50^th Congress of the National Union of Landscape Companies

Meet­ing with Mari­on Montabord, Event Com­mu­nic­a­tion Man­ager for the 50^th Con­gress of Unep — Uni­on Nationale des Entre­prises du Paysage.

Could you describe your recent congress at the Palais des Congrès in Deauville?

We were organ­iz­ing the 50^th con­gress of the Unep — Uni­on Nationale des Entre­prises du Pays­age — for 3 days. This year, the main theme was “mak­ing land­scape com­pan­ies the key play­ers in the envir­on­ment and biod­iversity”, organ­ized around 450 del­eg­ates, mainly heads of com­pan­ies in the land­scape sec­tor, some­times com­ing from all over France with their employ­ees. We were also able to organ­ize an accom­pa­ny­ing pro­gram for the par­ti­cipants’ wives and hus­bands. They were able to dis­cov­er the treas­ures of Nor­mandy: a vis­it to the Grain­dorge cheese fact­ory, lunch at the foot of the stills — Dis­til­ler­ie Pierre Huet, a vis­it to the castle of Crèvecœur and a vis­it to the town of Hon­fleur where the pic­tur­esque streets and the old basin lined with res­taur­ants are only a few kilo­met­ers away from the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter of Deauville

How did the congress unfold?

The con­gress star­ted on Thursday, Decem­ber 1^st with our wel­come even­ing at the Villa le Cercle where we ded­ic­ated all the rooms to the organ­iz­a­tion of this con­vivi­al even­ing, gath­er­ing our con­gress­men for a cock­tail party around Nor­mandy culin­ary workshops.

The fol­low­ing two days, our event was divided into plen­ary ses­sions and work­shops. We used the large Michel d’Or­nano aud­it­or­i­um to bring togeth­er all our mem­bers in a 523-seat con­fig­ur­a­tion, then sev­er­al com­mit­tee rooms such as Toot­sie, James Bond, Gatsby and the Gilda room.

On the last day, we wanted to organ­ize a plen­ary ses­sion in a flat format gath­er­ing our par­ti­cipants around round tables (cab­aret format) so that they could exchange around par­ti­cip­at­ive work­shops, it was a very con­vivi­al moment!

We then invited our great wit­ness Yves Par­li­er, a great sail­or, to share his exper­i­ence on innov­a­tion. He was the win­ner of the Route du Rhum, the Transat Jacques Vabre and the Solit­aire du Figaro, and he par­ti­cip­ates in the evol­u­tion of high level sailing.

What is special about your event?

I think that like many events organ­ized at the Pal­ais des con­grès de Deau­ville, we can describe our event as 100% pedestrian.

The “all on foot” argu­ment was really import­ant to us. We wanted a des­tin­a­tion where it was pos­sible to stay with­in walk­ing dis­tance of the con­ven­tion cen­ter. The advant­age of hold­ing an event at this time of the year is also the free park­ing at the lais de mer for people arriv­ing by car and the prox­im­ity of the train sta­tion for our par­ti­cipants trav­el­ling by train and then on foot.

Why did you choose the CID?

The place is emblem­at­ic and so is the des­tin­a­tion. We had the chal­lenge of bring­ing par­ti­cipants from all over France, so we chose a city of renown.

Dur­ing this con­gress, we have evolved in spaces that can accom­mod­ate all of our del­eg­ates: Villa le Cercle de Deau­ville, Casino Bar­rière Deau­ville and the Pal­ais des con­grès which is loc­ated a few steps from the beach which is also an advantage.

To know more about the Nation­al Uni­on of Land­scape Companies ?

We rep­res­ent more than 30,050 com­pan­ies ded­ic­ated to the cre­ation, main­ten­ance and devel­op­ment of land­scaped areas and gar­dens, serving com­pan­ies, loc­al author­it­ies and individuals.

These com­pan­ies are mainly involved in

• the cre­ation, devel­op­ment and main­ten­ance of parks and gar­dens, sports grounds, aquat­ic environments;
• plant engin­eer­ing and eco­lo­gic­al engin­eer­ing works;
• the install­a­tion of integ­rated water­ing and light­ing systems;
• interi­or landscaping;
• the veget­a­tion of ter­races and roofs;
• prun­ing, mowing ;
• forest refor­est­a­tion;

Learn more about the Land­scape Companies