In 2023 volunteers gave 28,652 hours of their time to support the work of NWT. That’s the equivalent of 18 extra members of staff!
Like many of my NWT colleagues, I started my career in conservation as a volunteer – a quiet 14-year-old getting in a British Trust for Conservation Volunteers minibus with a load of 20 something crusties (it was the mid 90s!) and given a billhook and a bowsaw to crack on coppicing hawthorn on the Derwent Walk.
It obviously had an impact - Fast forward 30years and I have had the honour of leading hundreds of volunteer tasks and meeting a fantastic range of people, from refugees to CEOs, school placements to retirees, not many of whom would describe me as quiet now! I still find working with volunteers the most rewarding aspect of my job. Nothing is better than completing a task as a group and feeling a joint sense of pride. It’s also great when longer serving volunteers start seeing the fruits of their labour, like when habitat restoration work brings new species to one of our reserves or they see site visitors making use of some steps they have built.
The way NWT engages with volunteers has changed a lot over the last couple of decades and some of you have volunteered long enough to have seen this. Gone are the days of pulling up outside the Hancock Museum (as it was then), seeing how many volunteers had turned up and then having to decide what task was realistic for that day. Never did we imagine an online system where volunteers could see all the options available and staff could request a certain number of volunteers with particular interests and skills. It’s so much more efficient, I don’t know how we used to get anything done. Also volunteering with NWT years ago invariably meant getting dirty on a nature reserve, however, nowadays we are supported by volunteers in every aspect of our work. We have volunteers serving in our cafes, supporting education activities, greeting site visitors, surveying sites, recording volunteer time and of course our Trustees are volunteers too - we still need people getting dirty on our reserves though!
And we really do appreciate the help, we genuinely could not deliver the volume of work we do without our volunteers. Their dedication never ceases to amaze me – especially when it’s freezing cold and hammering down with rain. I feel like it’s easier for staff to deal with, we’re getting paid, but the volunteers are there because they want to be! That level of enthusiasm and positivity rubs off and there’s always good banter which makes the hard jobs a whole load easier.
I can’t imagine doing a job where I didn’t get to meet and spend time with an ever revolving (some quicker than others) cast of interesting characters. I enjoy spending time with people of varying ages, backgrounds, careers and hobbies – I've learned so much and made some good friends.
So, to all our volunteers – Thank you!
