Sophie tells about the General Assembly in Gdynia
Hear from our colleagues
By Sophie van der Horst
27 / 06 / 2024
Every year, the REACHOUT consortium convenes at the General Assembly (GA) to discuss the project’s progress and to make plans for the following year. In June 2024, the fourth and final General Assembly took place in Gdynia in Poland. Our colleague Sophie attended the two-day event and shares her experiences.
How did you experience the city of Gdynia?
“Throughout the project, I have collaborated with the city of Gdynia on the climate story. Therefore, I was eager to visit the city and see their adaptation efforts firsthand. I was impressed by the beautiful central park, which was recently finalised and has a huge diversity of plants and trees. Gdynia is renowned for its forests, and we were invited to experience a ‘forest bath’.”
A forest bath? What is that?
“We immersed ourselves in the forest for about two hours and did all kinds of exercises to activate our senses. Walking slowly for instance, to take in all the sounds and smells. With my eyes closed I had to feel and smell lavender. We also had to sit or stand still for 15 minutes, and just watch. Not much happened at first, but at some point certain things started to catch my eye, like the light, moss and mushrooms. It was a bit meditative all around. This ‘forest bath’ worked to relax everyone, so it was the ideal way to start this GA.”
Sounds wonderful! And what was the goal of the General Assembly?
“Since the project is in its final year, we focused on activities that can increase the outreach and that ensure that the tools we developed will actually be used. We had an interesting discussion about the ‘demonstrators’, that aim to inspire cities from outside REACHOUT to apply methods and tools from the project. In addition, our colleague Eva Boon presented her PhD research project on the framework of successful climate services.”
What will you be doing in this final year?
“As I have been working on climate stories, I am currently developing a guide on how to create a climate story together with my colleagues from CAS and NGI. Additionally, I am contributing to the demonstrator on cities that are in the early stages of adaptation. We aim to make REACHOUT and its triple-A toolkit practical and useful for European cities.”
Interested in knowing more about REACHOUT? Follow REACHOUT on LinkedIn! You can also visit the project page on this website or visit the REACHOUT website.