Well… it has come to that time of the year to start wrapping, and at this moment I am beginning to wrap up my personal project.
I’m glad to report back that The John Muir Discovery Award was a success… hurrah! The children that I have been working with in Possilpark finally got their well deserved award certificates last week and we held a celebration event at the local library, which was a fantastic turn out. We gave out wildlfower seeds as tokens of appreciation, particularly to the younger kids that didn’t take part in the award, but that did take part in some sessions. We had a box player and fiddler to provide some entertainment and I had ‘local celebrity’ Betty help give out their certificates. One of the local councillors, Chris Kelly, made an appearance and we also launched a photograph exhibition for the rest of the community to see which will stay up in the library until January. Do feel free to pop into Possilpark Public Library and have a look at the children’s brilliant work. At the moment I am writing up an evaluation for the project that will hopefully aid CHIP in their funding applications, as the work that we have done has clearly improved this communities confidence, well-being, learning, inclusion and their connection their local green places.
Just to sum up; the sessions that took place were the following; a community dog show (to encourage people to be responsible dog owners on the sites), a pop-up farm, mini-beast hunts, yogurt painting a wall to encourage growth of Lichen and Moss, leaf art, tree identification, scavenger hunts, storytelling, bird feeders, coppicing, animal tracking, a bat walk, scrapbook making, wildflower planting, macro photography, litter picks and deep cleans, making bee hotels and an award giving celebration event. A turf bund was also created at Byshot Path (featured in my previous blog) which means that the community can now enjoy the site even more.
About 30 people from the community turned up for the bat walk. I was told “this was the best thing we have done!” by one child and I was also promised that if a bat walk was to be held again in the community that they would all come back. Thanks to my placement provider, I managed to order some bug viewers and butterfly nets for CHIP so that they can continue to do nature based activities with this community for a long time.
I attended the John Muir Award gathering at the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago. We discussed values and the outdoors and how The John Muir Award can fit into this and be used with different communtiy groups. It was great to meet other people that have also helped lead groups through the award and to hear different ways that people approached it. I also took along my community group leaders from CHIP and we all got to go outside and play with the lovely Autumn leaves from the Japanese Acer and catch falling leaves among other things.
At the beginning of my placement I set up a butterfly transect at Kelvingrove Park. I finally gathered my results in from my volunteers. Unfortunately the rain this year meant the results were not great, however the results will still contribute to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Programme. Let’s hope next summer is better and the butterflies make a successful come back. The results certainly highlight that this public park needs to have some more wildlife friendly habitat. Perhaps the council will push for some more wildflower meadows or increase the size of the ones they have already. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the Natural Communities Showcase, but I did make sure to make some sort of presence despite not being there. I made a huge jigsaw displaying projects that I have been involved in this year including training, events and my personal project. I was told it was a hit and that everyone teamed together to complete it in 10 minutes.
I wrote another article for the JNCC Biodiversity News by Defra, it’s called ‘Bringing Glasgow to Light!’, you can find it between pages 33 and 34 on the link below. There are some other great stories on their too, including one about making roads safer for our amphibian friends.
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/UKBAP_BiodiversityNews-59.pdf
Speaking of amphibians, I came across this wee chap last week at Frankfield Loch.
I also came across a couple of santa’s little helpers on my way home that day. Obviously they came to get an update from me about the NC trainees behaviour this year and to remind me that the festive season is fast approaching (yikes!). I may be wrapping up my personal project, but for now it also looks like I will be wrapping christmas presents.
Don’t worry guys, I told them you have been extra good this year.