Staff visits to volunteer groups

The People Team, (Abbie, Becky and Charlotte), joined Rob Pennington and Jessie Cummerson on a gorgeous sunny morning at Darland Banks where we met everyone the practical volunteer team, and Ray Howard who is one of 7 Volunteer Task Force Representatives. We got stuck into clearing paths following brushcutting and within a couple of hours the task force had made great progress. We even spotted some more volunteers doing livestock checker training further up the hill! A real KWT team effort across the beautiful Medway countryside.  

Time for a well earned cup of tea in the sunshine! The break gave us a chance to hear some feedback from our wonderful volunteers including their thoughts on how we can engage with you more and what activities we could reintroduce now that we are post-pandemic. All your feedback is greatly appreciated and was passed on to Alana who is reviewing the feedback to see how we can action change in 2022.  
 
Thank you all for having us and for being so welcoming and supportive of KWT. We look forward to getting out again and meeting more of you soon. 

Abbie, Becky and Charlotte  

On a beautifully warm and sunny Tuesday myself and Marc arrived at the magnificent Hothfield Heathlands to meet Cristina Juan, Ian Rickards and Aaron Hart and the Ashford Volunteer Team. We received a warm welcome from the group and we were led to the top of the reserve to where we would be working for the day. Ian gave a lovely tool talk and we were handed gloves and tree poppers to start. 

After lovely demonstrations of how to use the poppers from the volunteers, myself and Marc were both enthusiastic to get popping some Silver Birch. It was hard work and quickly became very addictive! I have to say some of the smaller trees put up more of fight than the larger ones. It was great to chat to the group as we worked and hear about the activities they get up to on the reserve. 

At the tea break we were treated to some lovely homemade scones with jam and clotted cream. I am now hoping I get these treats at every volunteer visit. 

In the afternoon we moved to the edge of the heathland to help another group of volunteers build a dead hedge. Marc found his calling at making stakes out of silver birch and I learnt that building dead hedges is skilful work. We were really proud of the final result and hope its still standing now.  

The volunteer group were a real delight to work with and gave real honest and helpful feedback as to how we can improve areas of volunteering at Kent Wildlife Trust. We most certainly will be back! 

Alana and Marc