Hello all. I’ve had an exciting month and the weather has been great here as well, which is always an added bonus. I’ve helped out with a few different events this month, including the St Fumac’s Fair, a community organised event up in Drummuir. I’ve also attended some very interesting seminars and events. Last week I was down in Perth at the SNH Sharing Good Practice event focusing on Citizen Science in the Community. This was great opportunity to get an idea of all the different citizen science projects out there. I have to say that I was surprised by the variety of projects that are up and running right now and also very impressed by all the fantastic ideas people have come up with to allow people to record scientific data, things like scraping rocks with a key to determine rock type and habitat for species living in intertidal zones or taking a picture with an app on your phone to find out the amount of organic matter in the soil. It was really exciting to see the different ways technology can be used to make citizen science much more user friendly.
My main focus this month has been preparing the community consultation for the Ellon Green Network and now the consultation is underway it’s great to be getting such a positive response. We also got some publicity in the newspapers, which really helped to get the word out about the project. The consultation is taking a few different approaches. There is an online questionnaire along with paper copies in the library and community centre. We’ve also been doing face to face consultations in two of the parks in Ellon over the weekend, giving people the chance to vote for what they would like to see in the park, as well as fill out a questionnaire, or put their ideas on the map. Overall, it is clear from speaking to people in Ellon that they have a lot of different ideas about what they would like to see happen as part of the Ellon Green Network. One thing is consistent, they all value the greenspaces in Ellon and are very keen to share their views on how these areas can be improved for both the community and the environment. We have two more face to face consultations this month and after that it will be time to sit down and look at what the community in Ellon has to say. I look forward to sharing the results with you in my next blog.
Consultation in parks in Ellon
