I thought I should write this now as I suspect the rest of the week will be pretty busy and I’m not going to get another chance. As most of you know, my three months with BTCV finishes this Friday. I have been lucky enough to have been offered another job, with the Forth Estuary Forum in Rosyth.
I have been appointed the role of Project Officer for the Friends of the Forth project, dealing with raising the awareness of the Forth Estuary and reducing the impacts of marine litter. I start next Monday.
The time I’ve spent with BTCV has been undoubtedly beneficial, and I’ve learned so much from so many different people. Obviously, as with anything, there have been problems, difficulties and misunderstandings but I have preferred to see these as challenges and road signs along the journey. I haven’t been able to do everything I had hoped to do, but the time has gone so quickly that it is hardly surprising.I have been given a whole load of help from different people in order to get the most out of my time, and I think there is one person who I would like to quite publicly thank (even though she is away on honeymoon and won’t read this for a good few weeks), and that is Denise McDade, who has tried really hard to make sure I get experience of (andto meet local experts in) all the things I’m interested in, like photography and GIS. The experiences that have meant the most to me have all been set up by her.I think that the VO role is a really strange one. The last three months I’ve really tried to understand what it is about. Some people say it is about leadership and responsibility, whilst others say it is about personal development. Some people have said it is about supporting the project officers, while other still say that it is completely separate. I started off as a midweek volunteer with BTCV seven years ago, and being VO seemed so glamorous and important, it was something to aspire to. Of course, nothing is ever that glamorous – those VOs only won the respect of their project officers and area managers through hard work and dedication and the strange acceptance that comes from existing in that very odd place between full-time staff and part-time volunteer.Three months later and I’ve yet to fully understand what it means to be a VO. No leaflet or information pack can ever prepare you for the experience – it is unique to everyone. In most jobs, you get out what you put in. Not so as a volunteer officer. No matter how hard you work, how many extra hours per week you put in, you are still not staffand therefore you are still dependent on the effort put in by both your project officer and the volunteers you are responsible for. When it all goes well, your experience is far greater than your own effort and it is wonderful. When it goes a little wrong, a lot of your own energy gets lost. When that happens, all you can do is just stop and work out what went wrong and how to do things differently next time, or ask someone to give you advice. That’s the only way to build up confidence and overcome obstacles – as obstacles will always be there, no matter what you do.For anyone who wishes to become a VO, the best thing is to just do it. You learn as you go along and even when things seem difficult you find that you’re still learning. I have been given so much support – from other groups, other VOs, other project officers and staff from head office. I’ve had opportunities to meet people inside and out of BTCV, to understand the project dynamics and to see the real benefits of all our hard work. A VO is a position of real responsibility (after all, you are personally accountable when something goes wrong!), but it can also be extremely rewarding and well worth the effort. Final thought: about half of all volunteer officers do go straight into relevant paidemployment, so I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a career in the environment sector.On that very long-winded note, I wish everyone in BTCV well, I hope that all my volunteers who are off to college in a few weeks have a great year, and I wish the best of luck to the next West Lothian VO who takes over from me. I truly wish everyone the best and I’d like to say thank you once again to absolutely everyone who has taken the time to talk to me and support me over the last three months.Best of luck in everything,Maya.x