Blogger: Gena Correale-Wardle
A little while ago we asked our Twitter followers for some ideas of things you could do with a bucket. Some very good and strange answers came back – bury it and make it into a stag beetle home; use it as a coal scuttle and even have it as a makeshift toilet! The most sensible of the suggestions was to use your bucket to go collecting funds at your local supermarket, which is what 100s of yellow buckets will be being used for at the end of this month when Love Nature Week hits our streets and shops!
Love Nature Week is the RSPB’s national flag week where hundreds of our fab volunteers get out in the sunshine of their local high streets or the shelter of their local supermarkets to raise funds for nature in their local area. Simple! This year it has a local feel (can you tell?) as we are collecting for local conservation projects, so all proceeds raised in the East will support our farmland bird projects. The week runs from 26 May to the 2 June (with a few renegade days either side) and we more locations than you can shake a bucket at – over 80 at the last count!
In 2011 we raised over £10,000 in this region alone and we really want to beat that figure this year. So the question is, do you fancy doing something fun with a bucket and getting a really rewarding feeling after you’ve done it? And I’m not talking about using it as a makeshift toilet!
We are looking for people to come and give collecting a try – it’s really not as scary as you think and if you bring along a friend you will have double the fun! Some of our collectors even use it as an opportunity to catch up with people in their local community and tell them about the great work of the RSPB in the process. But don’t worry – no knowledge of birds and wildlife is required, just a couple of free hours and a big smile, we’ll provide the rest!
With collections from Morrisons in St Albans to Louth town centre, we’ve got the region covered – please join in and get ‘lucky with a bucky’ to see just how much you can collect. There are plenty of other things to do with a bucket, but I think this one is probably the one that’ll make the biggest difference and put a great big smile on your face.
To sign up go to www.rspb.org.uk/bucketcollections where you can find a google map of all the Love Nature Week sites and dates and find out more about bucket collections with the RSPB.