Volunteering with wildlife trusts transforms quarries into wetlands restoring nature and purpose while also making friends.

We visit North Cave Wetlands to see how a former quarry is becoming a thriving reserve and how volunteering can restore both landscapes and a sense of purpose. Marie from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Emma, a long-time volunteer, share roles, training, and stories that make getting involved easy and rewarding.

• Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s scale, history, and 115 reserves
• How North Cave Wetlands grew from quarry to haven
• Volunteer roles from habitat work to education
• Livestock checking and conservation grazing explained
• Public engagement at Spurn lighthouse and Living Seas Centre
• Training in ID skills, surveys, peatland, and youth work
• Office and digital roles for all abilities
• Finding meaning after retirement through nature and community
• The UK-wide Wildlife Trusts federation and advocacy power
• Practical steps to start small and get involved

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Transcript

Why Volunteering After Retirement

Derm Tanner 0:00

Hello, welcome to another episode of Grey Matters More, the antidote to the retirement blues. Suddenly got rather more time on your hands than you're used to. Not sure how you're going to fill those days effectively. Perhaps you're missing some social interaction. Well, maybe this podcast can help. We spent months talking to charities, companies, and sports clubs who are all after volunteers. I'm Derm Tanner,

Discovering Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Roy Player 0:24

and I'm Roy Player,

Derm Tanner 0:25

In this episode, we're off to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. I say we, but actually, I stayed at home, I think, on that one. Although I love nature, I really don't know one end of a bird from the other.

Roy Player 0:39

Well, I'm not saying really I do. I mean I enjoy being outside. I know you do Derm as well. You do your cycling and stuff, and I do lots of walking, and really this was off the back of one of our dear former colleagues actually at the BBC, Rod Jones, who does a blog for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. I mean, and he please do check it out actually, because he is absolutely brilliant at writing and he takes you to those places in his words. Fantastic, and his photography as well, outstanding. So he kind of inspired me to get in, you know, get in touch with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. So I did, I have to be honest, I didn't really know anything about them Derm, actually, you know.

Derm Tanner 1:16

So that's part of what this is about for us as well, isn't it?

North Cave Wetlands Explained

Roy Player 1:19

Absolutely, and the extraordinary thing was so just doesn't mean retirement, although it's the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, there are 47 branches across the whole country, which includes the head office as well. Wow. So there's plenty of opportunities for people to get involved around the whole country. A thousand volunteers again help them out, which is you know another amazing number of people again, you know, behind the scenes, but meeting people, clearing paths and all those kind of things, getting getting your hands dirty. What again I found was that they've kind of been protecting Yorkshire wildlife for around about eighty years. Beaches, Countryside are involved in all of these things, city centres as well, and if you live in Yorkshire, and I'm sure this is the case around the country as well, but if you live in Yorkshire, they say that you are never further than twenty miles away from one of their reserves.

Marie Feeks 2:12

Hello, I'm Marie Feeks, and I'm the volunteering support manager for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

Emma Dorber 2:18

Hello, I'm Emma Dorber. I am a volunteer for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and I've been volunteering since 2016.

Roy Player 2:27

That's fantastic, what an outstanding morning, we're very lucky. We're just coming towards the end of September, and we've got a beautiful day here. A little bit of mist as well, just floating across the water, which makes this place look even more breathtaking. But please, Marie, just do explain to everyone where we are because I'd never heard of this place until you said to me, Come here and let's meet.

Marie Feeks 2:51

So we're currently at North Cave Wetlands, which is just not too far away from Market Weighton over in East Yorkshire. It's a wetlands nature reserve that belongs to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It's full of lots of wonderful bird species, and it's a real haven for wildlife in this area, and it's fantastic because it's got lots of you know different habitats here, lots of lakes, but lots of trees and little bits of sort of scrubby areas as well, so it's wonderful and it's forever growing as well. It will stop at some point, but we're there's a local sort of quarrying company and they're constantly extracting things for for use, and then they're giving back the land to nature conservation.

Roy Player 3:45

I was gonna say, because this didn't always look like this, did it? Now this was this was a quarry, so that maybe brings me on to a little bit more about what Yorkshire Wildlife Trust does, because I imagine that if we'd have sat here a few years ago, this wouldn't have looked like this, and also you're expanding as well, aren't you, because of the availability of more land to take the wetlands even further?

