Event report - exploring a cultural heritage network for the Cairngorms National Park

Event report – explor­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Spin­ner at cul­tur­al her­it­age event © Josie Slade

Page 2 of 15

Event report – explor­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Pre­pared by: Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Date pub­lished: 5 Decem­ber 2025

We would like to extend our thanks to all those who atten­ded and con­trib­uted to the cul­tur­al her­it­age event in Octo­ber. Par­tic­u­lar thanks to the short-term work­ing group for shar­ing their time, expert­ise and wealth of know­ledge to plan this event.

1. Back­ground

1.1 Stra­tegic con­text The Park Author­ity has a stat­utory role to provide lead­er­ship and sup­port to all those involved in the Cairngorms, work­ing in part­ner­ship with a range of com­munit­ies, busi­nesses, non-gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions and pub­lic sec­tor part­ners to deliv­er prac­tic­al solu­tions on the ground. This work is coordin­ated through a five-year Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, which sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Nation­al Park will work together.

The import­ance of the cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is a key ele­ment of the cur­rent Part­ner­ship Plan, with a spe­cif­ic object­ive (C10) to ​‘safe­guard and pro­mote the Nation­al Park’s cul­tur­al her­it­age and provide oppor­tun­it­ies for every­one to exper­i­ence and learn about the Nation­al Park’s out­stand­ing his­tor­ic envir­on­ment, his­tory and cul­ture’. The Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three actions to be delivered by 2027:

• Devel­op a Cairngorms cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work, build­ing on the suc­cess of the Badenoch: The Story­lands pro­ject, Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship and Cat­er­an Ecomuseum.

• Provide grant fund­ing for com­munity her­it­age pro­jects that con­trib­ute to a cul­tur­al her­it­age network.

• Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 programme.

This report – togeth­er with the launch of a £50,000 Com­munit­ies and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Fund (fun­ded by the Park Author­ity and delivered by Cairngorms Trust) at the cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work event in Octo­ber – rep­res­ents a key deliv­er­able against those actions. The Park Author­ity has also com­mit­ted to fund a fol­low-up meet­ing in March 2026 and will again look to weave cul­tur­al her­it­age into the devel­op­ment of the next Part­ner­ship Plan, which starts in 2026.

1.2 Devel­op­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age network

In Decem­ber 2023, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity appoin­ted the Scot­tish Com­munity Tour­ism Net­work CIC (SCOTO) to explore the poten­tial for estab­lish­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work for the Nation­al Park. The net­work would be designed to bring

Page 4 of 15

people togeth­er and add value to those most closely involved in cul­tur­al her­it­age across the Nation­al Park.

A key con­clu­sion from the SCOTO Report was that a face-to-face event would be wel­comed and would enable cul­tur­al her­it­age prac­ti­tion­ers to come togeth­er and net­work in a way that is help­ful to them. In response to this, the Park Author­ity com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the organ­isa­tion of an event / gath­er­ing of this nature and sub­sequently engaged a short-term work­ing group of nine cul­tur­al her­it­age prac­ti­tion­ers to devel­op the event.

The inter­act­ive face-to-face event took place on 9 Octo­ber 2025 at Boat of Garten Com­munity Hall and brought togeth­er 65 people, all involved in or pas­sion­ate about cul­tur­al her­it­age in the Nation­al Park.

1.3 This report

This report provides a record of the event, col­lates find­ings from the break­out ses­sions and themed dis­cus­sion groups (see appen­dices), and con­siders the next steps in light of those discussions.

1.4 The event

The work­ing group agreed that the event should ful­fil four spe­cif­ic purposes:

1. To provide effect­ive net­work­ing for people engaged in loc­al cul­tur­al heritage.
2. To con­sider ideas and oppor­tun­it­ies for future net­work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion in per­son and online.
3. To listen to and hear from people engaged in cul­tur­al her­it­age and help devel­op a shared voice for cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters across the Nation­al Park area.
4. To con­sider stra­tegic cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters and how to influ­ence future policy, fund­ing and practice.

Through a com­bin­a­tion of key speak­ers and facil­it­ated break­out and themed dis­cus­sion ses­sions, the work­ing group designed the event to:

• Explore and bet­ter describe the Cairngorms Nation­al Park cul­tur­al her­it­age land­scape, build enthu­si­asm and a shared voice for cul­tur­al heritage.

