During a meeting of the Steering Committee on Wednesday all participants agreed on a resolution paper according to the withdrawal of the Regional Planning Authority Havelland-Fläming and the win of the city of Trebbin as a new TiF-partner. Thomas Berger, Trebbin’s Mayor was eager to substitute Havelland-Fläming and to take over as a new partner and representative not only for the Havelland-Flämimg region but also as a representative for the whole of Germany. Berger came to Krakow to take part in the conference and to sign the documents that finally set a happy end to this issue. Also the German newspapers Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung and Brandenburger Wochenblatt (you find  an english version at the end of this article) reported about the new partnership agreement.

On Thursday the 50 participants took part in a conference in the Krakow municipality hall where all partners presented the achievements they made in the recent year. Indre Kreivyte, Information and PR coordinator for the TiF-project, together with communication manager Alf S. Johansen summed up in a very entertaining presentation what the TiF-partners have accomplished after working together for one year. By telling the fairy tale of the Trans in Form kingdom they pointed out what the king as well as the princes and princesses and the knights have done so far but also which challenges they still have to face in the time to come. “Are we strong enough? Did we mobilize all resources? Are you the new Bilbao? Will our fairy tale have a happy ending?” The answers to these questions will be the topic for the final conference of the project that will take place in May 2012 in Riga. “There is a lot to do and there is a lot to learn”, reminded Alf S. Johansen. And Thomas Berger promised: “I will be one of the knights of the Trans in Form kingdom.”

Then achievements in all five work packages (management, communicationa & information, scenario planning, new narratives and story telling as well investments and technical documentation) were presented by all TiF-partners.

The presenters from Joniskis (Lithuania) for example emphazised the admission of young people. They explained how they organized a youth survey and held a meeting with youth organizations of Joniskis district council. Furthermore they plan a book that tells about the success stories of Joniskis. TiF-partners from Jelgava (Latvia) also focused on young people, especially on students of the university situated in Jelgava city.

 The Norwegian partners from Indre Østfold Regional Council (Norway) introduced a scenario project in three steps – take off, flying high and touch down. With the support of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies and Telemark Research Institute they organized an event in a closed down airport. Lead partner from Notodden Municipality (Norway) presented the city’s journey from “Industry as Culture to Culture as industry”. With the Notodden Blues Festival and the House of Books and Blues that will be built soon, the partners from Notodden demonstrated their own success story.

“Faces sum up places” is the theme for a project that partners from Tranemo (Sweden) developed: Persons with a positive approach to Tranemo make personal statements. Furthermore they want to build up a bicycle municipality and a new website will be released this summer. They also engaged a landscape architect to build a new library. Ewelina Suchocka from Suwalki (Poland) demonstrated the successful branding of activities in different local and regional media institutions and talked about an international architecture competition they had announced to redesign the Maria Konopnicka Square in Suwalki.

Information manager of Vidzeme Planning Region, Mara Poikane, talked in her presentation about the development of a new logo and marketing package for Vidzeme. With the slogan „The only way is up!“ the region wants to face future challenges. Also they contracted an expert team from Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences to help them finding practical solutions.

“The hard part is to make a project transnational, to think outside the square”, so the king of Trans in Form, project manager Bjørn Frode Moen from Notodden (Norway). “Ask the questions you stopped asking a long time ago”, Moen called upon his audience and continued: “There is no European identity, but we have a lot of national identities”, a fact that brings advantages as well as disadvantages. “Language is an obstacle (…) and I am far too often lost in translation”, so the project manager. To be aware of that and to take the benefits that a transnational project offers is the task now. One year is left to fight together for more livable, competitive and more attractive communities. One more year to go for a happy end!

Brandenburger Wochenblatt, 18th of May 2011:

A new chance for Rhinow

Trebbin took over partnership within TiF project

It all started out so nicely: “Rhinow – city of stars”. Within the frame of the European Project Trans in Form Rhinow’s inhabitants as well as experts collected ideas for the future of this small town in the green rural district called Havelland. But then the end for TiF was announced.

Brandenburg’s government admonished the German TiF partner, the Regional Planning Authority Havelland-Fläming, to concentrate on their main task – the implementation of the regional plan for wind energy. That was the end for TiF in Germany. The disappointment was big, in Rhinow as well as in all the other municipalities that had taken part. “It is a pity that we cannot go on”, stated Jens Aasmann head of the municipality Ländchen Rhinow.

But Trebbin’s mayor, Thomas Berger, didn’t want to give up on TiF and decided to jump in for Havelland-Fläming as a new project partner. Last week participants from Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Poland as well as co-partners from Russia, Belarus and Kaliningrad met at the TiF midterm conference in Krakow / Poland. Thomas Berger took part in the meeting as well and signed the final documents for the partnership agreement. “The Trans in Form project is of course satisfied that Trebbin took the challenge of being a new German partner”, so project manager Bjørn Frode Moen from Norway.

Aim of the project, that is lead by the Norwegian municipality Notodden, is to help rural areas to become more attractive and livable and within that be prepared for demographic change and the emigration of young people. The partnership agreement with Trebbin could also be a new chance for Rhinow. Thomas Berger is open for cooperation and he would be happy to welcome new participants, the mayor stated. So Rhinow could be back in the project, the results of a survey among the inhabitants as well as first ideas are ready to transform.