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Archive for August, 2009

A New Approach to Telling Old Stories

25 Aug
Interpreters share stories of our history. Pictured, Lawrence, Kansas, was home to both abolitionist and pro-slavery residents who suffered as a young country struggled with the issue of slavery. Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress

Interpreters share stories of our history. Pictured, Lawrence, Kansas, was home to both abolitionist and pro-slavery residents who suffered as a young country struggled with the issue of slavery. Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress

Today, there is a great deal of focus on accuracy and comprehensiveness when storytelling. It is equally important that our interpretive programs produce long-term results. We are watching budgets shrink, attendance dwindle, visitors growing ever more stereotypical in age and color, our take-away sales dropping, and/or our dialogs about these things are beginning to sound the same. Now is the time to redefine success. No matter how impressive we are—the site, the message, and the story—we run the risk of becoming irrelevant if we do not produce results. How can this be?

Storytellers are great at what we do. When educating people, we provide knowledge, context, and accuracy. When engaging people through engaging experiences, we create story ambassadors. People excited about their experience share their own story with neighbors, co-workers, and schoolmates, thus expanding the reach of the story they enjoyed far beyond the boundaries of the story itself. Their enthusiasm and excitement spreads, providing benefits far beyond those produced by flashy brochures, well-done websites, or attractive road signs.

Homes in western Missouri left behind only a landscape dotted with chimneys when collectively burned in 1863. This tragic story, unspoken for many years, recently unfolded before local residents, many for the first time.

Homes in western Missouri left behind only a landscape dotted with chimneys when collectively burned in 1863. This tragic story, unspoken for many years, recently unfolded before local residents, many for the first time.

Our stories, fostered and nurtured so lovingly, now deserve to be owned, shared, and carried far beyond our mental and physical boundaries. For the generations that follow us, important stories are disappearing. Many skilled and dedicated “keepers of the story” fade from the landscape and the numbers available to pick up their dropped torch are dwindling. Gone already are many stories that define who we are, where we’ve been, and where we are heading, individually, collectively, and as a nation. Preserving and continuing to share these important stories with the next generations means we must stretch beyond our quality of services and interpretation and create large numbers of new supporter that value these incredible stories.

No longer can we define success from our expert subject-matter perspective, but instead we must think about defining success from the “family on the street” perspective. Success and sustainability for our stories dictate that we think and act differently, stretching beyond our traditional audiences. The truth is, if it looks as if the story is no longer relevant, perhaps it is actually our approach and chosen delivery that are no longer relevant. Perhaps, podcasts, cell phone interpretation, and websites might trigger a “viral” (using pre-existing social networks to bring attention to something thought to be interesting, funny, or worthy of attention) initiative. A quick search within our own e-mail inboxes demonstrates how often you are referred to a great blog or a great video posted on YouTube. After all, how many podcasts are shared with you via email that are outside your special interests but worthy of a visit? How many great websites are passed on to you just because they are great websites?

A group of young interpreters, compelled to act out local history stories themselves, worked under the direction of reenactor John Allin and Cass County Historical Society’s Carol Bohl to create a video of their living history presentation.

A group of young interpreters, compelled to act out local history stories themselves, worked under the direction of reenactor John Allin and Cass County Historical Society’s Carol Bohl to create a video of their living history presentation.

In this new and changing marketplace for traditional storytelling, think about partnering with non-traditional partners. Advertising firms (talk about knowing their target audience), universities (refine our definition of audiences into new generations), community theaters (the visual and performing arts know how to connect to emotions), and local family-owned businesses might provide the opportunity to enhance your story, your perspectives, your stakeholder population, and your story’s future.

Success might be defined as watching as the story weaves itself into the fabric of our daily community of friends and family. Perhaps it is when other residents, families, and/or generations decide to preserve and share a story they now understand and appreciate, and its relevance grows in proportion to increasing numbers of stakeholders. Maybe it is when they smile at each other each time they hear or think of the story, or recall their experience through conversation, photographs, blogs, YouTube videos, texting, and/or Twittering.