The Trust’s History and Scale

Marie Feeks 4:08

Yeah, so the trust as a whole, I mean the trust is almost 80 years old. We were set up in 1946 with our first nature reserve, Askham Bog over in York, and it's very much born of volunteers, the trust, it was called the Yorkshire Naturalists Union back in 1946, and we changed names I can't remember precisely when, but we did change names perhaps maybe 60s, 70s time, and you know the trust came from being sort of run by a couple of people, handful of people, to what we are today. So today we've got over 900 volunteers that support our work. From that one nature reserve, Askham Bog, we've now got 115 nature reserves that we own and help to manage. We've got 200 staff as well, so an army of people combined with our staff and our volunteers, and we're not just looking after our own nature reserves, we're also working in partnership with other landowners, be that sort of you know government agencies or private landowners, because you know it's really important that we're working at landscape scale. It isn't just our nature reserves that we're sort of helping to restore and protect, but we're helping other people within communities, whether that's landowners or people that live there to you know work with nature, not against it.

A Volunteer’s Path: Emma’s Story

Roy Player 5:42

We mentioned here already about volunteers, so it seems really, Emma, that we've got to bring it into this conversation now, this moment. Being a volunteer, what what on earth made you decide to get involved with doing this?

Emma Dorber 5:56

Well, I'd retired from my previous career and decided I wanted to have a a new career. It's partly because I had lots of elderly relatives and I wanted to be able to help look after them. But I also felt I wanted a new career and I've always you know loved being outside and going walking and mountain biking, and I was really interested sort of in ecology and environmental science. So I started volunteering initially at Flamborough. So Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has got a centre there, the Living Sea Centre, and it's brilliant, it's a small building, but it's amazing what is produced from there. So they they do lots of school trips, home education, holiday sort of clubs, and they've got a classroom there where there's all sorts of education, lots of it's free, people can just turn up. So I got involved in that, and there was a great team of people there. We, and it's still carrying on now. We have a great time, and we go rock pooling, we do litter picks, we do beach art, and we've also at North Landing, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has got an area there as well, so there's beautiful grassland up there, which has got amazing botany, and then obviously you've got the seabirds there, so you've got the seabird city. S o on Sunday afternoons when the seabirds are there, we show visitors the the seabirds through scopes, and sometimes we go on the fishing cobbles and show them from there as well, and then we have amazing puffin festival that's been going for a few years now, which is just amazing. It's a weekend and it's just fabulous. So it's yeah, I mean that's that's an epic event, isn't it, really?

Roles Range From Rock Pools To Puffins

Roy Player 7:39

This sounds extraordinary. Now come come back to you, Marie. I mean it's this thing of you you talk about you have over a hundred sites now, and it, it, it seems that obviously 200 members of staff. But volunteers like Emma are invaluable to the project, it must take some organisation.

Marie Feeks 7:57

Yeah, no, definitely. So, you know, our volunteers are the heart of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. There's so much of our work that we wouldn't be able to get done without the help of our volunteers. You know, we rely upon them not just to come out and to support our work but also their skills, their experience, their expertise that they bring to the trust. It's fantastic, and we just wouldn't be able to get the stuff done that we're able to. We've got a whole plethora of roles that people can get involved in. So you know, people can come and do practical conservation volunteering. That probably is our most popular role. People coming out to get involved with things on nature reserves.

Roy Player 8:41

Do you need any experience to do things like that or just a a love of the outside and being around people and,

Marie Feeks 8:49

Just a love of the outside, want to get stuck in. I mean, we go you know, sort of probably about 360 odd days a year. You know, people do sort of come out in all weathers, and you know, it is just that willingness to get stuck in and involved. You don't have to know like anything really about nature conservation or habitat management. We've got skilled staff and experienced volunteers who can sort of help people come along and join in and and quickly feel part of a real welcoming and warm team of volunteers.

Roy Player 9:27

Its across a sort of a wide age range as well, because I think although we're principally looking, Emma, at kind of people who've maybe made redundant or thinking about retirement and stuff, it you, you don't want to be surrounded constantly by old fogies like myself. It would be quite nice to be around young people and people learn off of each other as as, as well. Have you found that?

Emma Dorber 9:49

Yeah, and the brilliant thing about when I first retired and went to the Living Sea Centre is it had lots of young people as well. So it was a really broad mix of people who were teenagers, who were tomorrow's natural leaders. It was a sort of a project at the time, wasn't it? With and there were sort of trainees as well. So we had a really wide range, and I still see them now because there's quite a few of them who are actually employed by the trust now, and some of them have gone on to be teachers. So it's been it was really lovely, and that's ongoing that we do mix with people of all ages, and that's really enriching for both sides, you know, both a age and ends of the spectrum really. So yeah, there are old codgers like us, but but there are lots of youngsters as well.

