Report from the Chairman

December saw the departure of Jon Kenny who leaves us to join his first love Archaeology. Jon has guided the project through its early stages and we are grateful to him for his enthusiasm and wish him well in his new venture. We were fortunate in being able to recruit Rachael Sturgeon as Project Manager to replace Jon Kenny, and even more fortunate in that she was able to join us early in December.

Rachael joins the team at a crucial period in the project as we start the software development with our appointed contractor, Altcom. Rachael brings with her extensive experience in managing complex projects to a successful conclusion and we have every confidence that she will provide the necessary drive and leadership that the project requires at this stage. Rachael will be introducing herself elsewhere within this newsletter.

During the same period we have recruited two further members of staff, Sarah Jackson as Editor and Susan Gordon as Writer. We were most impressed with the capability and experience of those who applied for these posts and it was a hard choice for the interviewing panel to make. We welcome these new members of the team and hope that they will enjoy working on this exciting project.

I am acutely aware that many members of the County Gardens Trusts have been waiting patiently for this project to unfold, none more so than myself since I was involved with David Jacques, Jenny Burt and Sarah Rutherford in making the original submission to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2000, and have personally followed every step through the negotiations with the Heritage Lottery Fund.

I can assure you that your patience is about to be rewarded and within a few months we will be in a position to demonstrate to you the capabilities of the database. The long delay in preparing for the software development contract has been necessary in order that

we assured ourselves that the functional specification was sufficiently detailed and comprehensive. Soon we will be looking to the County Gardens Trusts to work with us to populate the database.

Peter Lindesay
Chairman
Parks and Gardens Data Partnership




Report from the new PM

I’d like to thank everyone for such a warm welcome to the project. I think I have hit the ground running since joining in December. This is a very exciting and busy time in the project as we are finalising the details of the database and content management system as well as working out the design of the website Home page. In the near future we will be reviewing and approving the functional specifications of the software which will then allow Altcom to enter the next stage of the project- building the systems. I am very pleased now to have our Writer and Editor on the team. Both Susan and Sarah started in January and are jumping right in. John Warden and I are currently recruiting for our Data Entry staff and have already received a wealth of extremely qualified applicants. We plan to interview in late February and have them in place shortly thereafter. It won’t be long before we will be ready to launch the system and begin the next big phase of the project- entering information. Our Volunteer Coordinators are working hard in their regions to communicate the specifics of the project, set up workshops for skills training, get current volunteers started on new site research and recording projects and recruit as many new volunteers as possible to contribute to the project. We have a lot of ground to cover in terms of information gathering and would like to involve as many people as possible in this great effort. I look forward to meeting members of the community as this project continues to unfold.

Rachael Sturgeon
Project Manager
Parks and Gardens UK