Hello to all. This will be a short issue because our week started in fast-track mode, but we did plan to send out something at the beginning of the month.

Starting from the end of October, with the pibinko.org network and the Jug Band Colline Metallifere we have been quite busy to animate our audience and stimulate new collaborations. To give you a measure of this fact, we can show you in the header image of this post the trend of visits to our combined web sites (in this chart starting from January 2019, through February 2022)*. This line of work, which was important in the direction of doing something constructive together after the past Winter, with the news which started arriving from the East last week becomes essential.

For readers who do not “do” Italian, or are not interested in improving their Italian language skills: we need to apologize, but in this period we have a bit of a hard time in keeping the English version of our blogs up to date…if you switch to the Italian version of the sites you will see a lot more news. If you would like to help with the translation into English of our contents, the call we issued at the end of November is open (see link).

While we are finalizing our Spring planning, we would like to remind you of:

• The live events at the Cirisò, close to Pomarance (Pisa), curated by Simone Sandrucci (link, in Italian)
• The live events at the Bike Garage & More in Massa Marittima (Southern Tuscany) curated by Dario Canal & friends (link)
• The final episode of the first series of the Jugcast dalle Colline Metallifere, with Luigi de’Scalzi and Mauro Tirannosauro, Sat. March 5, at 12.15PM CET (see link, in Italian)
• The overall list of services proposed through the pibinko.org network (see link in English) and the Jug Band Colline Metallifere (see link). To these two “ventures” from the beginning of the year we have added the MoltoBello.info project (see link).

For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org .

* Note: if you are curious of checking what the highs and lows of our chart are related to, feel free to check the Archives section of our sites (see the right column in each page, where you can view all the blog posts grouped by month).

Since 1994, across different Italian regions and internationally, we have developed a combination of technical, management and creative skills and have worked with an extremely diverse client base, as demonstrated by our project portfolio. In parallel, we have created a list of qualified suppliers and contractors, while personally providing quality control and project management: “pibinko” is in fact an adaptation from the Sardinian word pipinco. This was Andrea Giacomelli’s nickname on his first job, in Sardinia. It means “extremely meticulous”. This care for detail and precision has blended with extremely variable settings, so that for each project the priority is to find together with our clients the best balance between quality, available resources, schedule, context, and expectations. Summing it all up, we can propose…

Events and experiences

I have been creating, planning and managing events since 2007, with over 150 of these. Attendance ranging from 3 to 250 people and duration from teatime meetings to multiple-day festivals, from one-day excursions to multiple-month campaigns and residencies. Various of these initiatives have obtained international visibility and awards. See http://www.pibinko.org/promotion-communication-facilitation/

Music

Musician and scientific director for the Jug Band Colline Metallifere (Metalliferous Hills Jug Band), an arts+science collective combining music and education (including educational credits) on environmental issues.

Interesting Locations

Farm houses, vacation homes, resorts, “farm campings”, castles), offering options from vacation, to venues for workshops, and studies, including research sites for many disciplines. We start from family properties in hamlets in Southern Tuscany (Tatti, Torniella, Roccatederighi, Scansano), and collaborations with facilities both in lesser known parts of Tuscany and Sardinia, and in more renown areas, such as Milan, Alghero, or Florence.

Itineraries

I have an in-depth knowledge of the Grosseto province and its bordering areas (most of South-Western Tuscany). I also work in other parts of this region, and have contacts in most other Italian territories, especially Lombardy and Sardinia. In these regions I can propose itineraries with various means of transportation, typically combining famous sites and attractions with situations and characters known to very few people. Furthermore, since 2016 we have helped to re-design trail systems on approximately 30% of Tuscany.

“Mouthwatering stuff”

In addition to producing olive oil from our family properties in the areas of Scansano and Gavorrano in Tuscany, we have contacts with small but high-quality producers in Tuscany. These typically family-run businesses provide wine, olive oil, honey, fruit and vegetables, cheese, game, jam, in-oil vegetables, saffron, chestnuts, and mushrooms. We also have connections to producers from other regions of Italy and abroad.

Maps, websites and databases

Support in all phases of the life cycle of information systems, especially for mapping applications, with tens of projects followed since 1994 in various fields (environment, tourism, utilitiy surveys, water resources). See http://www.pibinko.org/maps-2/

Environmental engineering and land planning

Support in planning and execution of environmental projects, from old small family asbestos tanks, to being part of the design team for the largest phytoremediation plant in Europe (100 hectares), managing utility surveys in petrochemical plants, or helping to design the remediation of landfills with tens of millions of cubic metres of contaminated soil.

Translations and language-related services

Thanks to three years of primary school in the UK and working daily in English since 1993 I have a very good command of this language, and can provide translations (especially for geoscience and information technology topics), transcriptions, and proofreading services. Since 2016 I have also been working as a reviewer and quality controller.

Production of photo sets and videos (including providing ideas and scripting).

Promotion, communication, facilitation

This happens via a mailing list of about 10000 addresses, most of which acquired via personal contacts, numerous media contacts which covered our past projects, and various social networks and digital communities.

Consulting, training, and mentoring

Consulting services for all aspects of the above listed activities, or for other third-party activities, with a peculiar care for organizational, logistic, time management and staff training and motivation aspects.

We can offer training (in Italian, English, and French) on the topics related to our core professional skills.