Page 5 of 15

• Start shap­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work and provide a col­lect­ing point for those inter­ested in act­ively fol­low­ing up.

The pro­gramme for the day – along with present­a­tion slides, find­ings from the break­out ses­sions and themed dis­cus­sion groups and show­case posters can be found in the appen­dices. Also included for inform­a­tion are col­lated responses from feed­back forms.

Page 6 of 15

1. Feed­back on the event

2.1 Deliv­er­ing against agreed pur­poses Feed­back forms were received from 19 of the 65 attendees on the day. The com­piled feed­back is shown in fig­ure 1. This indic­ates that pur­poses 1 to 3 were met, ie provid­ing a plat­form for net­work­ing, col­lab­or­a­tion and devel­op­ing a shared voice for cul­tur­al heritage.

Par­ti­cipants feed­ing back were less con­tent that stra­tegic cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters were adequately con­sidered. This could indic­ate that addi­tion­al focus is required in this area and, if desired, this could form part of the agenda for the pro­posed meet­ing in March 2026.

In addi­tion, 100% of respond­ents said that they would be inter­ested in fol­low up activ­ity. Addi­tion­al feed­back inform­a­tion from the event can be found in appendix 2.

Page 7 of 15

Did the event… Yes Neut­ral No 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 provide effect­ive net­work­ing oppor­tun­it­ies? stim­u­late ideas and oppor­tun­it­ies for future net­work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion? help towards devel­op­ing a shared voice for cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters across the Nation­al Park area? adequately con­sider stra­tegic cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters? Num­ber of responses Fig­ure 1 – Par­ti­cipant feed­back on the four spe­cif­ic pur­poses of the event

Page 8 of 15

2.2 Break­out ses­sions – cel­eb­rat­ing, shar­ing, inspir­ing and enga­ging with oth­ers These ses­sions built on the feed­back received from the pre­par­at­ory work sur­vey and reflect the areas of interest that sur­vey par­ti­cipants iden­ti­fied. The top­ics con­sidered in the break­out ses­sions were:

1. Com­munity archives.
2. Peer-to-peer sup­port, inform­a­tion shar­ing, net­work resources, events and learn­ing exchanges.
3. Busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies and access to new markets.
4. Mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age activity.
5. Col­lab­or­at­ive fund­ing opportunities.
6. Lob­by­ing and a single voice for the sector.
7. Con­serving tra­di­tions and tra­di­tion­al ways of life.
8. Attract­ing and retain­ing volun­teers, and enga­ging young people in cul­tur­al heritage.

These ses­sions – dis­cuss­ing and explor­ing key themes in cul­tur­al her­it­age – were well received, with par­ti­cipants provid­ing feed­back rat­ing these either very use­ful or use­ful (appendix 2). This gives a good indic­a­tion that shar­ing exper­i­ences and work­ing through issues to find solu­tions is a valu­able aspect of a poten­tial net­work. This also echoes the ini­tial find­ings in the pre­par­at­ory work.

Some com­mon threads run­ning through­out the ses­sion out­puts (com­piled in appendix 3) were the chal­lenges of volun­teer fatigue, and find­ing and retain­ing volun­teers. This also ties in with anoth­er thread on how best to engage and enthuse a young­er demographic.

The com­ments com­piled were wide-ran­ging and, as well as being a record for indi­vidu­als who par­ti­cip­ated in their chosen ses­sions on the day, they could prove to be a use­ful ref­er­ence point when pro­gress­ing indi­vidu­al pro­jects or agree­ing the poten­tial scope of a future network.

2.3 Themed dis­cus­sions – shap­ing a cul­tur­al her­it­age network

The themed dis­cus­sions explored what prac­ti­tion­ers are look­ing for from a net­work (fig­ure 2) and how that net­work might be set up and sus­tained (fig­ure 3). You can view all the writ­ten com­ments made on the day in appendix 4.

Page 9 of 15

What could a Cairngorms Nation­al Park cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work deliv­er for you?

Expert­ise and tech­nic­al guid­ance Paid capa­city to facil­it­ate net­work­ing Data­base of mem­bers / skills dir­ect­ory Access to pro­ject fund­ing and supp­port with applic­a­tions Pro­mote and pro­tect tra­di­tion­al skills and appren­tice­ships Make cul­tur­al her­it­age rel­ev­ant to com­munit­ies, young people, vis­it­ors and Scots liv­ing else­where Net­work­ing, shar­ing, peer to peer sup­port 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Num­ber of responses Fig­ure 2 – What cul­tur­al her­it­age prac­ti­tion­ers are look­ing for from a cul­tur­al her­it­age network

Page 10 of 15

How could a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work be set up and sustained?

