This has been my final month as a Froglife Trainee on the Come Forth for Wildlife project and I am sad to see it end! The past year has disappeared so quickly and sometimes I feel like I have barely begun, but as I have been looking back over the year it is crazy to see how much I have actually achieved and managed to squeeze into one year. This is especially true given the limitations inflicted by Covid-19 restrictions, which we managed to make up for with a very busy summer of delivering events!
This year I have gained so much experience delivering a whole host of different public engagement activities, in particular taking responsibility for our Wildlife Gardening Workshops. I am also really pleased to have completed the Loch Lomond habitat project which was a collaboration with RSPB Scotland. This was a big project and took a lot of work, but in the end we managed to create a large wetland network which will be fantastic for biodiversity in the years to come.
On top of delivering activities and habitat works, I’ve been able to get involved in so many additional areas which have been of interest to me. I have undertaken training courses to develop my skills in social media, amphibian and reptile surveying, project management, GIS and more. I have had opportunities to write numerous blogs and articles which I really enjoy, I was responsible for managing Froglife’s Instagram account for 10 months, and most exciting of all I was given the opportunity to design and run an event at COP26. I worked hard to plan my pond-themed activities and develop an innovative stall highlighting how important ponds are for biodiversity and tackling climate change, with lots of support from the wider Froglife team. We delivered the event on November 1st at COP26 and it was an amazing, once in a lifetime experience!
My year as a Froglife Trainee has been great, and I have had so much support from my colleagues in the Come Forth for Wildlife Team as well as the wider Froglife team. It is impossible to discuss every element on my Traineeship in these blogs as they would go on forever, but I have really enjoyed sharing my highlights from each month. I am also very pleased to announce that although my Traineeship is now coming to an end, I will be continuing with Froglife as the Discovering Reptiles Project Officer. I have loved working for Froglife and I am very excited to carry on. The Traineeship has prepared me perfectly for taking this next step into a Project Officer role and I can’t wait to get started in this next stage of my career!