Post 475 - A Marvellous Gathering for YWT Annual General Meeting

The clouds cleared and it was an incredible day
for the members day at Potteric Carr

Hey everyone, Post 475 and a little post to let you know about a great meeting I went to yesterday. It was the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust AGM. This year they made it into a member's day, so that they could attract a few more people and make the meeting not just about the facts and figures of the last year. The idea was to make it more interesting and to show off Potteric Carr visitor centre, which is one of the big projects they did last year. Did it work? Well for me it did, I had a really great day!

Dad and I set off early as Doncaster is quite a way from us, pretty much the other end of Yorkshire, but we got there in plenty of time. A bit of a co-incidence but the first people that we bumped into when we got there were some people Dad has worked with in Northallerton where we live!

Everyone got a cup of tea before the morning activities started and most people were gathered outside on the decking by the visitor centre as the day was glorious, it was hard to believe it was October. We got to say hi to Richard and Jono from YWT too before things got going and it was good to see them as they've been very helpful to me. More on that in a bit.

A highlight was this Grass snake.

So the member's day started with activities in the morning and a choice of a long walk around the reserve, a short walk or an introduction to bird spotting. Well as it was such a sunny warm day it had to be the long walk. Potteric Carr is a lovely and huge reserve and we find new bits every time we go. It was nice to have a walk around with the visitor centre manager and learn some more facts about the place and where to see some nice species. A spring visit for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is being planned! The highlight of the walk was seeing some lovely Grass snakes!

After the walk it was back to the visitor centre for lunch. This was in the visitor centre cafe and the catering staff there made us a wonderful lunch, I ate loads as it was so good!

So then onto the afternoon when it was a series of talks including all of the AGM business. Well they were all really interesting. I was looking forward to the first one as it was Lindsey Chapman talking about some of her Unsprung experiences. The last time I saw Lindsey, Springwatch and my Dad had arranged a surprise while I was bird watching, and she presented me with an Unsprung Hero award (there's a link to it on the right >>>). There were some funny insights into the world of Unsprung and it made you appreciate how hard it is to pull the show together live! It was a great talk.

Very proud of this!

Then came the AGM bits. I didn't know if I'd enjoy these bits but it was interesting to learn about how the organisation works, where it gets its money and how it spends it as well as learning about some of the projects. We also had to vote in a couple of new board members.

Last speaker was Rob Stoneman, the Chief Executive and he gave a really powerful presentation about how important the work of the Wildlife Trust is, how fragile a lot of our habitats and environment is but also how some projects are working and making a difference.

Thanks so much YWT and Northwold

So it was a great day and I really enjoyed it but the best was still to come. I'd been working since the summer with YWT to produce a 2018 calendar using some photos I'd taken when I was on my 2016 challenge to visit all their reserves (there were too many and Yorkshire is too big - but I did get to around two thirds :-). Well I had been waiting for the calendars for a while as very kindly Northwold Print were doing them for me as half of the profits are going to YWT. The company is owned by one of the board directors Gurdev and he very kindly brought them with him that morning.

I was having a look through it and Jono and some of the YWT board members had a look through it with me. It looks really good! The photos are pretty good but the graphic design was done by Sally Henderson at YWT and it's made it look so much more professional than my last calendar, thanks Sally!

It was after this that Lindsey came over to have a catch up and we had a chat about some of the things I'd been up to. She was surprised how much I'd grown since the Unsprung Hero filming, but it was quite a while ago now. One of the things we talked about was the calendar, happily she really liked it, so much she asked if she could have it :-)

Well I wasn't going to say no and Lindsey was happy to have a photo taken with me. I never expected the first one to go to a celebrity or to get such a great endorsement! Thanks Lindsey.

Great to catch up with Lindsey
and so glad you like the calendar :-)

After saying goodbye to Lindsey we went off to see Richard in the shop to get a few calendars to bring home to sell and Richard will have them up for sale on the YWT website soon!

Have to say a big thanks to Jono, Sally, Richard and Gurdev for all the help - they look incredible and I'm really proud to see my photos in something so professional.

So a great day, and I was really glad to be part of it. It'll be a hard job to do a better event next year!

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.