Today was an important milestone for me as this mouse was leading a task for the friends (Friends of Chopwell Wood) for the first time. While I have experience of leading conservation tasks in my past, getting lumbered with this was almost an accident.
During a previous meeting it was decided that we, the Friends’, needed to do some work on repairing the coal tubs that we have on display in the woods, as they had suffered from vandalism and the local kids had empted them out several times in the past. The last indignity had been that a stolen car had been pushed or driven into the cutting where the tubs sit before being torched. Therefore we, as an organisation, needed to do something that would stop this looking like an eyesore. Also, we needed to plan the work so that hopefully we could prevent the vandalism occurring again, or at least minimise any effect.
So like a complete berk this mouse piped up and said he would look at the site and access the work that needed to be done. Thus myself, and two of the other friends were assigned this duty. Having worked out what work we needed to do, a written plan of works was drawn up. However, because of the Forestry Commission rules that the FoCW have to abide by, suddenly one of us needed to stick our neck out and not only take charge of the task, but ensure that all the risk assessments were completed so that the work could go ahead. At that point I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and instead of scuttling away to a dark corner, I became task leader.
Now, today was the first day of this two-day task and it has gone well so far, I don’t think that I have misplaced any volunteers, nor have we injured any. More importantly the work has progressed at a cracking pace and we reached a point where over half of the task is done.
There was a moment when due to finding a nest of Wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus in one of the tubs we had to stop work to relocate them, but even this has not caused any real delay. The most amazing part though was the effort made by the volunteers that means that we probably will get the work completed, something I was having my doubts about only yesterday. That success today was in no small part due to two new volunteers. The Friends of Chopwell Wood have always been open to everyone, and recently one of volunteers has been learning British Sign Language, and is regularly available to provide translation support. Thus we have acquired two willing volunteers from the deaf community, who if today’s efforts are anything to go by, are hard working and capable. Here in the Friends’ we are not prejudice and welcome everyone, especially when they work like Trojans. But more importantly they enjoyed themselves, and that for me is what all this is and should be about.
The picture at the top is what the tubs looked like a week ago.
During a previous meeting it was decided that we, the Friends’, needed to do some work on repairing the coal tubs that we have on display in the woods, as they had suffered from vandalism and the local kids had empted them out several times in the past. The last indignity had been that a stolen car had been pushed or driven into the cutting where the tubs sit before being torched. Therefore we, as an organisation, needed to do something that would stop this looking like an eyesore. Also, we needed to plan the work so that hopefully we could prevent the vandalism occurring again, or at least minimise any effect.
So like a complete berk this mouse piped up and said he would look at the site and access the work that needed to be done. Thus myself, and two of the other friends were assigned this duty. Having worked out what work we needed to do, a written plan of works was drawn up. However, because of the Forestry Commission rules that the FoCW have to abide by, suddenly one of us needed to stick our neck out and not only take charge of the task, but ensure that all the risk assessments were completed so that the work could go ahead. At that point I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and instead of scuttling away to a dark corner, I became task leader.
Now, today was the first day of this two-day task and it has gone well so far, I don’t think that I have misplaced any volunteers, nor have we injured any. More importantly the work has progressed at a cracking pace and we reached a point where over half of the task is done.
There was a moment when due to finding a nest of Wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus in one of the tubs we had to stop work to relocate them, but even this has not caused any real delay. The most amazing part though was the effort made by the volunteers that means that we probably will get the work completed, something I was having my doubts about only yesterday. That success today was in no small part due to two new volunteers. The Friends of Chopwell Wood have always been open to everyone, and recently one of volunteers has been learning British Sign Language, and is regularly available to provide translation support. Thus we have acquired two willing volunteers from the deaf community, who if today’s efforts are anything to go by, are hard working and capable. Here in the Friends’ we are not prejudice and welcome everyone, especially when they work like Trojans. But more importantly they enjoyed themselves, and that for me is what all this is and should be about.
The picture at the top is what the tubs looked like a week ago.
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