinators were put forward as people willing to actively engage in development work:

Alfredas Jomantas and Paula Dumont,

Katja Condy and Marcin Rembacz,

Jan Solberg and Milica Vusurovic,

Edith den Hartigh and Nada Andonovska.

We would like to hear from them to confirm their willingness to be workshop leaders (two persons for each workshop) and to moderate the discussions. Indeed, we would like to hear from any ators who would like to be active in development of the workshops.

For the workshop leaders, you will be required to work on a study assigned to you and Paulina will give you all the direction in this you will need. You would need to come to Cyprus one day earlier at the invitation of the Council of Europe. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Nevertheless, Paulina will provide all technical details and be in touch with you to help you get prepared.

We hope that this will allow our network to become even more active and integrated. We really count on your support.

Madelena and Monica