Greetings and I hope that you are surviving the first few biting days of the winter chill. While there are still colourful leaves on the trees there is a lovely feeling of change in the air and around the reserve the winter residents and visitors are certainly the main performers. I noticed that the goosander have been perching on the old boom and providing good views from the hide and viewing screen. The snipe have been creeping in close to the hide and seem to like the new forshore on the lake especially now it has some additional vegetation cover. Unfortunately I have not been able to spend much time out and about but have certainly been working hard behind the scenes on plans for the exciting future of RSPB Sandwell Valley.
The extensive community consulatation has now concluded and we were delighted to have hundreds of responses from a wide cross section of volunteers, visitors and non-visitors and in various different formats. Many thanks indeed to those volunteers who worked really hard on this, warranting particular mention; Nigel Palmer who hand delivered hundreds of questionaires to local streets and also Susan Spencer who went one stage further and conducted house to house interviews. Both approaches meant that we were able to get a great insight into what might make some of our visitors even happier and also what might encourage those who have yet to discover us.
As part of this work but also as an ongoing project we have started a community forum. This will represent many user groups and those that have an interest in different elements of the nature reserve. These forum members include those that will champion; health, culture, heritage, youth, volunteering, nature, learning and many other facets to what the site can offer.
From the consulation we have created an 'Activity Plan' which outlines the events, training, staffing, volunteering, signage, promotion and many other aspects of our people engagement work going into the future. This will be submitted as part of our stage two Heritage Lottery Fund application along with the results from our consultation and also plans for the new centre. The stage one application saw the money ring fenced for us but now the stage two will really confirm that the works we are planning are achievable and in line with the HLF requirements. The result of this application will be known next year when we will then be able to push on and start delivering.
The new centre design has been almost completed. There are still tweaks and amends being made to ensure that the centre works for the staff, volunteers and most importantly visitors and schools whilst remaining on budget. The new layout though looks really good and it will be a fantastic space to deliver a top quality visitor experience that compliments the wonderful wildife. I am sure that having inputted into the plans and also waited a long time to get to this stage many of you will be itching to see the design so I will share it as soon as it is complete.
Other things I have been working on are the Nature Improvement Area funding stream that will allow some habitat works next year. A full overhaul of the Visitor Safety programme, the new ten year management plan for the reserve and also an audit of our current volunteer roles.
As always please contact me if you have any queries, concerns or comments, all the best, Nick
See you on the reserves,
Best regards,
Chris Edwards