Bot­tom up (led by the community/​members) Define scope and agree pri­or­it­ies Digit­al com­munity / online Net­work Annu­al gath­er­ing & inter­im meet­ings (themed/sub-groups) Ongo­ing fund­ing for a post to coordin­ate and facil­it­ate a net­work e.g. via Park Author­ity or oth­er organ­isa­tion 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Num­ber of responses Fig­ure 3 – Respond­ent views on how a poten­tial net­work might be set up and sustained

Page 11 of 15

2.4 What could a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work deliv­er for you? Net­work­ing, shar­ing and peer-to-peer sup­port was the highest rated desir­able for a net­work, with 35 com­ments made on this (fig­ure 2). Mak­ing cul­tur­al her­it­age rel­ev­ant to com­munit­ies, young people, vis­it­ors and Scots liv­ing else­where was rated the next most import­ant, with 17 responses.

Pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing tra­di­tion­al skills and appren­tice­ships (nine responses), access to fund­ing and sup­port with applic­a­tions (six responses), hav­ing a data­base of mem­bers and a skills dir­ect­ory (five responses), paid capa­city to facil­it­ate net­work­ing (five responses) and expert­ise and tech­nic­al guid­ance (three responses) made up the rest of the responses.

2.5 How could a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work be set up and sus­tained? The com­piled responses in fig­ure 3 indic­ate what prac­ti­tion­ers con­sidered neces­sary for a net­work to be set up and sus­tained. The most com­mon response was to sug­gest that a ded­ic­ated resource is required to coordin­ate and facil­it­ate a net­work, both to help set it up and to sus­tain it going for­ward. This reflects the pre­par­at­ory work under­taken by SCOTO in 2023, which found that 64% of sur­vey respond­ents would not be inter­ested in join­ing a steer­ing group to devel­op a network.

The oth­er key con­sid­er­a­tions for a net­work put for­ward, in order of num­ber of responses, were: an annu­al gath­er­ing and inter­im meet­ings (14 responses); hav­ing a digit­al com­munity or online net­work (10 responses); the need to define the scope and pri­or­it­ies of a net­work (eight responses); and the net­work be led by its mem­bers (sev­en responses).

2.6 Deliv­er­ing against event out­comes The short-term work­ing group iden­ti­fied sev­en out­comes they would like to see from the event and the table below sets out the activ­ity under­taken to deliv­er for them.

Desired out­come for the event	Steps taken to deliver
1. Effect­ive face-to-face net­work­ing and learn­ing has provided oppor­tun­it­ies for ongo­ing net­work­ing and collaboration.	The event provided these oppor­tun­it­ies through talks and dis­cus­sion ses­sions. Busi­ness cards for all attendees were

Page 12 of 15

| provided to pro­act­ively encour­age shar­ing of details with each oth­er. Attendees were also giv­en the oppor­tun­ity to share email addresses a few weeks after the event (if they wished to do so).

1. Par­ti­cipants have been able to listen to and explore solu­tions to cur­rent issues in loc­al cul­tur­al her­it­age and con­sider next steps. | The break­out ses­sions dis­cussed and explored key themes in cul­tur­al her­it­age. The dis­cus­sion ses­sions explored a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work. The break­out ses­sions and dis­cus­sion ses­sions were con­sidered very use­ful or use­ful by 100% of par­ti­cipants who provided feed­back after the event (see appendix 2).
2. Com­munity archiv­ing has been explored to help devel­op a means to share and access cul­tur­al her­it­age mater­i­al gen­er­ated from past and future pro­jects and ini­ti­at­ives. | Com­munity archiv­ing was explored with a key­note talk and a Cairngorms snap­shot present­a­tion, and it was a top­ic dis­cussed at a break­out session.
3. The need for guid­ance and dir­ec­tion for future cul­tur­al her­it­age pro­jects is under­stood to ensure effect­ive use of time and resources. | This was dis­cussed in the break­out and dis­cus­sion sessions.
4. The oppor­tun­ity has been provided to devel­op a shared voice and strengthen con­nec­tions for cul­tur­al her­it­age in and around the Nation­al Park and to under­stand the future oppor­tun­it­ies for stra­tegic influ­ence. | This was a key pur­pose of the dis­cus­sion sessions.
5. A struc­ture is provided for con­sid­er­ing and agree­ing next steps. | The clos­ing ses­sion of the day reflec­ted on what was achieved and the com­mit­ment by Park Author­ity to organ­ise a fol­low-up meet­ing. This report also con­siders the next steps (see sec­tion 3 below).

