From the start of Coast Care in late 2017 until the end of December 2019 there have been 1,459 people volunteer with the initiative and a staggering 25,576 hours volunteered!! There have been 348 group activities providing a range of opportunities to learn new skills from practical conservation to wildlife surveying or coming along to a coffee morning to meet like minded people and talk about their experiences.
Outside of group activities there are many volunteers engaging in a role and logging their own hours for example site wardens have dedicated over 6700 hours alone!
Here is a run down of hours dedicated by registered volunteers per activity category to give an idea of what has been achieved by you all.
Category | Hours |
Administrator | 14 |
Corporate Partners Activities | 530 |
Guide / Walk Leader/Footpath Monitor | 418.58 |
Heritage at Risk | 454 |
Historic Environment Monitoring | 164.25 |
Photographer | 406.58 |
Practical Conservation | 7688.62 |
Project Support | 1331.75 |
Site Warden | 6747.53 |
Wildlife Support Officer | 1018.57 |
Wildlife Surveyor | 4063.8 |
Young Rangers | 807 |
Total Hours | 23644.68 |
There are so many highlights of 2019 to mention, so the team have picked out some of the biggest achievements and a few of their favourite moments:
- 408 hours at Beadnell Dunes - removing Sea Buckthorn, Pirri Pirri and dune restoration.
- 369 hours at Bamburgh Castle - removing ivy from the castle ramparts and removing invasive species from the dunes.
- 361 hours at Embleton Quarry Nature Reserve - Habitat management; grassland management, removing invasive plant species and scrub clearance.
- 58 beach cleans with 804 people taking part.
- Scything, dry stone walling and brushcutter training and qualifications were offered to a small group of practical conservation volunteers.
- Joined Kiko Matthews on her Kik Plastic challenge and assisted Marine Conservation Society with this years Great British Beach Clean's.
- Bioblitz events at Waren Caravan Park and Embleton Quarry Nature Reserve discovered over 200 species at each site.
- Over 60 people were trained in Cetacean identification.
- 8 volunteers attended training to identify the non native invasive plant species Pirri Pirri and using an App they mapped presence along the proposed new England Coast Path.
- 2 graduate volunteers have cumulatively volunteered 408 hours in their roles and provided an invaluable support and assistance to the team.
- 15 volunteers trained to create a film as a legacy for Coast Care, we hope to start editing film footage captured by the group very soon with the professional film maker.
- 9 volunteers surveyed Heritage at Risk buildings within the AONB, spending over 120 hours surveying and photographing.
- 9 volunteers were given the opportunity to be involved for a week at a live archaeological dig at Spindlestone.
- 191 people from corporate businesses volunteered 561 hours across various activities.
Thank you all again for these fantastic contributions and we wish you all a wonderful 2020!