BRITISH TRUST FOR CONSERVATION VOLUNTEERS

BTCV is the UK's largest practical conservation charity. Founded in 1959, we help over 130,000 volunteers take hands-on action to improve the rural and urban environment. BTCV in the North West aims to support individuals and communities in taking voluntary action to improve and sustain their local environment.

Our purpose is to ensure that the potential of voluntary action for the environment is fully realised.

Our vision is of a world where people value their environment and take practical action to improve it.

Within the Cheshire region, BTCV organises a well-established, year-round programme of volunteering and training opportunities and provides support for community-led environmental action in many forms. We also provide practical conservation land management services to landowners and managers of all kinds and work in partnership with a wide range of groups and organisations to raise awareness of conservation issues and develop opportunities for volunteering and community involvement.

Volunteers have the option of getting involved in several different ways:

• On weekdays as part of our Midweek Conservation Volunteer Groups;
  
• At weekends with one of the Cheshire region's local weekend conservation volunteer groups which are independent groups, but associated with BTCV through our group membership scheme;
  
• Or, alternatively by booking on to one of our 'Natural Break' working holidays which are either weekend or full week-long breaks run as part of BTCV's national and international programme of conservation holidays. (Our global Conservation Holidays programme won the BA Tourism for Tomorrow 2000 Award for environmental experience.)

Training opportunities with BTCV include:

• Short courses courses from our North West Training Programme which may run midweek or at weekends and can be of between one and four days duration,
  
• Career development opportunities within BTCV's local team where vacancies usually exist for full or part-time Volunteer Officers who help run our projects and are supported through a personal training and development programme,
  
• Midweek group training courses as approved and certificated by the BTCV Institute for Environmental Conservation (BIEC) - an national initiative between BTCV and Broxtow College.
  
• As BTCV owns no land of its own, our capacity to run conservation volunteering and training programmes is dependent on our ability to meet the needs of the many landowners and managers who invite us to help plan and/or implement conservation projects on their land each year. We regularly undertake such work on behalf of local authority conservation officers and countryside management services, other voluntary sector conservation organisations (including the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and the
  Woodland Trust), parish councils, local wildlife and amenity groups, schools, businesses and individual private landowners.

As a result of the successful partnerships we have with this range of landowners and managers, our volunteer work programmes can be satisfyingly varied. For example, a typical year might include:

• Woodland management tasks such as thinning or coppicing, rhododendron or sycamore control and group felling and re-planting, together with any new woodland planting which may come our way.
  
• Pond creation and management work - each year we build at least a couple of new school ponds and help manage many more in country parks, urban areas, villages and on farmland.
  
• Hedgerow management, which could include planting new mixed hedgerows, gapping-up or coppicing where necessary and, of course, hedgelaying in the local Cheshire style
  
• Creating and managing wildflower grasslands - often creating exciting new wildflower landscapes in areas long managed as a close-mown urban "green desert"
  
• Heathland or mossland work which may involve controlling birch or willow scrub, or perhaps installing dams or sluices to control mossland water levels
  
• Construction projects such as pond dipping platforms or birdwatching hides which allow people to enjoy wildlife safely and with minimal disturbance as well as other access improvements such as boardwalks, footbridges, steps, and path drainage and surfacing which can help limit damage to sensitive pathside vegetation.
  
• Other boundary management work- which could involve Fencing projects using post and wire, post and rail, chainlink or palings, or even drystone walling work - just whatever is required to keep the relevant populations of wildlife, livestock or people in or out as necessary!
  

BTCV's local project work makes a contribution to the implementation of Local Habitat Action Plans for:

• Ancient and/or Species-rich Hedgerows
  
• Ancient Semi-Natural Broadleaved Woodland
  
• Ponds
  
• Peatland
  
• Heathland
  
• Limebeds
  

BTCV have also been directly involved in work contributing to the implementation of Local Species Action Plans for the Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) and the Black Poplar (Populus nigra subsp. Betulifolia)

BTCV in the Cheshire region are actively involved in supporting community-led environmental action ranging from local weekend conservation volunteer groups involved in many sites, through 'Friends' groups concerned with individual sites, to youth groups and other interest groups who have no specific sites or experience but would simply like to be involved in a conservation project. Through working in partnership on projects such as the Community Contracting Initiative with The Mersey Forest Team, the Chester and District Festival of Trees and a variety of local authority initiatives, additional resources are available for us to assist many of these groups. BTCV has also received £6.4 million from the New Opportunities Fund to run a five-year grant programme in partnership with English Nature called People's Places, designed to help local communities create or improve green spaces. BTCV group membership is open to local and community groups who carry out practical conservation work.

For more information contact:
Pete Attwood, BTCV, Trafford Watermill, Warrington Road, Mickle Trafford, CHESTER CH2 4EB
Tel: 01244 300230
Fax 01244 300521
E-mail: [email protected]
BTCV National Website: www.btcv.org
BTCV North West Website: www.btcv.org/northwest
SEE ALSO THE BTCV SPECIAL LANDSCAPES PROJECT
BTCV in Cheshire is supported by:

REGISTERED OFFICE: BTCV, 36 St Mary's Street, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 0EU.
BTCV is registered in England as a limited company No. 976410 and as a registered charity No. 261009