Page 13 of 15

1. A per­man­ent record of the event and key out­comes is pro­duced. | This report and appen­dices will be a per­man­ent record of the event.

2.7 Enabling net­work­ing after the event The Park Author­ity provided a mech­an­ism at the event for shar­ing con­tact details on the day using busi­ness cards, which were provided to all in attend­ance. In addi­tion, some par­ti­cipants high­lighted that they wanted to keep in touch by email and the Park Author­ity sub­sequently shared a link to a data shar­ing form, with con­tact details due to be shared with oth­ers who signed up for the event after this report is published.

Page 14 of 15

1. Next steps From what we heard on the day from feed­back forms, break­out and dis­cus­sion ses­sions, there is a lot of pas­sion from prac­ti­tion­ers to not only con­serve the cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park but also to provide oppor­tun­it­ies for every­one to learn about and exper­i­ence it.

The aspir­a­tion to devel­op a cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work for the Nation­al Park came across strongly through­out the day, with mul­tiple views on who this should be for, what it could deliv­er and how it could be sus­tained (fig­ures 2 and 3, appendix 4). There is some way to go with its devel­op­ment, but there was a clear steer that the Park Author­ity should take a lead­er­ship role on this.

The import­ance of com­munity archives was also a theme that came across strongly in the break­out and dis­cus­sion ses­sions and the talks. Par­ti­cipants iden­ti­fied a need to ensure the safe­keep­ing of the many dis­par­ate archives, col­lec­tions and digit­al com­munity pro­jects that have already been cre­ated. They also high­lighted the urgent need to col­lect a record of memor­ies from res­id­ents now in their 80s and 90s. This is a theme that touches all com­munit­ies across the Nation­al Park and one which, if approached in a hol­ist­ic way, could strengthen the link between the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area.

At the event in Octo­ber, the Park Author­ity com­mit­ted to organ­ising a fol­low up meet­ing in March 2026. Giv­en the feed­back received, this is likely to be a short­er and more tar­geted gath­er­ing. There are some key points which prac­ti­tion­ers may wish to con­sider at this meeting:

• Stra­tegic cul­tur­al her­it­age mat­ters – what should be the pri­or­ity / pri­or­it­ies for cul­tur­al her­it­age in the Cairngorms? For example, com­munity archiv­ing, how to engage and enthuse a young­er demo­graph­ic, secur­ing funds etc.

• Defin­ing and agree­ing the scope and pri­or­it­ies of a cul­tur­al her­it­age network.

In Janu­ary 2026, the Park Author­ity will can­vass for a suit­able date, loc­a­tion and top­ics that can be dealt with at the March meet­ing. This will take the form of a short online sur­vey and will be dis­trib­uted to all those who atten­ded the last event, plus all those who have signed up to hear more about the top­ic thus far.

Page 15 of 15

1. List of appendices

Appendix 1 – event pro­gramme — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​1​-​E​v​e​n​t​-​P​r​o​g​r​a​m​m​e.pdf

Appendix 2 – feed­back form sum­mar­ies — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​2​-​F​e​e​d​b​a​c​k​-​F​o​r​m​s​-​c​o​m​p​i​l​e​d​.xlsx

Appendix 3 – break­out ses­sion sum­mary sheets — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​3​-​B​r​e​a​k​o​u​t​-​s​e​s​s​i​o​n​s​-​s​u​m​m​a​r​y.pdf

Appendix 4 – themed dis­cus­sion sum­mary sheets — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​4​-​T​h​e​m​e​d​-​d​i​s​c​u​s​s​i​o​n​s​-​s​u​m​m​a​r​y​.xlsx

Appendix 5 – present­a­tion slides — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​5​-​P​r​e​s​e​n​t​a​t​i​o​n​s.pdf

Appendix 6 – show­case posters — https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​C​u​l​t​u​r​a​l​-​h​e​r​i​t​a​g​e​-​e​v​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​A​p​p​e​n​d​i​x​-​6​-​P​o​s​t​e​r​s.pdf