Volunteers' Week - Thank You

To celebrate Volunteer Week we asked volunteer supervisors to send us pictures and messages to say thank you for all their hard work.

Dover - Karen Weeks

Despite coping with low numbers, the Dover reserves and checker volunteers have been excellent at helping with the ongoing conservation works. The reserves team have completed a great season of scrub cutting at Nemo Down and Old Park Hill with both sites starting to show areas of restored chalk downland. The Dover sites always require a huge amount of grazing each year. The checkers have been a great help in ensuring the livestock are checked each day, often covering extra days, taking on checking at more than one site and doing emergency covers when someone is unable to do it on the day. A massive thank you to all the Dover volunteers for their hard work on the Dover sites!

Down to Earth - Nina Jones
Last month sadly, marked the end of the Sports England funded, Down To Earth project, which aimed to get local women to Romney Marsh outdoors in nature and developing new skills. Luckily, we were able to recruit a fantastic group of women, who continue to devote time and energy to their community and Kent Wildlife Trust. Siobhan, Beccy and Gemma, are undergoing Forest School training to support sustainable, holistic learning at the Romney Marsh Visitor Centre. Janna has completed her Yoga4kids instructor course to enable local children to practise outdoor yoga.  Shirley is successfully organising community walks, whilst Louisa supports women to access wild swimming opportunities for those wishing to socialise and increase physical activity. These are just some of the women who we grateful to for helping to ensure that the legacy of the Down To Earth project will help their community to form long lasting connections with nature that boost wellbeing for years to come!

Six reasons to celebrate the High Downs Project Volunteers:

• Intrepid
• Pragmatic
• Courageous
• Innovative 
• Sheer Doggedness
• Star Quality

Medway Wetlands - Rosemary Holden

There is a lot of work that would not happen if it was not for the Medway Wetland team. One example is cutting back bramble and scrub at Holborough, which resulted in four pairs of lapwing and hopefully many more with their continued work. They are always willing to get stuck in, even if the jobs aren’t the most exciting, like ragwort pulling or removing hedge guards. They also help clear the ponds at Peters Pit of reed and maintaining them for great crested newts, even if it means a few wet feet at the end of the day.

Sevenoaks area Green Team - Paul Glanfield

The Sevenoaks area Green Team have been up and running for over a decade now working mainly in the Darenth Valley. The team works throughout the year carrying out a wide variety of tasks on a range of varied sites, most of which if they aren’t wet and muddy are on 1:3 hills, but the team tackle them all in a (fairly) uncomplaining matter. The Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve being a very public site brings has its own particular challenges, and the team always put their own unique skills set to great use on a weekly basis. Thank you Team!

Shoresearch - Sherece Thompson

I am relatively new at Kent Wildlife Trust so when I arrange shoresearch surveys I am still so amazed at how many volunteers continue to not only give their time but help to educate me and other new volunteers on intertidal marine life. All the volunteers show great enthusiasm and dedication for the task at hand, which is quite often eyeballing a piece of seaweed or worm to identify it for the records. What’s more is their effort truly makes a difference, without them KWT wouldn’t be able to submit data every month which feeds back to statutory bodies who manage and protect our ocean. Thank you to all the marvellous volunteers out there who make marine conservation possible!

Sevenoaks Greensands Common - Jo Bradley

Our team of volunteers are the most passionate group of people you will ever meet! Most of them came to us with little or no experience of practical conservation work but they have embraced every challenge and opportunity we have thrown at them. Thanks to their hard work and dedication, there is a very noticeable improvement in access across all our sites and rides have been widened to increase diversity in woodland flora. With their help, we have been able to restart a program of bracken management and are working with the conservation evidence team to collect data on bracken treatment in the process. The work the team carry out is essential to protecting and preserving the rare lowland heath habitat that exists on the commons and all the species that rely upon it.

Swale Volunteers - Nadia Ward

Our fantastic #KentWildlifeTrust #SwaleVolunteers are out every week fixing, cutting or creating on one of 9 reserves across Swale. This fantastic group of committed and passionate volunteers have tirelessly cut reedbed at #OareMarshes to create open areas of water for winter waders, annually put in place our electric fence at #SouthSwale for rare breeding birds, and help us repair miles of fencing every year! #Thankyou to them all for their laughter, knowledge, and cake! 

#KentWidlifeTrust livestock volunteers support the Estates’ team to keep our livestock safe and happy, and are out in all weather! The Swale Livestock checking team check in on our Sussex cows and calves at #OareMarshes which we use to manage the grazing marsh. At #SouthSwale volunteers look after our flock of Herdwick sheep and over summer four fabulous #conservationgrazing longhorns, including Bob the steer. We are so grateful to them all for their time, commitment, passion and care for our #conservationlivestock 

Roaming Wednesday Team 

Kent Wildlife Trust's Wednesday roaming team cover the Medway wetlands, grasslands and Swale reserves, working on chalk grassland, marshes and woodland. Always willing to get stuck into a wide variety of tasks, like all our conservation volunteers they're out whatever the weather to lend their expertise. Out of all our volunteer groups, this group has the most experience across the greatest number of our reserves because of their willingness to travel (and not just for the biscuits!). Thank you to our fantastic Wednesday team for their commitment and passion for supporting KWT's habitat management across reserves far and wide!

Wilder Wellbeing - Vicky Aitkenhead

Wilder Wellbeing volunteers: A huge thank you to Rachel and Sam, our Wilder Wellbeing volunteers who support the Sevenoaks and Maidstone programmes! You have been such a huge help, and even more so with new staff starting and passing on your programme knowledge 😊 The Nature and Wellbeing team really appreciate your support and enthusiasm, for making the programmes the best they can be for the participants!