You may have seen various groups on our Facebook page swinging power strimmers, driving mowers, cutting down weeds and brambles. Who are all these people?
Fortunately for the Trust, many companies give their employees one or two days a year to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities, which they use to make a positive social impact, foster team building and improve employee morale and mental health.
This year we’ve had volunteers from several companies for almost 30 days, engaged in cleaning out locks, cutting back vegetation along towpaths, laying footpaths, building fencing, working on large sites such as Fosseway Heath Nature Reserve, Darnford Moors Ecology Park, Muckley Corner and Summerhill.
Tara Group
For many volunteers who are office based, these can be challenging days, especially during this hot summer, but they always leave with a smile on their faces, stating that they found the work satisfying. (Many go the pub afterwards for more team building!)
Without these volunteers we would be unable to maintain our green corridor to such a high standard.
However, corporates are not the only volunteers who support the Green and Grounds team. A few adult members regularly turn out on Saturday mornings along with our Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) volunteers.
As the summer progressed several young people completed their hours or went away on family holidays. And with no corporate groups that month, August became very quiet.
Luckily September picked up with three DofE mornings and eight corporate days, so we had frenzied activity at most sites including a large amount of work at Darnford Moors in preparation for the naming of Bull Wood.
The months of autumn will involve just final touches to the green corridor plus some transplanting of some shrubs and saplings to clear ground ready for future construction work at lock 23 and St Johns Grange.
Philip Skelton
Green and Grounds team leader
This first appeared in Cut Both Ways, our members’ magazine.
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