Success might look different for each storyteller, just as it might for each story. Keepers of stories often react only when or if their sites or stories are threatened. But the future of those sites and stories cannot rely solely on looking to tradition for the answers. Now is the time to recognize that sharing our stories in new ways with new audiences may be the key to the future, for all of our stories and for those who tell them.

This article was written by Carol Bohl, executive director, Cass County Historical Society; Mike McGrew, ASLA, Jeffrey L. Bruce & Company, LLC; Julie Lenger, program coordinator, Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area; and Sue Pridemore, regional heritage partnerships coordinator, National Park Service.

 
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Posted in Feature Stories, Interpretive Paths During a Bad Economy

 

Enhance Your Effectiveness with Visual Aids

19 Aug

Ethan-Rotmanby Ethan Rotman

Your audience is six times more likely to remember what you are saying when your information is presented in conjunction with a visual aid.

While your words are the cornerstone of your presentation, well-chosen and well-designed visual aids help make your point. Remember that a visual aid is just a helper and not the whole enchilada. Develop a strong oral presentation that uses a visual aid to add punch to the message. Avoid developing a visual aid that requires you to build a presentation around it.

Have a clear idea of the intended purpose. Before you put something in front of your audience, ask yourself, “When the image is gone, what do I want to the audience to remember?” Knowing the goal allows you to determine what type of visual aid to use and what the essential elements of that image will be.

Choose the best type of visual aid for your purpose and circumstance. Real-life props, flip charts, PowerPoint, photos, and graphs are all types of visual aids. The right one depends on the situation and what you are trying to accomplish. At times just writing words or numbers on a flip chart will get you the desired effect. Real-life objects (something that can be touched, felt, tasted, or smelled) are generally the most effective if your situation allows. Many people are lured into the attractiveness of PowerPoint, but as sexy, powerful, and effective as PowerPoint can be, most speakers tend to use it poorly, thus hurting their cause.

The potential of visual aids is great, yet we often ignore this tool with small groups such as at staff meetings. The purpose of your talk is to make a point, so anything you can do to help your boss, coworker, or potential client understand your point is good!

Take a moment to think about a presentation you are about to make either to a group or to a single person. Can you think of a way that a picture, chart, or real life object will help your listener better understand your point? Taking a few extra minutes up front to create this aid may save you time explaining and help you to be a more effective presenter.

Ethan Rotman will present a preworkshop at this year’s NAI National Workshop. Contact him at 415-342-7106 or ethan@iSpeakEASY.net.

 
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Posted in Speaking

 

Answers in the Wilderness

13 Aug

by Jennifer Quinn

The mid-summer sun shines high over head. Red-winged blackbirds and tree sparrows float on the breeze and chatter in the trees. There is rolling farmland and forest as far as the eye can see.

Foxfield-2The funeral procession arrives promptly at 11:00 am. Family and friends clad in sneakers and blue jeans prepare to say their last goodbyes. The family dog is also in attendance, nose held high in the air, enjoying the breeze. Pallbearers remove the simple, unfinished poplar casket from the hearse, each grasping one of the six sturdy rope handles. Gravel crunches underfoot as the procession slowly makes its way down the trail. The gravesite is on a sunny hillside dotted with newly planted oak, cherry, and ash saplings. The casket is placed above the open grave atop three sturdy planks. There is no tent, no folding chairs, no fake grass carpet, only sunlight and shadow and two tons of moist, brown earth and the grave from which it was removed.

Prayers are said, poems are read, and memories are shared. Pallbearers lower the casket by hand using three heavy woven straps. All that remains is the closing of the grave. Shovels are passed from person to person and everyone takes a turn. An hour’s worth of effort—sweat, tears, and yes, even laughter—and the grave is closed. The body has been returned to the earth.

This is not a recollection from a long, distant past but an account of the present—a rediscovering of an ancient practice: natural burial—at Foxfield Preserve.

Foxfield-1Foxfield Preserve is a nature preserve cemetery in the heart of Ohio’s Amish country, about an hour south of Cleveland. It’s the only cemetery in the state offering natural burial and the first in the country to be operated by a nonprofit conservation organization.

