AONB Unit celebrates National Volunteers’ Week

During the 2020 National Volunteers’ Week, we are taking the opportunity to celebrate our volunteering highlights from the last year, as no volunteering can take place at the moment due to the coronavirus.

Over the last year volunteers with the Mendip Hills AONB Unit contributed an amazing 5587 hours of work to conserve and enhance the area, including 1650 hours dedicated to practical conservation and nature recovery. Plus 960 hours repairing a total of 250 metres of drystone walls. 

Our award winning drystone walling team has gone from strength to strength, not only rebuilding 100 metres more drystone walls across Mendip than the previous year but also achieving first, third and fourth place at the Mendip Society Ploughing Match. They have had two further training sessions to improve their skills and prior to Covid-19 were meeting every week to do walling. Keeping this tradition alive has proven vital to help nature recover on the Mendip Hills AONB and will remain an important focus for our work. 

Alongside the practical conservation work our Volunteer Rangers also delivered some fantastic events, many of which were fully booked with waiting lists. Highlights include; ‘The Romans: Exploitation & Legacy’, ‘Halloween on the Ham’, ‘Black Holes of Burrington’ and ‘Wonderwalls of Mendip’. Our trained and knowledgeable volunteer rangers also marshal events such as the Top of the Gorge Festival, The Great Weston Ride and Mendip Rocks! Our volunteer rangers help the public stay safe and make deeper connections with the area. 

In September 2019 we welcomed 10 new Volunteer Rangers to the community who have been working hard to complete their core competency training programme in the last 8 months, consisting of First Aid, Navigation, Interpreting the Landscape, and Dealing with Emergency Situations. We now have a community of 34 Volunteer Rangers who are our eyes and ears on the ground and provide a point of contact for visitors to the AONB. 

To support the work of the Unit we also have volunteers in the office and those who help us with projects as they have specialist knowledge.

Lauren Holt, Ranger Volunteer Coordinator says “It’s been really challenging working without the support of our volunteers, they’re at the core of everything we do but it’s vital that we put their safety and wellbeing first. There will be plenty of opportunities to make up for lost time in the future.

We have so many reasons to say thanks to them here at the AONB Unit our volunteers work incredibly hard for the area, and it’s always great to celebrate their work with social activities. In summer 2019 we put on a Great Mendip Bake Off for our volunteers to judge the staff’s baking efforts. At Christmas, they had an exclusive walk around Blagdon Lake led by Bristol Water, followed by a Christmas dinner together at the local pub. Once again, thank you to our amazing volunteer community who have given us so many reasons to celebrate them and all they do” – Lauren, Sarah, Tim, Judith and Jim