RSPB Scotland's Kirsty Chalmers shares a bit about Volunteers Day, which will be held in September to celebrate and thanks the volunteers that make our work possible.
Celebrating our volunteers
At RSPB Scotland we are incredibly lucky to have a team of volunteers who care deeply about protecting our nature and offer their time to help us protect it; we want to thank them for all they do. We’ve invited RSPB volunteers from across Scotland to join us on Saturday 28 September at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for a day of inspirational talks and interactive workshops to celebrate their amazing work.
Held in Edinburgh for the first time, the event will be opened by Anne McCall, RSPB Scotland Director, with a special welcome and thank you for our volunteers. This will also be an opportunity to learn more about some of our key conservation projects taking place around the country.
The other talks kicking off the event will include a look at our Wild Challenge initiative which aims to connect young people with nature. A recent piece of research highlighted how much some children are experiencing a disconnect from nature, making opportunities like Wild Challenge all the more important! After this our Head of Investigations, Ian Thomson, will share some insight into how we are fighting to stop raptor persecution in Scotland.
Following the morning talks, there will be several fascinating workshops to choose from led primarily by partner organisations from across the conservation sector. We’re delighted to be able to offer a varied programme of indoor and outdoor workshops including a session on wildlife recording by TWIC, a guided walk to find wild medicinal herbs led by owner of the Secret Herb Garden and an RSPB Scotland session on becoming swift ambassadors.
Lunch will provide the chance to mix and mingle with fellow volunteers, stallholders and RSPB staff members before we make a start on the next round of workshops. The afternoon workshops include sessions run by Butterfly Conservation Scotland on restoring peatlands for people and nature, another on solutions to pollution delivered by Fidra and an expertly guided walk around the RBGE Garden to learn about creating grassland habitat in your own garden.
Once all the workshops have wrapped up, we have a special treat from our Seabird Recovery Officer David Hunt. David will be talking about our Puffarazzi project which seeks to discover more about the feeding habits of puffins through the power of people and photography. Who doesn’t love looking at cute pictures of puffins? We also look forward to welcoming Head of Volunteering and Employee Engagement Alan Murray to our expert Q&A panel alongside Anne and others from RSPB Scotland.
This is a completely free event and lunch and refreshments will be provided. If you are an active volunteer in Scotland and you haven’t received your invitation please email the Events Team to allow them to send you details on how to register. For details of the exciting workshop programme check out the attached document.
The work we do to protect our nature would be impossible without our passionate and dedicated volunteers. If you aren’t already a volunteer but you are interested in becoming one you can find out more about volunteering and our current opportunities online.