We are honoured to have such dedicated volunteers in the Great Fen. Three of these have had their hard work rightly recognised with awards at the recent AGM. Here we meet Caroline Lewis...

Caroline Lewis, a Community and Education volunteer, Conservation volunteer and Great Fen Ranger, was one of this year's recipients of The Jon Smith Award. The Jon Smith Award was introduced in 2017, in memory of a dearly missed colleague, and recognises a volunteer who has gone the extra mile in their work for the Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs and Northants. 

Rebekah O'Driscoll, the Community and Education Officer who nominated Caroline, said, "Caroline has been a volunteer with the Great Fen team for over 8 years and has shown such dedication and flexibility to the team. She continues to enthuse visitors with her passion for the project. With a background in the military and logistics she helps to bring much needed order to the classroom, storerooms and office!"

Rebekah continued, "Caroline helps with regular site checks at Ramsey Heights alerting us to essential maintenance needed to keep the site safe for visitors, assists with planning and running school visits and family events, organising fundraising events such as the Rothchild’s Way Challenge, supports guided walks, attends practical work parties and, as if that wasn’t enough, has signed up as one of our Great Fen Rangers just this year!

"Caroline has been a constant for the team and stuck with us through the difficult Covid years, always showing up regardless of the weather and is a real asset to our team, with a heart of gold and a true love of conservation and the Fens."

Caroline said she was "amazed and very touched to receive the award." We asked her a little more about why she volunteers here. 

"I volunteer because I love being outside; volunteering with the Wildlife Trust gives me the chance to do that and more - I've helped on work parties, family events, school visits, ranger duties and numerous other tasks over the past 8 years. I particularly like doing the regular site checks of Ramsey Heights because walking round each week, you start to notice things that on occasional visits would be missed - brambles that appear out of nowhere almost overnight; changes to the trees at different times of the year; fungi shooting up and then disappearing again in hours; the arrival of redwings; red kites flying overhead; sunsets on late autumn afternoons.

"I started volunteering for work parties - in contrast to a frantic job mostly office-based - and it snowballed from there into a part-time volunteer placement for a year. After that, I have just never left and still get involved in a wide variety of activities as and when other commitments allow.

"Some of my favourite moments: Lunch in one of the hides at Woodwalton Fen watching marsh harriers hunt; cranes on Speechly's Farm; planting and then seeing grow, the willows on the roadside at New Decoy; bat walks and dragonfly walks with Henry!"

We are also thrilled for Monitoring volunteers Andy Frost and Suzy Boys who received The Oliver Rackham Award and The Richenda Huxley Award respectively. Henry Stanier, Monitoring and Research Officer for the Great Fen, takes a closer look at their valuable contribution in his blog here. 

The award winners were announced at the Wildlife Trust BCN AGM at the Cambourne Village College and recipients receive books of their choice up to the value of £75 each. Caroline said, "I am very much looking forward to immersing myself in them during the winter months."

We are grateful to all our fantastic volunteers for the time and skills they lend to the Wildlife Trust. If this has inspired you to spare some hours volunteering at the Great Fen, or in the wider BCN area, please get in touch https://www.wildlifebcn.org/get-involved/volunteer