Roy Player 10:35

Which is brilliant because you just sort of share stories and you share experiences as well, and it's great. I mean I'm looking at the list of things that you have available for volunteers to get involved in. I mean, apologies for looking at my notes here, but it is it's quite extreme. A livestock checker. Yeah lighthouse, right? Yeah, okay, and well cafe and conservation task days as well. So it's a huge range of things. Please tell me a little bit more about a livestock checker, first of all.

Marie Feeks 11:08

Yeah, sure. So the trust has its sort of own fairy conservation offices as well, gorgeous. I'm sure our livestock manager Karen wouldn't want me to describe them in that way, but yeah, so we've got a flock of Hebridean sheep, we have Highland cattle, we have ponies as well, and we've even been using a local grazier's goats as well at Wheldrake and Cali Heath So, yeah, we've got an army of four-legged furry conservation officers. So they help with our conservation grazing program. So, you know, they go in and they eat the stuff that we don't necessarily want to be growing. Well, the animals, yeah, not the volunteers. I mean, they might do, but you know, they could be foraging, but no. So, yeah, we have our own livestock that help to sort of keep it.

Roy Player 12:05

This really is a broad canvas, isn't it?

Marie Feeks 12:07

Yeah, it is, yeah.

Roy Player 12:08

You've got the lighthouse, is that at Spurn? Is that is that really?

Marie Feeks 12:12

Yeah, so yeah, yeah.

Roy Player 12:13

I mean, I've now have a I have now have a vision here of, of, of Emma sat in the top of the lighthouse, you know, left alone at night, sort of turning the light round. Is is that what it is?

Marie Feeks 12:23

No, it isn't. So it's a a public engagement role, so it's you know a volunteer role where people will engage with our visitors. So the lighthouse down at Spurn is such a wonderful building. You know, at Spurn we've got lots of things going on that entice visitors down there. There's the maritime history, the wartime history, the nature conservation, and then just the heritage as well of the site and the lighthouse as part of that. So, yeah, our volunteers who sit in the lighthouse they will talk to people about the history of the lighthouse and other aspects of Spurn as well, so yeah, it's a it's a lovely you need to be tough skinned, it's quite cold in the lighthouse. You need to be wrapped up warm, but yeah, they're they're definitely not at the top turning the light round. I don't think the light actually even works anymore, if I'm honest.

Roy Player 13:20

But again, you know, something about this when we're talking about young and old and whether you're a volunteer, but also then as Marie just says, about meeting people and telling stories and passing on information. So it trying to encourage young and old to actually come and visit the sites as as as well. Do you find that important as a role of as as volunteers?

Emma Dorber 13:41

I mean, that when I first started volunteering for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, that was the main part of it, really, with the Living Seas Centre and the Peering at Puffins and the Puffin Festival, that's huge. I mean, there's other roles that I do, like the stock check, where when they're when the stock are at Scum Wetlands, that's my Sunday morning job on the on the rota. But then it's actually a bit scary when the because I usually go really early in the morning and I go and check the girls and they're they're all okay, and suddenly you bump into somebody, it's like, well, this is my nature reserve because it's early in the morning, done. I mean, actually, some of it is if you're on a tar stay, like yesterday I was at North Cliffe Woods just up the road, and we were sort of clearing lots of trees and things for the paths and creating a wetland, like recreating the pond area. But it was great because there's loads of people there, and you're chatting away to them and actually, we've had got quite a few volunteers just through chatting to people who love the area and and go around the same at Skern as well. So I volunteer at Skern and it's not that well visited there, but we've had quite a few volunteers who've just been wandering around and seeing us. So, oh that looks good, fun, you know, I'll come along.

Roy Player 14:48

This is a huge organisation. We're not just based in well, you're not just based in Yorkshire, are you? This goes across the whole country.

Public Engagement and Heritage

Marie Feeks 14:55

So, yeah, so there's a federation of wildlife trusts, so we're one of 46 wildlife trusts in the UK, and each one of us is our own individual charity that's working, you know, just specifically for the areas that we're covering. But together, you know, we are a united force, you know, we come together to work on sort of campaigns and other aspects as well, and as a federation, we can say that across the UK we've got almost a million members combined, almost 40,000 volunteers as well across the whole federation, and you know, when it comes to big topics, it's it's huge, isn't it, to say that we've got all of these people behind us supporting nature and connecting wanting to connect people with nature as well. So it can be a huge lobbying tool as well you know, when it comes to us all standing up together for nature restoration in the UK. So yeah, it's incredibly important to be part of that federation.

