C O N T E X T 1 7 1 : M A R C H 2 0 2 2 3 The IHBC after IHBC@COP26 Seán O’Reilly writes: David Lovie, speaking to our members and colleagues on ‘Skills in community engagement’ at the IHBC’s 2013 School in Carlisle, offered yet another characteristic combination of the understated and the profound with his take on a critical practice area for the IHBC: dealing with complex problems and challenges. David, for so many pre-eminent in the history of the IHBC, was speaking to skilled professionals no less than community volunteers. He offered sound and practical suggestions on embedding heavysounding competences – ‘resource programming skills’ – into the real world of conservation. Unsurprisingly, David’s Lovie-esque pitch was framed around accessible advice on how to approach apparently insurmountable challenges: ‘get the ducks in a row’ before dealing with each one in turn. In Context 131 (September 2013) David makes the point that ‘Hard-pressed conservation professionals are being asked to support community and voluntary organisations in new contexts, but some of the basic skills remain the same.’ Encouraging a focus on lining up ‘ducks’ as ‘targets’, the approach is as universal as it might be. Indeed, since his talk I have retitled the approach in my own mind as ‘ducking’. The complexities of engaging with the conservation-friendly agendas of COP26 are embedded in the global phenomenon called, Sovietstyle, a ‘Conference of Parties’. That phenomenon is a mystery to most. Planning an engagement strategy for a peripherally-viewed (if structurally core) COP consideration such as ‘built and historic environment conservation’ is not just complex, but fractally so. Engagement challenges and problems in confronting a COP – not least simply estimating costs and benefits – are at once reduced and magnified even for a COP, all becomes somehow more manageable when laid out in their separate stages or parts, as ‘ducks’. Once recognised, the patterns simplify, as David’s ‘ducking’ approach once again offers a viable approach, even if, as related below, it can not guarantee success across the board. It is worth emphasising the huge scale of the challenge of participation, as that was why so many heritage bodies simply – and reasonably – stood aside from promoting their own core agenda at COP26, however relevant. Others restricted their engagement to partnering. Others did the best they could to inform the policy behemoth of the COP. For COP26, the IHBC, tentatively at first and over the summer, leaned towards at least trying to supplement our familiar (and, if needed, ‘back-stop’) partnering approach, notably working through BEFS, the Heritage Alliance and Climate Heritage Network as the more obvious lead link bodies. Inspired by David’s ‘ducking’ strategy, however, we also looked to devise an integrated, proactive approach that could complement these partnerships while offering stronger engagement opportunities. To start, exploring ‘stronger engagement opportunities’ was less about getting the ducks set up in a row than figuring out the difference between the duck and the shoot. In the end, just less than eight weeks before COP26 commenced. A virtual format was obvious, as clearly such an approach was well-suited to a pandemic and to our low- or no-cost priorities. That was framed around the IHBC@ COP26 Helpdesk+ service that could offer a low-effort but hugely flexible platform. As a service, supported by ready access to our technical advisers, we knew that this could accommodate the remarkable diversity of rapidly changing offerings and partnerships that were soon to be generated. The model proved to be a success, and as our first duck in the row it was also the biggest one, a simple public helpdesk. Even then its design as a ‘virtual’ platform faced some apparently insurmountable challenges. These were eventually resolved, sometimes with some remarkably simple solutions. For example, to make service access as easy as possible for all users and partners, the entire IHBC@COP26 Helpdesk+ service was hosted simply as a single Zoom meeting. That first duck was the perfect solution for us: cheap; outwardlooking, as a public helpdesk; partnership-focused, which was the ‘+’ in the title, to accommodate all users; and it could host our own evolving offerings as easily as those of partners. Its success as a flexible sector hub was confirmed by the wide array of programme features still captured on the archived web page. These range from the core helpdesk service (accessible online from 3 pm to 8 pm every day of the COP) to publicly accessible meetings with, as a special highlight, the SPAB and Marianne Suhr on next steps for their Old House Project. The programme also included public talks and presentations, features and even tours – BEFS offering an exemplary and, for us, enlightening approach,
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