The Wilderness Center (TWC), a 501(c)(3), was established in 1964 as a nature center. Over the past four decades, it has become a well-respected center for environmental education, complete with interpretive building, hiking trails, and astronomy building. During the 1990s, TWC became a land trust by holding and monitoring conservation easements on over 1,500 acres of land. TWC is also involved in wetland mitigation and has a consulting forestry business that offers management plans to private landowners, focusing on sustainability and resource protection.

Opening a nature preserve cemetery “just made sense,” says TWC Executive Director Gordon Maupin. Income generated by Foxfield Preserve will support TWC’s mission of environmental education and land conservation.

“When you’re a private, self-funding, nonprofit like we are, you’re always trying to find ways to increase your operating budget,” says Maupin. “Essentially, we have a conservation-based natural burial ground. We’re conserving the land where the cemetery is located and we’re also generating money to support further conservation efforts.”

More income means more land acquisition and more educational programs for schools and families. Maupin added, “We see it as a win, win, win situation—for the cemetery, for The Wilderness Center, and for the community.”

Although things are running smoothly now, establishing the cemetery was no easy task. “This was a decades-long journey,” says Maupin. “From site selection to convincing our 40-member board of directors, this project took a lot of time and patience. Luckily we had very knowledgeable advisors and people began to take me seriously once they realized this wasn’t such an off-the-wall idea after all.”

Opening the preserve required a huge financial investment by The Wilderness Center. Land acquisition, perpetual care endowment, construction expenses, restoration expenses, and equipment costs are close to $500,000.

“Most people don’t realize how expensive it is to open a cemetery,” says Maupin. “And for most people interested in opening a natural burial preserve, cost is very prohibitive.” This is by no means a way to get rich quick. It’s a long-term investment in natural burial, ecological restoration, and land conservation.

Foxfield Preserve is just a mile from TWC’s interpretive building. The site is 43 acres; of that, about half has been designated for cemetery use. This former farmland is undergoing ecological restoration. Native prairie grasses and flowers have been planted on 15 acres. Species planted include big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, blazing star, rattlesnake master, and compass plant, just to name a few. Native hardwoods have been planted as part of reforestation efforts on the remaining six acres. People purchasing plots at the preserve can be part of the restoration efforts. They can plant a native tree or other native plants on their plot.

There will be 100 to 200 burials per acre rather than the typical 800 to 1,800 burials per acre at a traditional cemetery. Graves are three and a half feet deep and are dug by hand or with a small excavator. All soil is returned to the grave after burial, so graves are only evident by a large mound of soil. Grave markers are permitted but optional. In keeping with the nature preserve, stones cannot be cut or polished, but can be engraved and should look like a stone one would find in the woods. Once the grave settles, there will be no evidence a burial has taken place if there is no marker, so handheld GPS devices will be given to families and used to find gravesites.

“It’s a unique place,” said Foxfield Preserve Steward Jennifer Quinn. “This piece of land is serving a dual purpose—it’s a nature preserve and it’s also a cemetery.”

As a nature preserve, it’s providing habitat to flora and fauna, a cleaner watershed, and recreational opportunities for the community with hiking trails and wildlife viewing. It’s also a beautiful, peaceful place that will serve as a final resting place. It will not look like a typical cemetery. There will be no mowed and manicured lawns or rows of headstones. It will look like a nature preserve, with rolling prairie meadows and tall trees.

Only natural burials are permitted at Foxfield Preserve. Natural burial means no embalming, no vaults, and that a wooden casket, cardboard container, or cotton shroud is used instead of a metal casket. Each year in U.S cemeteries we bury roughly:

•    827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
•    90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
•    2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
•    1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
•    14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
•    30-plus million board feet of hardwoods (much tropical; caskets)

So for the environmentally conscious, natural burial is much more appealing. Natural burial also appeals to people who can’t see the point of spending thousands of dollars on a casket and thousands of dollars on a vault and then burying them forever. The average cost of a traditional funeral is approximately $6,000 (not including cemetery expenses which start at $2,000 and go up from there).

“Overall, natural burial is less expensive because there is no vault, no expensive casket, and funeral director involvement is less,” said Quinn. A plot at Foxfield Preserve is 10 by 20 feet and is suitable for interring one casket, one casket and one cremains, or two cremains. The plot is $3,200.

