Dear all,

Thanks to your support, Heritage Open Days has developed into England’s largest and most popular grassroots heritage event. Running for almost two decades, how can we sustain the event’s tremendous success? How can it be made even better? HODs is now operating under the stewardship of the new national partnership between Civic Voice, National Trust and The Heritage Alliance. How can HODs take advantage of the return to its roots, the voluntary and community sector?

English Heritage will be funding the national partnership to co-ordinate HODs until March 2015, after which the programme needs to find alternative sources of income. But the question about HODs’ long-term future goes beyond developing a new fundraising strategy. Creating a sustainable future for HODs provides us with a unique opportunity to look afresh at the programme and where it fits in a fast-moving world. We need to think about whether it needs to change and if so, how.

This invites some really “big questions” and we would welcome your ideas and responses. It is your chance to get your voice heard and help us shape the future vision and strategy for this national flagship event. To help with your responses, the online survey provides you with some background on HODs. In addition, you may also draw inspiration from some new information on key trends that are likely to affect the event’s future http://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/documents/Note_on_future_trends_affecting_HODs.pdf

Our online consultation closes on 4 March 2012. The results will help inform the options for the future, and we will seek your views on these in the Spring.

To take part in our consultation, please click on the following link (if it doesn’t work, please copy and paste the URL into your browser) https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/hodsfuture

We look forward to your contributions.