WERT COMMUNITY A plan to be discussed in the 2 st WERT project meeting in Athens, 7-8 April 2011

DEFINING THE TARGET GROUPS 1. Women’s businesses, cooperatives 2. Consortia or associations of rural tourism businesses 3. Marketing Clusters 4. Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Chambers of Tourism, Chambers of Crafts (in some of them there are women’s sections), Farmers’ Unions, other Unions 5. Networks of women entrepreneurs 6. Support Centres/networks of women entrepreneurs 7. Rural Development Agencies (e.g. LEADER LAGs) 8. Public bodies that support women’s rights or fund women’s businesses 9. Vocational Training organisations that offer rural tourism courses or crafts courses, VET associations 10. Higher education institutions offering rural tourism courses 11.Other projects that have established networks on related topics 12.European Associations of Rural Tourism

What do we offer?  The results of the survey  The training course  Online promotion of network members  Networking with other networks  A forum to make contacts, discuss things of common interest, exchange experiences  A helpdesk for training advice  Information of interest to network members – news about events, new regulations etc  Library of case studies WORKING OUT THE STRATEGY

START BUILDING UP THE NETWORK  Invite the business who took part in the survey to become members. Draft an invitation and an application form  Discuss with associations/local or national networks how they can benefit from the WERT network; try to enlist their support  Create a space in the website of WERT to list the WERT community members and give details of their web pages, contact details  Discuss with public authorities and policy-makers, try to enlist their support to the WERT network  Join a national conference on rural tourism or on women entrepreneurs or on e-learning to start a discussion/arrange a workshop to stimulate membership  Do the same with international conferences (EFVET, e-ruralnet, etc)  Discuss with other networks in related fields how they can join forces with WERT (e-ruralnet, ENVOLWE, European Ecotourism Network)  Use all dissemination activities to promote the network

MANAGING AND ANIMATING THE NETWORK  Appoint an overall manager and national managers to check practicalities (e.g. enrolling, getting passwords, making members’ lists etc)  Introduce Newsletters at regular intervals and in-between flash news and bulletins on special topics  Start discussions centrally and encourage members to start their own topics  Encourage “peer learning”  Facilitate the e-learning package via a helpdesk, set up and encourage evaluation of the package  Invite members to attend conferences or to speak in them  Manage the marketing space of the WERT community