Neath Port Talbot Local Nature Partnership
The Client
Neath Port Talbot Local Nature Partnership is made up of representatives from a range of organisations. The Council Countryside and Wildlife Team provide the secretariat and there is an independent chair. Members of the partnership take action for nature around the county, such as:
Afan Environment Volunteers run volunteer work parties to manage meadows in the Afan Valley.
The council manages three country parks, five local nature reserves and many more sites for nature.
Bryncoch Environment Group have been running toad patrols in spring for 15 years, rescuing over 800 toads in 2019.
Buglife and Woodland Trust work together to conserve the Blue Ground Beetle in Skewen.
A large-scale peatland restoration project, Lost Peatlands, is taking place.
The Brief
Neath Port Talbot Local Nature Partnership hired us to plan and deliver an event to launch their State of Nature Report, as well as their Nature Recovery Plan. They wanted this to be a high profile event, bringing together local business owners, politicians, and stakeholders to take their excellent work forward. They also wanted an exhibition of local charities and community groups, a video or some kind of input from some local school children, highlighting the importance of nature to future generations and it was very important to stay within budget.
A minimum of 60 high profile, relevant attendees to the launch event.
10 relevant exhibitors with full stand design and build.
All design work to be completed to work holistically for the event and increase the brand awareness of Neath Port Talbot Local Nature Partnership.
Allbags, merchandise and stands, etc. to be printed/produced and delivered by local, sustainable partners where possible.
Stay within budget.
Our Approach
After an in depth kick off call with the NPT LNP Team, we brainstormed ideas for content and how the day could look. The group had lots of content, but the challnge was to present this in an engaging way, so that attnedees would go away inspired and wanting more. Due to our extensive experience in devising event programmes, NPT were very happy with our suggestions and how we proposed they could showcase their findings to give the highest impact. This was to maximise how what they wanted to say was presented and make the session as interactive as possible. With the cause being to call the audience to action, we helped devise an agenda that would engage the audience and keep their interest held throughout the day. We planned interactions such as "Lightning Talks", and "Birds of a Feather" led discussions to find solutions and make pledges for how to improve certain challenges within the County. Of course, there'd be plenty of food and refreshments, and the Exhibition would be very tactile and engaging to allow for breaks to be relevant and content filled, as well as fun and relaxing.
We then found a local venue, Gwynn Hall, to host the event and decided on a date. We took over full management of the invitation process for NPT from designing and writing the invite, which would also become the style for all of the literature for the event, to sending out all the invites and managing the whole process up until event day. This process started slowly but we strategised and found the best way to contact the right people and before long the acceptance list grew exponentially.
Another large part of work for this event was liaising and managing with the exhibitors for it. We worked closely with them to secure their involvement, order personalised merchandise, provide all of the information they needed for the day and made sure they had everything they needed to exhibit at the event. Our design team put together all of the intricate artwork for the exhibitors merchandise and for all of the client bespoke merchandise items. This design work was for everything from huge back wall rigs, roller banners, branded tablecloths to pens and pads for the goodie bags. We kept within the theme of the event and made sure everything was locally sourced and sustainable, even the tote bag they went into. We coordinated with various printers and distributors to ensure delivery was made in time and to the venue for event day.
On event day, our team were at the venue bright and early to set up the auditorium for the event, put together all of the goodie bags, set up the registration desk and name badges and go through the whole agenda with the tech team onsite to ensure seamless display of all of the components of the presentation. All merchandise orders were sorted and distributed to exhibitors and we set up all of the merchandise for NPT LNP. We intricately ran through all of the components of the day with onsite tech to ensure it played out seamlessly. We put together 100 goodie bags for all of the guests and set up registration name badges. Then we were ready for our guests to arrive and they arrived in their masses! Everybody was overwhelmed by the amazing turn out. The auditorium was at capacity and we had to open the mezzanine floor to allow for the additional guests. The networking commenced before the presentation and lots of beneficial discussions were being had by all exhibitors, guests and The Local Nature Partnership. The presentation of the findings of the State of Nature report then began by Dr Charles Hipkin, Chair of the Local Nature Partnership for Neath Port Talbot, to a captivated, engaged and interested audience.
After this a video that we created and produced of local school children played out about the state of nature in the area and their thoughts and feelings on this. This was a huge piece of work for our team to put together. We travelled to Wales and interviewed 20 children from the local Comprehensive school in Neath Port Talbot. Assisted by the head of Science, we asked the children various questions about nature generally and nature in their local area. Our team edited all of the thought provoking and inspiring footage into a beautiful two minute piece that really drummed home the message of the day and was the best addition to the presentation.
After an interactive session and Q&A's for the team, a networking hour commenced while a traditional Welsh lunch was served. The event closed with lots of photos of the various team members against the personalised wall we had made for them before we efficiently derigged ready for the hall's next event.
The Results
The response to this event was truly overwhelming. The client, local authority, exhibitors and guests all gave such incredibly positive feedback and achieved what we set out to. The event went by without any hiccups and was delivered as was promised in our usual seamless Goho style! It was a resounding success and it couldn't have gone any better. It was a privilege for our team to work on such a worthy and worthwhile cause that really is going to make a difference.
150 relevant high profile attendees on the day.
16 Exhibitors booked and attended on the day.
All design work was completed ahead of schedule, including Dr Charles Hipkin's presentation, the brochure for the day, backdrops, banners,tablecloths,step and repeats.
All merchandise was sourced from local sustainable partners.
We kept within budget!
Feedback from the client:
“It was brilliant, I couldn’t have done it without you! Jess was always on hand to answer questions and to sort out issues on the day. So people came and made it a brilliant day. Goho took a lot of the admin off my shoulders and made the whole event run smoothly. We have had a lot of promotion and new contacts who had never heard of the LNP before. And more respect for the partnership and the hard work they have done from the event.”