Charity Insights

            

1^ST WEEK !!!!      30/06/14 – 4/07/14

WILD About HAMPSTEAD HEATH is a reaaaaalllllllly dynamic, exciting and fulfilling project going on at the moment. There really is sooooo much to be wild about the Heath from all its wildlife, habitats, people and the events going on there.

What a really cool week – have learnt so much and completed so much in a week.  It was a brilliant start – meeting the team and the wildlife on the Heath and I happened to start the same week that was a training week for an education officer role so it was perfect timing. The team well basically it is the best team to work with –

 

Here is a summary diary of the main activities day to day I was involved in the 1st week.

30^th June 2014 – MONDAY

• Housekeeping and building tour
• Introduction to the project and partnership as well as overview of the project
• Walk around the Heath
• Introduction to outdoor learning: educational benefits; working with groups, learning styles; health and safety considerations, lesson planning and curricula.
• The educational officer showed us additional activities, covering adult learners and teacher training for the group activities that take place on the Heath for the public.

 

1^st July 2014 – TUESDAY

• Discovering the Heath – so looking at the wildlife and habitats present there, the ponds, streams, gardens, trees etc.
• Snake walks, crayfish, hedgehog traps to try to attract them so can track them for surveying.
• Checking out the wildlife cameras installed on the Heath.
• So looking at the Outdoor areas available both to public when they are lead by groups and also the parts of the Heath that are left only for wildlife to encourage more diversity on the Heath.
• Understanding how the ecologists on the Heath keep track of the vast diversity of the heath – with all its habitats and wildlife. As well as how improvements can me made in the future to make it more efficient and less costly.

 

2^nd July 2014 – WEDNESDAY

• Office work. Learning more about the coordinator role in terms of the managing side of it and the outreach role – where the main task is to try to encourage more volunteering on the WAHH project.
• Learnt about the general procedure for volunteering – looking at cribs sheets for getting volunteers via email, phone and face to face. So the procedure needed for this – how to speak and what content to mention.
• Also maintained the databases for all the volunteers at present – being the way they found out about the project so can invest more time and effort in doing more advertising in this way – if a particular way i.e. a website seems to be a very popular way people are finding out about the project.
• So need to think about visual representation i.e. pie charts, graphs to show the number of volunteers that are fixed, not as regular ones and ones that have never actually volunteered but are on the email databases. And the visual representation of the means that the volunteers found out about the project.
• Thinking up new ideas about attracting volunteers on the Heath.
• Also looking at the structure and order needed to run a successful and efficient project for the long term after the 3 years. So looking at the different roles needed, the amount of volunteers needed and so on.
• Used trello, excel and word as well as emailed few groups to spread the word about the Heath.

 

3^rd July 2014 – THURSDAY

• Introduction to volunteering offer of WAHH.
• Introduction to interpretation
• Testing out a guerrilla interpretation event
• Listening and observing about what makes volunteers happy and want to volunteer.
• Creative session for the bike.
• Come up with ideas for a toolkit and make it – putting them into action at the weekend.
• Introduction to the community outreach programme.

 

4^th July 2014 – FRIDAY

• Statistical analysis of the volunteer numbers – job roles and the ways they found about the project. Pie chart and Graph analysis representation to Rachel – project manager.
• Looking at Do-it org and environment jobs website which seem to be popularly used by the volunteers.
• Also contacting the volunteers who haven’t stated how they found out about the project.
• Designing a volunteer flyer leaflet – new layout- colours and message so researching styles and layout on the internet.
• Carried out Volunteer interviews.
• Setting up the bike for the weekend – so preparing all the activities and putting them together for the volunteers to be using.
• Emailed volunteers with info – and forms to fill in.