After 10 years, one of our founding Directors Helen Palmer has made the difficult decision to leave CTConsults at the end of September.

With full support from the team at CTConsults, Helen has chosen to step aside so that she can concentrate on working more directly with the cultural sector and to build on her 15 years working as one half of Palmer Squared, a marketing and audience development consultancy established with her brother Andrew. This will include working with the outdoor arts experts Walk the Plank on their major, once in a lifetime Festival UK* 2022 commission – Green Space, Dark Skies.

Helen commented: ‘It’s been an extraordinary 10 years as part of a great team working to build CTConsults into the agency it is today. I’ve been lucky to work in some amazing destinations with clients across the UK and overseas. But it’s now time for me to focus on what really brings me joy and that’s working directly with and as part of the cultural sector to support and enable organisations to engage with a diverse range of audiences to explore creativity in all its forms. I wish the company all the very best for the future, not least because my brother Andrew is still one of the Directors!’

Under Helen’s stewardship alongside founding Directors Alex Saint, Andrew Palmer, Dan Lukas, and Mat Bend, CTConsults has evolved from its initial beginnings focusing on cultural tourism consultancy and its award-winning creativetourist.com what’s on listings site, into a place-based consultancy with key strengths in digital transformation and place branding.

Helen’s highlights of the last 10 years include developing Norfolk and Suffolk’s first cultural tourism strategy which led to increased investment and support for the region’s cultural sector. Amidst many other highlights, she led on creating London’s first cultural tourism strategy which helped to inform the Borough of Culture initiative, supported Bristol and Bath on their collaborative two-city cultural tourism journey, created new visioning strategies for National Museums Northern Ireland’s Ulster Folk Museum and Ulster American Folk Park, and delivered cultural tourism workshops in Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

Over the summer we’ve been busy expanding our team to meet the demands of our growing client base and workload.

Our new Operations Manager Pam McNally has joined us to manage our team, lead on our finances, work with our Directors on business planning, resourcing and generally ensure the smooth running of the office.

Following our appointment by West Midlands Growth Company to deliver the Digital Visitor Engagement strand of their Business and Tourism Programme, leveraging benefits from the upcoming Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, we have appointed Ollie Ferres as our Digital Projects Manager and are currently recruiting a Digital Analyst.

As part of the consortium appointed by Fáilte Ireland to deliver major strands of their ambitious Digital that Delivers programme, we have recruited Megan McGurren as the Bookable Experience Development Project Coordinator, Eleanor Higgins as the CRM Manager and we are pleased to once again be working with consultants Anh Nguyen, Carly Straughan and Mike Newman.

Welcome all.

Along with our regular associates HemingwayDesign, we have been commissioned by Swindon Council to develop a place brand for its Heritage Action Zone.

Swindon was the epicentre of the Great Western Railway and much of its railway heritage is still present within the designated Heritage Action Zone area – from the railway village housing, to the Health Hydro, Farringdon Park, The Cricketer’s Arms, the Carriage works and the Mechanics Institute, to name a few of the iconic buildings and infrastructure. You may be less aware that is was also a fascinating model community – build around very contemporary values of home, work, learning and wellbeing. Following major grant awards the council is investing in the regeneration of the area over five years.

For a quick overview of this remarkable history have a look at Google Arts & Culture’s exhibit of Swindon: the heritage of a railway town produced by Historic England.