Thank you to all our volunteers
By Polly Kitson
Volunteer Manager
Volunteer Week is an opportunity for Sussex Wildlife Trust to say thank you to our volunteers. With nearly 900 registered volunteers across Sussex the impact and importance of our volunteers is vast.
The range of support our volunteers provide us with is impressive. Many volunteers support work within our nature reserves and projects. These volunteers provide the missing natural processes within our landscape. Trimming scrub replicates goats and deer browsing, mowing equals sheep grazing, and building leaky dams imitates beavers. The impact of the gentler approach can be seen and monitored by the fixed-point photography (photographing in the same area over years) and the surveying of specific species. This vital information is used by the team in making decisions about future activities and measures to be taken on the reserves.
Connecting young people with nature is pivotal to our community engagement provision. A busy team of volunteers’ support schools and college groups at Woods Mill and Tilgate Park in Crawley. The Forest School Instructors train hundreds of volunteers every year to engage young people in nature.
Marine volunteers work with the Living Seas Team and on projects such as Wild Coast Sussex. Volunteers survey our shores, seas and beaches. This not only inspires generations of people to take care of the coastlines but the valuable data collected help us better understand the marine and coastal habitats of Sussex.
Rye Harbour Nature Reserve possibly has the widest range of volunteering within the one reserve. Visitors to the Discovery Centre will be aware of volunteers at the Welcome and Information Desk and the Café. Volunteers support the education activities at the Centre, provide guided walks and historical talks, just to name a few.
Finally, but essentially, are the volunteers that beaver away behind the scenes. The administration volunteers. Those that collate the membership packs, input data from surveys, support in social media and communications, and help with IT.
Volunteers enable the Trust to work towards its goals of inspiring communities to engage with nature and crucially, to restore wildlife across the landscape and sea. We would like to thank all of these wonderful volunteers for the time and commitment they give to the Trust, wildlife in Sussex and their communities.
Find out more about volunteering