Since opening August 1, 2008, 34 plots have been sold at Foxfield Preserve. Six have been used for burials and 28 purchased preneed.

“Our clients are diverse,” said Quinn. “They have different backgrounds, are from different parts of the state, and range in age from 36 to 83, and yet they all chose natural burial. For them it just makes sense. And that’s the only common factor I’ve found. The simplicity of returning to the earth appeals to them.”

Ultimately, it will be a place of life. “I can imagine guided bird walks, families planting trees and flowers, and just a different experience for those visiting gravesites,” said Maupin. “This is a place where your final act gives back to Mother Earth, but it’s more than that. It’s about creating an alternative for people, preserving open spaces for future generations, and ultimately changing the way we think about death and burial.”

Jennifer Quinn is the sole employee of Foxfield Preserve. For information visit www.foxfieldpreserve.org and www.wildernesscenter.org.

Gordon Maupin, executive director of The Wilderness Center, will be a featured speaker during the Interpretive Management Institute at the NAI National Workshop in Hartford, Connecticut, this November. For more information, please visit www.interpnet.com/workshop.

 
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Posted in Feature Stories, Interpretive Paths During a Bad Economy

 

Invisible Gardens: Cultivating Interpretive Possibilities

07 Aug

by Wren Smith

“When we garden, whether we realize it or not, we bring to bear our previous life experiences, our memories of childhood and travel, our family relations, our readings, our dreams and aspirations, our moral standards, character flaws, our sensuality, and grandiosity of spirituality. All of these are part of the invisible garden.”

—Dorothy Sucher, The Invisible Garden

wren_smithFrom my upstairs window, my desk overlooks my sprawling garden. Usually, on a day off, that’s where I’m either puttering around, weeding, planting, or just gawking. (I do a lot of gawking!) Yet today, despite the fact that the sky is bachelor button blue and the air is pleasantly cool, I’m compelled to write about gardening in an attempt to get at the core of something that has been nagging at me for weeks. Like gardening, writing has a way of bringing to fruition things previously hidden. I love Dorothy Sucher’s idea of the invisible garden, in which she confirms my suspicion that there is far more to gardens and gardening than meets the eye.

As an interpreter, I like to think of this green-tinted invisible realm as the place where seeds, memories, and meanings (ours and our visitors) germinate; and what blooms is sometimes expected and sometimes a surprise. When tended, this garden has the potential for creating some new way of thinking about life and thus our programs, projects, and encounters with others. Garden metaphors are so prolific that I may sound like “Mr. Gardener” from Peter Sellers’ movie Being There. Nevertheless, I can’t help but muse as I gaze upon my own visible and vibrant garden, illuminated by soft morning light. The pink and red Shirley poppies twirl in the breeze like country dancers in their pink and red skirts, near the blue puffs of bachelor buttons; the rainbow chard gleams darkly and the row of lettuce casts a chartreuse smile. No, I must dig a bit deeper; even at the risk of stating the obvious, or worse, gilding the lily.

Interpreters are gardeners by nature.
We plant seeds when we provide provocative experiences—experiences that may become fruitful, perhaps years later. Not only do we plant the seeds, but sometimes we add water or compost to the seeds planted by others. Sometimes we weed, sometimes we mulch. Regardless, there is an act of faith that someone else will add to our efforts—will water, weed, or cultivate the seeds we plant. Gardening, even for our own pleasure is, after all, a community love affair with hope, involving interactions and exchanges on so many levels. This is especially true for our invisible gardens, the ones that we carry with us. We share our ideas, colorful stories, and dreams, and others share with us. Gardens, and plants in general, teach us the importance of reciprocity. Cross-pollination creates new possibilities. A garden, either real or metaphorical can be a garden of interpretive delights—one that hums, buzzes, blossoms, blooms, fades, and blossoms again, in ways that are sometimes hidden.

Wren’s garden mirrors the memory of her enchanted trip to the strawberry farm as a child.

Wren’s garden mirrors the memory of her enchanted trip to the strawberry farm as a child.

