INVITATION EVORA 2022

25th  Friends of the Countryside General Assembly

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Dearest Friends,

 

Bem-vindo a Portugal!

 

How happy I am to be once again inviting you to our General Assembly. And this will not be just any General Assembly! This indeed will be our 25th Silver Jubilee GA and that is worth celebrating!

 

The General Assembly in Évora will take place from Thursday June 9 to Sunday June 12, 2022

 

Évora is a beautiful UNESCO cultural site with Medieval walls and a Roman temple and is located 130km east of Lisbon. We shall gather for a warm welcome on June 9 in the cloister of the Convento do Espinheiro, previously a convent with an important religious heritage. It is also here that the General Assembly will take place the following day with the theme “Landowners Committed to Biodiversity: using Creative Solutions”. Following the GA, we are launching the idea of a workshop entitled “The Generational Handover” for both Friends and Young Friends with various discussion panels.  The Gala dinner that Friday will be presided by the TRH the  Duke and Duchess of Bragança.

 

You will have a variety of Tours to choose from on Saturday that include a wine estate that has branched out to develop a contemporary art collection and restaurant, the full story of how wine bottles are corked at Amorim, a 16th agricultural retreat with a Baroque chapel set in 300 ha of cork forest, ancient olives and grazing land for sheep and black Iberian pigs, a marble quarry, and the best of Alentejo countryside from water management to successful estates.  For the informal dinner that evening we shall certainly have a regional wine tasting session!

 

We are also organising a special Welcome Pre-tour around Lisbon for a smaller group of 30 Friends to stay at Herdade de Pinheiro, a Wildlife Estate Label and a visit to Comporta. A highlight will be the Post-tour to Sao Miguel Island in the volcanic Azores for a group of 40 to witness nature in its purest state. Staying at 3 different hotels to benefit from the different landscape, activities will include meeting with entrepreneurs and officials, discussions with farmers, visits to local landowners, thermal baths, terra nostra gardens, tea and pineapple plantations and the essential whale watching!

 

There is ample information available on this dedicated website which will be updated as the programme develops.

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We always look forward to this important moment in the Friends calendar as the opportunity for us to gather in relaxed yet beautiful surroundings to share experiences and discover different practices and private estates.

 

None of this  would  be possible without the tremendous support from our Friends and ELO member organizations in Portugal helping us put together this amazing jubilee programme.

 

Yours sincerely,

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Michael zu Salm-Salm                                                               Thierry de l’Escaille

President                                                                                  CEO & Secretary General

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