Volunteering is Caring

It is Volunteers’ Week and we would like to celebrate all our volunteers and invite people to volunteer for us but also with other organisations.

An important aspect of raising biodiversity and environmental awareness as we do at BEES is to promote other environmental organisations and invite individuals to volunteer for them for the protection of wildlife and their habitats.

There are several ways to get involved with volunteering. You could visit your local nature reserve and get involved with them with conservation work, with their education team or with running their visitor centres. Take a look at their opportunities on their website: Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Norfolk Wildlife Trust, National Trust or RSPB for instance.

Taking part in surveys is another example and such a valuable help to better protect species. Before the 15th of June for instance, you can take part in the National Water Vole Monitoring Programme, organised by the People’s Trust for endangered species. Water voles are disappearing, and they need your help.

You could also help us. If you are interested in helping us, you can find out more here and/or contact us at contact@beeanatureguide.org.uk.

We would like to take this opportunity to say a BIG THANK YOU to all our past and current volunteers, for all their help, big or small, at all level. It has been challenging to set up and run our amazing BEE A Nature Guide course programme and you have given us the support and energy to keep going so we could pursue our mission.

BEES.

Happy International Women's Day!

The 8th of March is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women, promote equality and #EmbraceEquity. Here at BEES we would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the hard work of one of our volunteers - Laura Benstead, who recently stepped up to become a trustee of the charity. You can learn a little bit about Laura (and our other trustees) here.

You can also learn a bit more about International Women's Day by clicking on the links below:

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Convention on Biological Diversity - #DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality

Merry Christmas and Happy 2023

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at BEES!

It has been another busy year for all of us at BEES and we have received some great feedback from our participants and teachers.

What did we do in 2022?

In 2022 we finished the last courses with some great outdoor sessions led by our teachers.

Looking at bryophytes during one of our outdoor practical sessions

Our first leadership skills sessions allowed our participants to lead parts of a guided walk, we shared ideas and enjoyed learning from everyone's varying styles of leadership. All participants did a fantastic job during these sessions, and we received encouraging comments from our teachers. "Each member presented their sessions in their own style and succeeded in delivering a well-planned session that was interesting and informative”, SR.

Guided walk led by one of our teachers

Interested in the course?

At the time of writing, we cannot give you a starting date for our next cohorts. Because of the pandemic, the first year of our first training course programme has had to be extended over 2022. We are currently focussing on our first cohort in Suffolk and Norfolk, and taking all their feedback into account to continuously improve our course programme. But we will keep our subscribers informed by email as well as on our blog in the coming months. If you are still interested in registering on the course by that time, we will provide you with booking details to finalise your place on the next course. Thank you to everybody who has registered their interest already and those of you who have contacted us and have not had any response yet, we will get back to you soon.

Every little helps

If you like what we are doing and would like to support us from where you are, please make a donation here! Every contribution will help us to carry on providing a high quality training course. We are all volunteers and make no profit from the BEE a Nature Guide training course.

A big thank you again to our partners, teachers, participants, volunteers and followers for making this journey all worth it.

Keep on enjoying the outdoors and learning about nature.

We wish you all a wonderful festive season.

From all of us at BEES.