Marc van Grieken

I am afraid that since your @Antonella Adamus very helpful training session (CPD ??) more questions came into focus. @ Louis Varley. The interface is all but intuitive and the menu items are in my opinion not in the right place or of equal weighting. For example it would be normal on a site like this to have a 'settings' menu and under that would sit a sub menu: in this case 'notification options- 'mode' (light/dark) customiser etc are all settings May I suggest that the opening page should lead one intuitively to the bit you want to be: Personally i would Simplify the photo or leave this out all together. Move LI logo to top Right top Left say: welcome to connect and then a listing (not necessarily this list ) Forum Club Topic Who's who settings tutorial Then, as one hovers over , for example Forums it might bring up a pop up explaining in very few words what it is. Then when you click on Forums, this should take you to forums but it does not do that at present (well it does but only if you scoll down past Clubs.) (incidentally, you should also be able to set which forums you want to have visible to you..) is it worthwhile to discuss this in more detail.

I am really pleased to have joined Connect and hope that many many more will join! But (there is always one) the navigation is not immediately obvious and in fact a bit complicated. Looking at the opening page: the items that stand out (menu) are those in the green ribbons and not the more important ones hidden top right, barely visible against the background. A bit of tweaking of the website design would help if we are serious and use this platform as much as possible. Lets try to make this as intuitive as possible, if not we will lose interest in this platform. @Louis Varley please can you help @Antonella Adamus

Firstly, I would encourage all landscape professionals involved in landscape and visual impact assessment to express their views by completing this questionnaire. GLVIA3 has been in the spotlight recently with some members calling for a fourth edition and others being of the view that some aspects may need clarification. I have my own views about this but for now will keep them to myself. I do think however that it is important for you to know that when I left the GLVIA Advisory Panel at the end of June this year and Rebecca Knight became chair, this completed a renewal of the Advisory Panel which means that there are no longer members of the panel who contributed directly to GLVIA3. This change was deliberate because any organisation or advisory group should change gradually and over time. The planned 'renewal' (for lack of better term) also facilitated a rebalancing of the make up with members working in the public and private sector and from across the UK. I have no doubt and certainly hope that this will lead to constructive discussion about guidance in respect of landscape and visual impact assessment. Our common purpose and motivation has to be improving training, quality and standards and thus the stature of our profession. I also recommend you read Tom's very stimulating contribution GLVIA and the Louse. Don't miss it.

Hello all current and future members of LI Connect. My name is Marc van Grieken. I am a landscape architect/planner, chair of the Technical Committee and member of the Board of Trustees. I am a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and Fellow of EUPATI, the European Patient Academy for Therapeutic Innovation. Please read on if you are interested in a tiny bit more background about me. If not, I am sure you know how to skip! After 6 years of study, I graduated in March 1983 from the Agricultural University in Wagenigen, the Netherlands, acquiring the, arguably coveted, title of 'ingenieur'. My reward for graduation was the 21 months unemployment that followed in this 1980s period of dire recession. When I signed up for unemployment benefit in April 1983, the very cheery man at the desk said: "no need to come back monthly to prove your attempts to find work: "there's no work for you, good luck with your future." My study had been funded by a full student grant and an, interest free, student loan of 27,000 guilders in 1983 (equivalent to approximately £70K in todays money. I finally paid of this loan 16 years ago). Between 1980 and 1983 I had become good friends with Peter Daniel, undoubtedly one of the best landscape architects since establishment of the Institute. Peter persuaded me to try my luck in Scotland. (I would encourage you to read the obituary I wrote: https://www.landscapeinstitute.org/news/obituary-peter-geoffrey-daniel/ ) I finally started my first ever, paid, job on the 5th of January 1985 with Land Use Consultants (now LUC). My first project consisted of 'designing' and specifying some grass and some trees as part of a land reclamation project aimed at 'greening and reclaiming' wasteland in the Gorbals, Glasgow. Apart from not having a clue what a specification should look like, I did not understand the meaning of the word 'wasteland'. From a Dutch perspective no land can or should ever be wasted. Shortly thereafter I was 'flown to London' with one of the directors with the sole(?) purpose of having a look at the White Cliffs of Dover. Why? Because Land Use Consultants had been appointed to look at environmental effects of a 'potential tunnel to France' and their approach to in-house training meant involving young graduates, partly by throwing us into the deep end but actually gently guiding us even though in my case I barely spoke English. A few months later I played a very small part in considering the implications of disposing the vast quantities of soil, rocks and mud that would be generated if the tunnel would be built. We also ‘had a bet’ and I was the only person of the project team who believed the tunnel would eventually be built. More importantly however, I became aware that my qualifications were much more suited to landscape planning type work. I left LUC in December 2014, some 10 years after I was diagnosed with ‘early onset Parkinson’s disease’, and set up MVGLA which started trading on 5th January 2015 exactly 30 years since my start with LUC. I am passionate about landscape and also a passionate advocate for patient involvement. I hope to contribute to constructive discussion on this Connect platform. In my case, I will participate in the LVIA debate elsewhere on Connect which is very close to my hart. I believe that Connect provides a very good platform to share our knowledge and views.