Often there are others, even those who aren’t trained interpreters, who add interpretive “green” magic that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.Such experiences also plant seeds in the imagination and become part of the loamy fertility of our invisible gardens. One of my earliest memories is from a you-pick-it strawberry farm near my hometown of Shelbyville, Kentucky. The farmer not only provided opportunities for us to pick strawberries to take home or to pop directly in our mouths, she also set a table in her garden for us children to make strawberry shortcakes. While only four or five years old, I sat wide-eyed as a daisy, drinking in the loveliness. The simple but elegant table surrounded by flowers, lush green hedges, and wonderful winged creatures—birds, butterflies, and bees coming and going about their business. Some I observed diving head-long into trumpet-shaped lilies, others hovered gingerly on glistening wings over gold-dusted stamens.

Yes, the table was adorned with a lovely white lace cloth, napkins, and crystal bowls, piled high with whipped cream, sugar, and strawberries. But there was something more, something akin to magic emanating from that experience, something that planted itself in the receptivity of my childhood imaginings.Decades later, as I prepared a small outdoor table for dinner guests, I gazed at my own lush gardens and the memory from my childhood at the you-pick-it strawberry farm winged its way back with the full force of its significance. I looked around at the incredible beauty before me—my lace tablecloth, red and white slices of apples on a blue plate, pink lilies catching and holding the colors of the setting sun, bees and butterflies gathering their treasures from the blossoms. Everything was glowing and humming. I realized that this childhood experience had become a part of me, and I realize now, after reading Sucher’s book, that the experience has become a part of my invisible garden.

Creating a garden that mirrored this early experience helped me realize that images can act as potential seeds in our lives.
Encounters with the vital force of nature, especially when young, can shape the landscape of our lives. Indeed, that happened with me. I created a world that sprouted directly from those buried memories of my enchanted trip to the strawberry farm so many years before. Images from special times and places can provide moments of deep seeing or being, and have the potency of seeds. Like seeds these images are capable of being carried about in our psyches for years before germinating.

Isaac W. Bernheim, the founder of Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, carried the image of his beloved trees with him from his childhood homeland of Germany when he set sail for America in 1867. Although just a teenager, soon Isaac was traveling from village to village with his horse and a peddler’s pack of Yankee notions through the Pennsylvania forest. I can imagine young Isaac among those towering trees with the morning mist scattering the sunlight, producing that marvelous and meditative Tindal effect. Perhaps those mornings of solitude surrounded by trees provided the idea growing conditions for the seeds that eventually sprouted into a 14,000-acre arboretum and research forest. Could such a legacy have grown without those first seed images planted early in his childhood?

The idea that we become what we truly see or behold is nothing new. Even William Wordsworth’s proclamation that “the child is father to the man” (and woman) attests to this idea. Finding ways to use this notion creatively may be needed more now than ever, especially as the age of technology supplants much of our direct contact with nature. Richard Louv’s highly acclaimed book Last Child in the Woods attests to this change in culture and seems to give voice to the collective consciousness on this matter. Regardless of your view on technology with its rewards and drawbacks, we are challenged to find ways to provide this and future generations with experiences that have the potency of seeds. These experiences help root us to the earth and can become partners in the way we approach life. We also have an obligation to create worlds that are worth replicating, full of green and growing things, flowers, the hum and buzz of fellow creatures and wild places—visible and invisible gardens!

It is up to us to create experiences that nurture deep seeing and being.
While it may not be desirable for us to plant lots of enchanted strawberry gardens (especially when you consider the realities of heavy pesticides used for such), we do need to create worlds or experiences that nurture deep seeing and being. When we do, we not only plant a seed but we also make a map out of memory, a map that can lead us and our visitors deeper into our own natures, deeper into the heart of the world, and perhaps deeper into the heart of the great mystery. Isn’t that what really happens inside a seed? Isn’t this interpretation at its best?

The farmer who made her you-pick-it strawberry farm such an extraordinary experience probably had no idea what would sprout from her extra effort. She must have known however, the value of spreading magic and planting real and invisible seeds. You may never see the results of the extra effort you make to create visitor experiences that plant possibilities for beauty, understanding, or a sense of connection. Rest assured, though, your efforts may be more fruitful than you’ll ever know.

