First of all, I would like to say welcome to the new BTCV West Lothian blog. I hope it is a big success and continues for a long time.
About me – I’m Maya, I’m (almost) 24 and I’m a few weeks into a 3 month placement as a VO, based at BTCV West Lothian at Oatridge College. I graduated from Heriot Watt University with a Masters in Marine Science last September. My BSc is in Environmental Biology and I have seven years’ experience in practical conservation (coppicing, drystane
dyking, etc), and I’m also a keen writer and photographer.
I started with BTCV two weeks ago, on the 2nd of June. My first task was to help dismantle the wonderful show garden at the Gardening Scotland exhibition at Ingliston. The purpose of the show garden was to highlight the way that very different habitats can be created in a very small space (in this instance, raised boxes of 2m x 2m). Even by the Monday after the show, there was clearly a very good community of invertebrates colonising each segment. Unfortunately I have no photographs of my own but luckily BTCV Edinburgh does.The BTCV tagline of “Inspiring people, improving places,” certainly applies here. Within a few minutes I was wondering how much wildlife I could attract to my own postage-stamp garden, and how many different habitats I could create in my own small area.This weekend has seen me undertake a leadership skills course in Stirling. This course coverseverything from conflict management to developmental psychology to how to feed ten fussy volunteers for a week on a pretty tight budget. All in all, it’s been really interesting.I’m hoping to get my digital camera repaired over the next few weeks (as my old SLR isexpensive to use), and get some pictures sorted. I can’t promise I’ll update all of the time, but you never know…