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RSSCelebrating nature Bristol fashion
THE UK’s biggest festival of the natural world will be happening on 7 and 8 June 2008 in Bristol.
prone met the festival organisers at Bristol Zoo. It’s the fifth oldest zoo in the world (since 1835) and these days, one of the most well-loved.
The zoo’s part of the Bristol Natural History Consortium which includes the BBC Natural History Unit, WWF-UK, Bristol University, Wildscreen – including the world-beating ARKive project – and more.
At prone we also really love the Bristol Naturalists’ Society. It’s been going for 150 years as well, and still prints a little newsletter with sections in it about insects, spiders, flora and fauna. They have things like an Otter Group and organise walks where you can go into the woods and look for bats, or meet at dawn and watch the peregrine falcons. Awesome really.
Truth is, most people care about wildlife and want to preserve it.
But what’s the best way?
Are zoos the way forward? Or a digital ARKive?
Leave a comment in the box below and tell us what you think.
New year, new home
On 1 January 2008, prone moved some of our operations to the Hub in Bristol.
It’s a good space: in the heart of the city’s old quarter by the docks, flexible, interesting, properly resourced, a buzz that gets you moving and friendly people who get where we’re coming from.
That’s no accident. The Hub is deliberately designed to flow, synergize, run the physical in and out of the virtual space. They say they’re a multi-sited network connecting social innovators who are striving to improve the world around them in new ways. There are Hubs in London, Rotterdam, Sao Paolo, Toronto, Soweto, elsewhere.
Makes sense to us. New ways for new worlds.
The day after we joined, it was shortlisted as one of the six top social entrepreneurs in the UK by the Independent newspaper.
Social enterprises aren’t just charities or campaigns, says the Indy. They “identify opportunities for market creation and in the process change systems and practices that have excluded millions from benefiting from advances in information education technology, health technology, full employment, and the like…[Their] role is also that of a transformational catalyst, spinning off models that can be replicated for wide adoption in many settings.”
Congratulations to Mike, Ceri, and all the other people who have held on over the past 15 months and believed in the vision. It’s a well-deserved accolade.
We’re glad to be there.