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Help CPRE Kent in volunteers' week June 1-12 - it's fun!
By Tessa Woodward, CPRE Kent Membership Volunteer
CPRE Kent does fantastic work in our county to protect the countryside as well as campaign against aircraft noise, light pollution, environmental and transport concerns. We also promote tranquillity and a thriving rural sector with affordable housing and support for farming.
With more members and more volunteers we could do much more! So we are launching a volunteer and member drive. Will you help us?
Lots of people volunteer
After reading a piece in a magazine called ‘Country Living’ a while back, about people volunteering as helpers for riding for the disabled, as mountain rescuers, conservationists, and staff at bird observatories, I was reminded of how very many people volunteer with charities. Charitable associations as varied as hospices, prisons, brownie and cub-scout troupes depend on the goodwill, time and energy of volunteers. And many of us have benefited at some time or other in our turn from a helping hand offered by a neighbour or work colleague when children have needed picking up or lawns mown at fraught times!
Why volunteer?
So, why do people give of their time and energy for no pay? Partly out of an instinct for community no doubt, but also because we learn things, get the chance to do something interesting, enjoy the company, and find it meaningful! In one survey I saw it was even suggested that people who volunteered actually felt healthier and more cheerful as a result of volunteering!
Photos by Vicky Ellis
So, how do you start?
How do people become volunteers? Nine times out of ten people say it is “Because I was asked!” In other words it is not really ‘volunteering’ but rather ‘being invited to volunteer’. Please now consider yourself invited!
What do volunteers need?
Based on my own experience, I’d say important ingredients are: feeling good about a cause or an issue, being clear about what the task is, having a bit of time to contribute to it, having a skill or being prepared to learn a skill, having what a friend of mine calls team mindedness, that is, the willingness to work as a member of a team and, finally, a sense of responsibility about what we have promised to do.
Our stand at the Kent County Show 2015
What can make the experience rewarding from the volunteer’s point of view?
A sense of achievement, a bit of acknowledgement or recognition in the form of, say, a ’thank you’ from a team leader, the reward of belonging to a good team where you have a bit of fun, humour and celebration sometimes, personal and professional development gained from meeting new people and ideas and improving skills and a sense of meaning and purpose as you contribute your energy to protecting the English countryside. We promise to do our bit to make sure that our side of all this happens!
So how can I get started?
If you are interested in what you have read thus far and, like us, are passionate about the English countryside, why not get in touch with us? We are looking for volunteers who have a little time or lots of time!
Photos by Vicky Ellis
Examples of volunteer opportunities/things we need help with
Events
help by coming along and staffing a CPRE stall at a local event such as the Kent Show, vintage fairs, village fetes, farmers’ markets
help our office to organise an event such as a garden party, an awards event or a photographic competition
organise a litter pick in your area, take photos and send them in
start a community herb/wild flower garden, take photos and tell us all about it!
become our events co-ordinator
Membership
become a CPRE Kent member
buy gift CPRE memberships for friends and family for Christmas, birthdays, and thank you presents
help in the Charing office to follow up on contacts made at local events
Writing and communications
write a blog post for us on an aspect of the Kent countryside
do an email interview on ‘Why I became a CPRE member’, ‘Why I volunteer for CPRE’ or ‘Why I have decided to leave a legacy to CPRE’
contact your local newsletter or parish magazine and ask if we can write an article about CPRE, free, for its pages
Outreach
drop off issues of our periodical ‘Kent Voice’ and CPRE leaflets around your village/area
contact your Parish Council about it becoming an institutional member of CPRE
go into your local school and run one of our ‘Across the Generations’ projects for CPRE
send us the name of possible corporate sponsors you know
send us the name of any celebrity you know and would be willing to approach on our behalf
help us to join in with other conservation charities such as The Kent Wildlife Trust, or The Woodland Trust in their tree planting project
become our Outreach Volunteer
Donations
offer a prize for a CPRE raffle, quiz or awards ceremony
offer a donation once or regularly
tell us if you have special skills in e.g. photography, video editing, responding to planning applications, writing grant applications, competition judging
help protect the English countryside in future by offering us a legacy
Interested in these or other ideas? If so, come and join us! It’s fun!.
CPRE Kent is waiting to welcome you!
Contact Vicky Ellis on 01233 714540 or vicky.ellis@cprekent.org.uk
- A number of important documents have yet to emerge. For example, a rigorous transport plan and a finalised air-quality assessment. The latter is critical given that allocations at Teynham will feed extra traffic into AQMAs.
- There seems to be no coherent plan for infrastructure delivery – a key component of the plan given the allocations being proposed near the already crowded Junction 7.
- There seems to have been little or no cooperation with neighbouring boroughs or even parish councils within Swale itself.
The removal of a second consultation might have been understandable if this final version of the plan were similar to that being talked about at the beginning of the consultation process. It is, however, radically different in the following ways:
- There has been a major shift in the balance of housing allocations, away from the west of the borough over to the east, especially around the historic town of Faversham. This is a move that raises many concerns.
- A new large allocation, with accompanying A2 bypass, has appeared around Teynham and Lynsted, to which we are objecting.
- Housing allocations in the AONB around Neames Forstal that were judged “unsuitable” by the council’s own officers have now appeared as part of the housing numbers.
- Most of the housing allocations being proposed are on greenfield sites, many of them on Grade 1 agricultural land – a point to which we are strongly objecting.
Concerns about the rush to submit the plan
The haste with which the plan is being prepared is especially worrying given the concentration of housing in Faversham. If the town is to take a large amount of new housing, it is imperative that the policies concerning the area are carefully worked out to preserve, as far as possible, the unique nature of the town. The rush to submit the plan is likely to prove detrimental.
As Swale does not have a five-year land housing supply, it is open to speculative development proposals, many of which would run counter to the ideas contained in the current plan. Some are already appearing. This is a common situation, and one that, doubtless, is a reason behind Swale’s haste.
Our overriding fear, however, is that this emphasis on haste is ultimately going to prove counterproductive. This is because it is our view that the plan, in its current form, is unlikely to pass independent examination. We are urging Swale to listen to and act upon the comments being made about the plan and to return the plan to the council with appropriate modifications before submitting it to the Secretary of State.
Essentially, this means treating the current consultation not as the final one but as the ‘lost’ second consultation.
The consultation ends on Friday 30 April and we strongly urge residents to make their opinions known if they have not already done so.
Further information
