I thought I’d write a wee blog to thank everyone who has come to volunteer for us this year. However, if you’ve volunteered in a previous year, please don’t be remotely offended if you’ve not found your name in a blog like this – it’s literally only because I have a few spare minutes and Ruth (blog master) is sitting next to me… so probably time I wrote a blog once again. Gotta keep her sweet…
Volunteering this year has had a slightly different feel to it, as the Paddocks normally take up a considerable amount of a volunteer’s time each day; poo-picking, sweeping, opening and closing them each day, chatting to visitors out there… But this year that aspect has vanished completely, so volunteers have been able to be a bit more ‘relaxed’ during their week, sometimes not starting until gone 10am. Unheard of in the past! Although sadly this luxury was not afforded to us full-time herders… Volunteers this year have therefore spent the majority of their time helping us on the Hill Trips, usually twice a day, with rather less time spent pottering about down at the Centre.
Normally we take volunteers each year from May to October, but long-term regular volunteer Emm is afforded special status, often coming outwith these months. She managed three stints this year, and you’ll find many blogs over the years from her on our website, the most recent (at time of writing) being here. We love having Emm here to volunteer!
I’ve just peered at the wall calendar here in the office and counted 26 other volunteers who gave up a week of their time to come and help us this year – as ever from all walks of life and ranging in age from 18 to late 60s (I’m guessing – apologies if I’ve offended and congratulations if I’ve flattered!). We love this range of people from all walks of life – it’s much more interesting for us to have a stream of totally different people here every week than it would be to get people all of like mind.
Of those 26 people 12 were returnees, which I guess means we must be doing something right! There’s an element of apprehension for us on a Monday morning when a ‘new’ volunteer is due to arrive, not knowing what to expect of someone – the scant info we gather in the application form only goes so far to give us an idea of what someone will be like. This year everyone, new or returnee, has been absolutely wonderful though, so we never needed to worry.
So huge thanks must go to all 26 lovely volunteers, in order only of when they visited: Victoria, Jayne (who wrote a lovely blog you can read here – thanks Jayne!), Anne, Kerry, Rachel C, Marcus, Stephanie, Anna, Wendy, Aleksandra, Becca, Rachel S, Jocelyn, Nora, Caitlin, Katie, Callum, Helen, Christine, Karen, Sharon, Colin, Sophie, Lisa, Emily and Brenda. You are all amazing! A special shout-out to Nora, who at 18 was our youngest volunteer but also the furthest travelled – having persuaded family to come on holiday to Scotland from Washington D.C. in the States, so she could spend a week of that time with us!
Another person to mention is 14 year old Maisie, who lives locally and is the daughter of family friends of the Smiths. This year Maisie has been joining us on some days in the school holidays and has been wonderful, super chatty and sociable for such a young lass, and always keen to get involved and help out. She’s also very fit, being into lots of outdoor sports, so puts me to shame anytime I’m on the hill with her!
And the final person to mention who’s a constant help throughout the year is Carol. Carol started out as an adopter, living relatively locally, and has progressed to being a regular volunteer, helping on the Hill Trips most weekends. She has finely honed her hand-feeding talk over the years and now has the groups listening with bated breath!
For anyone reading this that is thinking that a week’s reindeer herding sounds like a fit for them, why not come and join us?! We start booking in each season’s volunteers each January, so drop us an email then if you’re interested and we’ll send you an application form. We can’t provide accommodation unfortunately, but there is both a campsite and a youth hostel within a couple of hundred metres, not to mention a huge amount of other accommodation elsewhere in the area.
But finally, I will finish on a sad note. Our wonderful long term volunteer Paul, who visited for a fortnight twice a year for around 25 years, initially with wife Pat – sadly passed away in his mid-eighties this summer. Paul was a retired joiner and so built all sorts of things here over the years, mixed all the feed for the reindeer and generally made everything wobbly and creaky into something strong and stable. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey, keeping us constantly entertained with his stories, and did his best to get us all drunk in the evening at least once during each stay! We will miss him hugely.
To you, good sir, we raise a dram.
Hen