Wren Smith is a poet and an interpretive programs manager for Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest. Wren welcomes your insights and comments at Wren@bernheim.org or 502-955-8512 x227.

 
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Posted in Inspiration

 

Connections

01 Aug

by Alan Leftridge

leftridge“I have a gift for you.”

I am fortunate that during my training seminars I have the prospect of learning ideas and techniques from the participants. During introductions, I challenge the participants to relate one thing about themselves that no one else in the group knows. Even long-time acquaintances are eager to share something new, and the stories are enlightening and often amusing. It was at a recent training when a member introduced himself and demonstrated a good example of making intellectual and emotional connections.

“My story begins with my great-great-great-grandfather, who at 10 years old accompanied his father to Philadelphia in the spring of 1862. Abraham Lincoln happened to be in Philadelphia, too.”

He scanned the group and challenged us to recall the magnitude of Lincoln’s presidency and tumultuous times.

“By chance, they encountered Lincoln in central Philadelphia. The father, anxious to give his son a chance to meet the president, approached him. The father introduced himself and his son, and they both shook Lincoln’s hand.”

He continued, “The story shifts to 40 years later when the boy, now a man, is congratulating his own son who is graduating from law school. ‘My son,’ he solemnly declared, ‘I have a gift to go along with my best wishes.’ He reached out and shook his son’s hand. ‘You have now shaken the hand that shook Abraham Lincoln’s.’ Since that day, the tradition stayed in the family, with each father passing along his gift to the next generation.”

He looked around the room again, “And so it was, when I finished college, my father presented me with the gift of the handshake. Now, I want to shake each of your hands, so that you too will have shaken the hand of the man, who shook the hand of the man, who shook the hand of the man, who shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln.”

Everyone in the seminar was delighted with his story, and I was impressed with how he connected our cognitive perceptions of Abraham Lincoln with a personal emotion.

Most frontline and nonpersonal interpretation is geared toward imparting information through words. We find it easy to construct these concrete interpretive messages because our formal schooling emphasizes and rewards acquisition of information and logic. As a result, interpreters often forgo attempting to establish meanings through emotion.

Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1981 for discovering that each hemisphere of the brain “thinks” in a different way. The left side processes written and spoken information, words, and logic. The right side of the brain establishes meanings through visualization, creativity, and emotion. Acknowledging the importance of the two ways of processing information helps us design more complete interpretive opportunities. Here is another example of making connections using the intellectual and emotional parts of the brain.

Although the calendar declares it is springtime, I acknowledge spring’s arrival with the return of broad-tailed hummingbirds. Broad-tailed hummingbirds are fascinating to me for several reasons, including: they hunt insects in flight, they will return to my property and use the same nest as last year, and they winter as far south as Guatemala. Traveling to and from Guatemala requires some of these finger-length birds weighing little more than a penny to cross part of the Gulf of Mexico. Once they begin that segment of the flight, there is no turning back. The birds must make the long trip without stopping. They often bunch along the coastline waiting for barometric pressure and weather conditions to be favorable, and then leave in mass. A mistake could bring peril. A human analogy might be when you need to make a long trip in your car while on a tight schedule. You start the engine, look at the gas gauge and calculate whether you have enough fuel to arrive at your destination without stopping for gas. You determine that you can, but without total certainty. What if you run out of gas on a deserted stretch of road? Are you willing to face the consequences of an empty tank?

Hummingbirds may not feel a sense of anxiety over their situation, but you can when you consider your own. Through personification, you can apply feelings about your situation to the birds’—and feel emotion for the difficulty they face. By providing new information concerning the broad-tailed hummingbird, I have provoked the opportunity for you to make both an intellectual connection (imagine the weight and length of the bird) and an emotional connection (applying its migration to a travel situation familiar to you).

We interpreters want to help visitors make connections that will last a lifetime. The catch is that in order to get the most from the brain, we need to target both sides. Coupling feelings with information strengthens the cognitive and emotive capabilities of the brain, providing a better opportunity for us to meet our interpretive goals.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

 
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Posted in The Interpreter