It’s been an exciting few weeks. Over the past month I’ve completed two training courses, helped a nursery school enhance an adopted greenspace, played games with primary school children in their local park, had three meetings about the wetland park project, taken part in two events, trained my first batch of volunteers, and led a workshop!
The Seven Lochs Wetland Park Community Engagement workshop took place last week and much to my relief, it was a success! Thirty two people turned up to learn more about the proposed wetland park, discover how it would benefit their wor
k and meet others doing related activities in the area. The assortment of people came from Glasgow and North Lanarkshire councils’ conservation departments and countryside ranger teams, Forestry Commission Scotland, Ramblers Scotland, community groups, health workers and more besides. There was a real buzz in the room during the facilitated 
sessions which were designed to both record their current or planned activities and encourage networking. Feedback from the event was very good and the words “successful” and “enjoyable” kept cropping up! I was delighted by how much people gained from the workshop. Now all I have to do is write a report of all the information gathered, which will likely take several days!
At the end of April I joined staff and children in Easterhouse doing a clean-up of an adopted greenspace next to their Nursery. Armed with litter-pickers, bin bags, gardening tools, a sack of wildflower seeds and 50 wildflower plugs, we swiftly set about clearing the area of rubbish. Four teams of around 60 children came and went throughout the day, some braving heavy rain. Together we filled 20 bin bags and several more with recyclable waste. 
Many of the children were keen to help plant wildflower seeds, which were generously supplied by Glasgow City Council’s Conservation department. Together we racked the grass to create patches of bare ground, then scattered the seeds, racked them in and had a good old stamp to push them into the soil! 35 wildflower plugs were enthusiastically planted by the children, and the remaining wildflowers have been planted in tubs within the Nursery’s own garden for them to enjoy. GCV Green Network funded the purchase of the wildflower plugs and the children planted with them great care. Hopefully the flowers will help the locals to think twice before throwing litter into the area. I’m keen to continue developing links with the Nursery because they’re very close to the boundary of the proposed wetland park, and they’re a delightful bunch!
Another lovely set of folks are Hogganfield’s Butterfly Transect Volunteers. This week I trained the first group at Hogganfield Park LNR. The weather could have been kinder, but at least it didn’t rain the entire session! After the obligatory form filling and health & safety briefing, we headed out and walked the route whilst looking for butterflies. Sadly the showers kept the butterflies in hiding, but we did see roe deer, fox, a young heron, 
swallows and swifts, much to everyone’s delight! I’m hoping to train the second team soon, and arrange for a butterfly expert to run an ID workshop near the park. GCV Green Network has recently been successful in a funding application, so I now have a pot of money for community projects! Training volunteers to identify and survey butterflies seems to me an excellent way to start spending it.
Over the weekend I had great fun helping Amanda, Kate and Faith at an I-Spot event in TCV’s Stirling office and garden. It was very interesting and enjoyable to work alongside 
other Natural Communities Trainees, and I learnt a lot from each of them. The event involved a variety of activities to help families identify wildlife by taking part in bug hunts, bird-watching, wildflower ID, and I helped Faith (from Froglife) manage the numerous children keen to do some pond dipping. We were amazed to find so many newts and other creatures in the pond, and Faith has improved my knowledge of pond-life no end!
As you can tell it’s all go, my work is proving varied and stimulating, and I’m learning heaps and heaps.
Over and out!