Roy Player 16:04

One of the reasons for doing this podcast and the three of us, and we've mentioned this before, but Derm and Chris, we've talked about this before with other people that we've met, is that sense of when you've been, you know, in a job and then suddenly it stops and you wake up the following morning and you suddenly think, Oh, what am I gonna do? You know, great, okay, I don't have to get up to go to work, but it's it's that thing of okay, after a little while, what purpose am I serving? I know it sounds a bit melodramatic, but you do feel but it you do so this this sounds as though this is something from that thing about having taken retirement. It's really nice to have that sense of achievement that you're actually doing something that is really worthwhile.

Emma Dorber 16:42

Well, to be part of Yorkshire Wildlife just I suppose it's become a way of life for me, really. I mean I've gone back to Uni, so I'm doing a degree in environmental science and

Roy Player 16:50

Because of having volunteered for this sort of art.

Emma Dorber 16:53

Yes, I think when I first retired, I was probably a bit overwhelmed with sick relatives, and then so I just sort of dipped my toe in and started doing bits at Flamborough, and then it's sort of yeah, I thought, oh that sounds that sounds good. The Dupont Project sounds good, and then there's all these other little shiny things that look really good fun, and there was there were a couple of people who'd done degrees as mature students, and I thought, do you know what? I, I need to do that because I realised how, how little I knew about what I was sort of trying to teach children, and they're so knowledgeable, and I thought I need to be one step ahead. So, so I started, and oh, you did environmental science.

Marie Feeks 17:31

I did exactly the same. You did the same course that you've done at the same college and

National Federation and Advocacy Power

Emma Dorber 17:36

I yeah, so I started at Bishop Burton College t he same year you did, you did, but then because of my sick relatives, I just couldn't commit to the same day, so I transferred the credits I got from there to OU. So I've now doing OU doing it part-time, so I'm in my halfway through my final year now. So yeah, it's just become aware of life, am yeah, it's I suppose it this probably sounds a bit sad, but it's who I am really. I'm out there, you know, doing stuff and doing but I'm I'm off to do a butterfly survey today because I can just get my last butterfly survey end of the day at Kiplingcotes. Because I know that and then for the and,

Roy Player 18:14

Then what did you do before

Emma Dorber 18:15

I was a GP.

Roy Player 18:16

So this is very different.

Emma Dorber 18:18

It's very different, yeah. I love it, it's very different. I'm so fortunate that I've had this opportunity to have a new career. I mean, okay, the pay's not as good, but I don't care. But it's like I feel like I'm a child in a sweetie shop. It's like there's too many sweeties, and it's like, oh, oh, what do I and I've had to yeah, there's some yeah, some things I've had to say, okay, right, I really can't fit that in.

Roy Player 18:43

If I can ask you, Marie, I mean, sort of from from your side of things, what what benefits do you see that the volunteers get when they come and knock on your door and say, Can I be a part of this?

Finding Purpose After Work Ends

Marie Feeks 18:54

I mean, I'm just like sitting here grinning at what Emma's just been talking about because you know, Emma's story is is quite similar to a lot of our volunteers. People will come for lots of different reasons to volunteer. We all have our own individual motivations for doing that. But a lot of people come because they've got something to give, they might not know what it is at that particular time, and they want to learn and be part of something that's meaningful as well. So there's all sorts of benefits to coming to volunteer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. You know, there's lots of wonderful people to learn from because there's lots of experts within our staff and our volunteer team. There's just that being outside in nature is a wonderful benefit for somebody's physical and mental health well-being as well. So not only will you get lots of skills and experience from coming to volunteer and taking part in the particular role that you're doing, but we have a wonderful training programme as well that's free to our volunteers so people can come and learn about volunteer management best practice, surveying and ID skills for sort of botany, the short search role that Emma mentioned that she does, sort of upland vegetation as well, so peatland stuff, because we've got a big Peatland programme, restoration program, and like yeah, through to even sort of learning skills on working with young people as well.

Roy Player 20:31

But for some people who don't want to go out in the in the cold and the wet, perhaps people that aren't able to walk as far, and sort of would it be like maybe would be a huge benefit if they organise events or social media. But are those sort of opportunities available for people as well who are happier perhaps working in an office than behind a computer?

