Mid and West Kent Downs Volunteers - Volunteer Week Update

Sevenoaks Task days update

Since cutting & burning season has ended, the volunteers have been busy repairing & mending. Tidying sheds, sharpening tools & reinforcing boundary fences at Sevenoaks. We replaced some worn steps leading down from a hide & had lots of approving visitor's testing them out instantly. 

Out on the other sites we have been repairing livestock fencing & cleaning out troughs ready for new arrivals, all whilst chasing butterflies around, trying to get a positive IDs. 

Sadly this will be my last volunteer newsletter entry as the Sevenoaks trainee Warden. It has been fabulous, thank you to Paul Glanfield for his unwavering patience, Ruth Bidgood for being the best partner in crime & all the volunteers who have supported us. 

Susan Mckelvey 
Sevenoaks Volunteer Trainee Warden &
Sevenoaks Greensand Commons Assistant Project Officer 

It is with great sadness that I write the final traineeship update from the Sevenoaks warden trainees. We have had a fantastic 10 (soon to be 11) months working with Paul Glanfield and his motley crew of volunteers, as well as KWT staff from across the county, learning the ins and outs, ups and downs and round-y rounds of working as a warden in nature reserves for the Wildlife Trust.

We are now set with our chainsaw tickets (watch out trees!) and have recently been on KWT study days including Ferns with Ros Bennet and Reptile Monitoring (we saw a massive grass snake!) with Steve Songhurst and Gail Austen from KRAG. We have also completed a Lantra course in hazardous tree assessment, and have been learning how to check dormouse boxes and doing newt surveys (newts are so kewt!) at dusk at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve with Paul.

Whilst Suzie and I are inconsolable at the prospect of our time as trainees with KWT nearing its end, we can assure you that we will still be found loitering regularly around SWR and the Darenth reserves, as Suzie is working on the Greensand Commons Project and we will both be attending Paul’s tasks and ecology days as regular volunteers whilst at a loss for anything more interesting to do with our newfound free time.

We would like to thank the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership for funding our traineeship programme, enabling us to go on so many fantastic courses. We would also like to thank our mums for letting us move back in with them so we could work as unpaid trainees for 11 months, Paul The Warden for putting up with our constant drivel about how there is nothing that isn’t improved by adding peanut butter (he still somehow disagrees with us, but he is yet to provide evidence that proves us wrong) and teaching us many things multiple times over with the patience of a saint (I guess that’s why London has a whole cathedral named after you) and all the volunteers, staff and members of public we have met and worked with during our time as trainees who have shared their knowledge and passion for the environment with us.

Ruth Bidgood
Sevenoaks Volunteer Trainee Warden