Volunteers reminisce part 2. Woods Mill

In the second of a series of three blogs about volunteering for the Trust to celebrate Volunteer Week, we hear from Christine Dafter, who has been an Education Volunteer at Woods Mill with us for many years now. Huge thanks to Christine for all her wonderful volunteering work for the Trust.

'I was inspired to learn more about wildlife and the environment having been a volunteer at a charity for young people in Guildford - The Young People's Trust for the Environment. 

I am now an Environmental Education volunteer and sometimes Leader of a Group for Sussex Wildlife Trust. I love the awe on children's faces when they receive amazing pieces of information about a tiny creature's habitat or a creature's life style.

One unexpected moment happened when a group of children were looking under logs to see which insects might live there. One log was very heavy, so I helped a couple of little boys turn it over. To our surprise, no insects were there, but what was under the log was a crisp £10 note! It was dirty, but when we returned to the classroom later in the day, I washed it, took it into Amanda Reeves' office and explained its discovery. I asked her if she would put the note into one of the Trust's donation boxes, and her response was. "are you into money laundering Christine ?"!

My best moment was when I discovered a female Stag Beetle on a footpath at Woods Mill in the summer of 2004. It turned out that no Stag Beetles had been seen at Woods Mill for over 40 years until that day I spotted it. Later the same day a male Stag Beetle was found (but not by me). 

The story of my find made a paragraph in the Trust's Wildlife Magazine, in January 2005 and My Weekly Magazine (May 2006). 

Our volunteers are incredible and we cannot do all the work in Sussex that we do to support wildlife without them. Find out more about how to volunteer with us here.