Training, Skills, Office, Digital, and Education Roles and Well Being

Marie Feeks 20:52

Yeah, so we do have some office-based roles in the volunteering team. We're fortunate to have two wonderful volunteers, Jane and James, and they help with a lot of our data entry, so from volunteer timesheets through to registering new people, so helping to put all of this data on the database. We have volunteers that help in our nature recovery directorate and they answer a lot of inquiries from people to do with wildlife things that they've seen, species that they might have seen, taken a photograph of, and would like to help sort of ID what those particular things are, helping with planning, queries, that kind of stuff, and then we do have digital volunteers as well that help with some of our online sort of social media things through some of our projects or elements of our work as well. We have wonderful volunteers that help to tell our stories as well and write stories about the trust, and it could be anything from volunteering through to projects, programmes of work. Work, key members of staff sometimes as well, sort of profiling them. So we have four volunteers that help us to write blogs and that shares our work far and wide as well.

Roy Player 22:13

Do you have volunteers that go out to schools or do schools do you have to organise events where schools come to you?

Marie Feeks 22:21

We don't ordinarily go out to schools and have like a huge outreach program. We do have members of staff that will go and work with particular schools that they might have relationships built up with. But generally what happens is that we have school groups come to us to some of our sites. So where we have there are nature discovery centres, so at Potteric Carr, sometimes at Spurn, and then Emma mentioned the, the Living Seas Event Centre as well. So they're places where we will have school or educational groups come out to us and take part in something that's linked to the national curriculum and volunteers just like Emma help to support and facilitate those visits when school children come out to us.

Roy Player 23:09

I think finally I was absolutely amazed to read that you're probably no further than 20 miles from a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. What would you say to people who are sat at home at the moment, sat on their couch, what advice would you give to them finally about thinking, you know, not that far away from these beautiful places?

Marie Feeks 23:30

What is there not to love about being outdoors amongst nature, amongst beautiful trees? I mean we're looking at green trees at the moment, but even in the winter, the outdoors and nature reserves have got something wonderful to offer. It's just good for your soul to be outdoors and to to take part in something that is meaningful because you know we need we need our planet, we need nature, and it's a really lovely way to get back and to to get to give something back and to feel good about yourself both mentally and physically, and we're a real friendly bunch. You know I've worked here for almost 15 years and you know it fills me with absolute joy to come and talk and to spend time with people like Emma and all of our other volunteers as well, so yeah, you'd have a good laugh as well and be made to feel welcome, that's for sure.

Roy Player 24:36

So Emma, I mean, if someone has been made redundant, thinking about retirement, taken retirement, what sort of little gem or of advice would you give to someone who's thinking about volunteering?

Emma Dorber 24:51

I would say, like I said before, just just dip your toe in and just just give it a go. Because there's so many different roles, and even if you're not the most physically able, there's you know, there's one lady who's had a fall and she's struggling to get back on her feet, and she ties knots for us so that we can tie willow bundles together. So there's always things that people can do, or they can do office work, or you know, there's so many different things that you can do, such a huge variety of things, and yeah, this is a wonderful bunch of people. We do have fun, we work really hard, but we have really good fun when we do it.

Roy Player 25:29

It sounds absolutely fantastic. Thank you both so so much. I mean, this has been inspirational, I think. Thank you both so much for being a part of this.

Emma Dorber 25:36

You're very welcome. Very well, it's a pleasure.

Derm Tanner 25:40

Emma and Marie keeping Roy at bay there on the way. You did sound like you had a fantastic day, to be fair.

Roy Player 25:47

Oh, it was beautiful. I mean, the, the only thing which I curse Emma about was that the Bacon butty van wasn't there that day. So I was really looking forward to my cup of coffee and bacon butty, but they do there are certain days that is there. It's a beautiful walk around the site. It was a former quarry, as Emma mentioned, and, and the thing is that you, you know that will grow. They, they will keep investing in, in time, not necessarily financially, but they'll keep investing as the quarries stop working. They're going to get more land next to it, and this will grow and grow, and so do please support them. It's fantastic what they do. They manage not Yorkshire, but the Wildlife Trust manages 115 sites across the country. So there's an awful lot of sites there, and so please do get involved. It's amazing what they achieve. People, as we walked around, were you know sort of taking photos of the birds and and and just spending ,just quality time really, and just to say as well, if you're interested in volunteering, it's not just cleaning the paths and things, it's also they go into schools and they educate young people about the importance of looking after our nature, and it's a really cathartic experience, actually.

Derm Tanner 27:15

You've been listening to Grey Matters More, produced and presented by Roy Player and Derm Tanner. Please don't forget to like, follow, or subscribe. That way you'll never miss an episode.