Volunteer Day, Friday 13th March 2015
Please see this invite to a day organised in Keswick for you to attend
Date Friday 13th March
Location Friends Meeting House Keswick (opposite Booths car park)
• 10am Vols arrive – Welcome,
• 10.30am - Workshop looking at volunteer survey results, pulling out portfolio themes
• 11.45am – Wider Staff team join us
• 11.45am – Volunteers eye view sharing experiences and thoughts
• 12 – 1pm – Staff presentations from heads of department – 10mins Tom looking back & forward, 10mins Zoe’s rep, Alex, Penny, Andy, Andrew, Jessie – 5mins each
• 1 – 2pm lunch with time for mingling
• 2 - 3pm –Walk TBC?
• 3pm - Vols leave
• 3-4pm Staff Workshop on staff survey
Please see this invite to a day organised in Keswick for you to attend
Date Friday 13th March
Location Friends Meeting House Keswick (opposite Booths car park)
• 10am Vols arrive – Welcome,
• 10.30am - Workshop looking at volunteer survey results, pulling out portfolio themes
• 11.45am – Wider Staff team join us
• 11.45am – Volunteers eye view sharing experiences and thoughts
• 12 – 1pm – Staff presentations from heads of department – 10mins Tom looking back & forward, 10mins Zoe’s rep, Alex, Penny, Andy, Andrew, Jessie – 5mins each
• 1 – 2pm lunch with time for mingling
• 2 - 3pm –Walk TBC?
• 3pm - Vols leave
• 3-4pm Staff Workshop on staff survey
Changes to the Volunteer Support Team
Jean Braidwood has decided that she can no longer support the VST team as fully as she has done in the past, due to more pressing demands with family commitments. Jean will be a big loss to us as she has been very involved with VST since its beginnings back in Spring 2011.She will, however, continue to proof read our newsletters before they are sent out to everyone.
Happily, Ros Earthy has kindly offered to get involved. She already volunteers, writing blog posts for the MyVolunteering online area and so has a wealth of expertise she will be able to bring to the team.
Jessie Binns, Visitor Experience Officer, says “I know how much the staff value the work that Jean B put in right at the start when the Volunteer Support Team was just a slightly crazy idea that I was trying to make a reality. The fact that we now have five members of the team demonstrates how helpful the support they’ve given to staff and volunteers has been over the past four years. I know everyone will miss Jean’s input – for one thing we’ll have to stop calling everyone else Jean! We wish her all the best”
Also news of Rebekah Inghams’ appointment as Visitor Experience Officer at Ashridge Estates in Buckinghamshire on a maternity cover role – demonstrating that a volunteer Internship is a worthwhile career investment.
We’ve also been joined by Leila Todhunter who is one of only 10 Academy Rangers in the country. She will be with us for two years as she works towards her qualification in countryside management
Jean Braidwood has decided that she can no longer support the VST team as fully as she has done in the past, due to more pressing demands with family commitments. Jean will be a big loss to us as she has been very involved with VST since its beginnings back in Spring 2011.She will, however, continue to proof read our newsletters before they are sent out to everyone.
Happily, Ros Earthy has kindly offered to get involved. She already volunteers, writing blog posts for the MyVolunteering online area and so has a wealth of expertise she will be able to bring to the team.
Jessie Binns, Visitor Experience Officer, says “I know how much the staff value the work that Jean B put in right at the start when the Volunteer Support Team was just a slightly crazy idea that I was trying to make a reality. The fact that we now have five members of the team demonstrates how helpful the support they’ve given to staff and volunteers has been over the past four years. I know everyone will miss Jean’s input – for one thing we’ll have to stop calling everyone else Jean! We wish her all the best”
Also news of Rebekah Inghams’ appointment as Visitor Experience Officer at Ashridge Estates in Buckinghamshire on a maternity cover role – demonstrating that a volunteer Internship is a worthwhile career investment.
We’ve also been joined by Leila Todhunter who is one of only 10 Academy Rangers in the country. She will be with us for two years as she works towards her qualification in countryside management
New Volunteering System
You might have noticed your volunteer manager checking your contact details with you this summer.
This was all part of the work to move to the new volunteering system – one integrated database for National Trust volunteers. All our records have been securely transferred to Heelis central office. Staff at Bowe Barn will soon receive training workshops about how the system will work, then an invitation to register with the new My Volunteering system will come to volunteers by email.
We shall all then be able to access our personal records via the MyVolunteering website using any device; a mobile, tablet, own laptop via the Internet and be able to check our own records and process our claim forms online. We don’t need to come to a National Trust office, we can do it from home, or from the library for those of us without a home computer... Easy-peasy!!!
Tom Burditt has passed on his personal thanks and appreciation to Sarah D as to all her efforts in getting the volunteering information together ready for the move to the new volunteering system. Sarah has spent many hours in the office at Bowe Barn helping to get all the volunteer records thoroughly checked and ready to move onto the new system.
The system won’t be too complicated for us. Volunteers who have been piloting the new system in the Midlands tell us it is all very intuitive and straightforward to use. More about the new developments will come from your volunteer line manager during this autumn period.
You might have noticed your volunteer manager checking your contact details with you this summer.
This was all part of the work to move to the new volunteering system – one integrated database for National Trust volunteers. All our records have been securely transferred to Heelis central office. Staff at Bowe Barn will soon receive training workshops about how the system will work, then an invitation to register with the new My Volunteering system will come to volunteers by email.
We shall all then be able to access our personal records via the MyVolunteering website using any device; a mobile, tablet, own laptop via the Internet and be able to check our own records and process our claim forms online. We don’t need to come to a National Trust office, we can do it from home, or from the library for those of us without a home computer... Easy-peasy!!!
Tom Burditt has passed on his personal thanks and appreciation to Sarah D as to all her efforts in getting the volunteering information together ready for the move to the new volunteering system. Sarah has spent many hours in the office at Bowe Barn helping to get all the volunteer records thoroughly checked and ready to move onto the new system.
The system won’t be too complicated for us. Volunteers who have been piloting the new system in the Midlands tell us it is all very intuitive and straightforward to use. More about the new developments will come from your volunteer line manager during this autumn period.
Tree Planting November 2014-February 2015
Last year, many of you took part in tree planting days at Burtness Woods in Buttermere, and I remember some of you telling us how much you’d enjoyed a chance to do something different and to work alongside the Forestry team for a bit of a change
Well, those opportunities are coming back, throughout November – February Maurice Pankhurst is going to be organising more tree-planting. If you would like to get involved please email [email protected] or phone him on 017687 81924.
Last year, many of you took part in tree planting days at Burtness Woods in Buttermere, and I remember some of you telling us how much you’d enjoyed a chance to do something different and to work alongside the Forestry team for a bit of a change
Well, those opportunities are coming back, throughout November – February Maurice Pankhurst is going to be organising more tree-planting. If you would like to get involved please email [email protected] or phone him on 017687 81924.
Update from Alex English - Property Business Manager
The National Trust has been trying to improve its profile in Borrowdale where new and potential members usually get their first sight of the North Lakes. The first stage – the launchpad - was the improvement of the shop, an excellent interpretation point, with its surrounding meeting area and Cockshott Wood. We now have clear car park signage in all our pay and display car parks which shows the National Trust “brand” – is consistent and attractive, shows what is available and makes it clear that it’s all cared for by the NT and that’s where the money goes. There are also the 3 leaflets for the scenic drive to Watendlath, complete with handy bothy, the walk up Catbells and the round of Buttermere lake. The Trust has now taken back from tenancies two buildings in Borrowdale...the old scout hut at Ashness Bridge, Bark House Mountain Base which is open to the public for the first time for 50 years, and the Hermitage at the Bowderstone These are both one-room traditional buildings. The NT wants to canvass public opinion about how these buildings should be used, and we need volunteers to be on hand to ask people’s opinions and record them. Both are near car parks and on bus routes. The Hermitage has water and power, Bark House has an open fire only - but what a position, at the start of the path to Walla Crag and the Castlerigg Stone Circle! Like the Touch Point Mapping project, these buildings will gather information on what visitors to the Lakes really want, as well as providing interpretation points. If any volunteers could help with gathering this information by chatting to mostly inexperienced visitors who are beginning to explore the North Lakes, contact [email protected]” Force Crag
Mine – water treatment
project
You might have heard that there’s a £2million DEFRA funded project going on at Force Crag Mine at the moment with us, Newcastle University, Environment Agency and the Coal Board to trial a cutting-edge water treatment technique to clean the mine water before it makes its way down to Bassenthwaite lake, a National Nature Reserve. John Malley, the NT’s national water expert and the project manager for this, the biggest single conservation project in the North Lakes, has offered to run a guided site visit to explain what’s going on and how it works Meet at Bowe Barn at 9:30am on Thursday, 19 December and please email [email protected] if you would like to take part |