New year
A new year and a new set of objectives and plans to move forward or resolutions if you’re a normal person. It’s no different here at Raptor Aid, the festive break gave us chance to reflect on what we have achieved and what we haven’t managed to achieve. I use the royal ‘we’ but in truth I have to be realistic in that I am Raptor Aid (Jimmi) and its all on my shoulders with what we achieve. We currently have two fantastic trustees in accordance and they do a sterling job supporting Raptor Aid behind the scenes but the day to day ‘doing’ whether that is social media, carrying out talks, developing our educational workshops and delivering them, training and running courses makes for a busy boy running Raptor Aid.
Anyway, thanks for understanding if there is sometimes a bit of silence on our behalf your continued support is greatly appreciated. I thought my first blog post of 2020 should set out what I hope to achieve with Raptor Aid this coming year and put them out there to reflect back on in 12 months time. So what’s the plan man..........
Develop two core educational schemes - education is at the core of everything we do and want to achieve. The two schemes we hope to launch this year fully are our owl pellet dissection kits to support our work getting everyone interested in the environment and more acutely birds of prey and owls. Our second scheme is to develop the fantastic range of nest boxes we use including flat pack ones enabling children to build them safely but equally include technology to allow them to be monitored and encourage quality science within schools.
Social media platforms - I’ll hold my hands up and admit this is a chore because life is busy. I look at other peoples social media and think wow that’s a smart post etc and think I must get better but I believe its a full time job in itself. We will get better though as there is no doubt the value social media has in relaying a message. We intend to continue with this blog, Facebook and Instagram post’s including videos and the use of a You Tube channel. Finally, I hope to start developing a Podcast where we interview all the fantastic conservationists and anyone we feel you might be interested in hearing from relating to birds of prey.
Peregrine Watch 2020 - After the success of Peregrine Watch 2019 last year and provided the Peregrines successfully breed again we have every plan to carry out a watch point through out the breeding season in Chester. It is planned to have a display trailer ready for the season showcasing the world of Peregrines and the work of Raptor Aid for anyone passing to come and enjoy.
Supporting external projects and creating collaborations - We are already planning our next trip to the Philippines to support the work of the Philippine Eagle Foundation. We have some ideas for collaborations in the UK that will also support international projects and of course we will share any news from raptor conservation around the world.
There are of course many other things on the notepad and we will continue to carry out talks and courses and try to develop new ideas to help educate people on birds of prey. On a personal level I am keen to look into the world of raptors and human conflict. Oh yea and lets not forget I’ll carry on doing all that fantastic wild raptor monitoring throughout 2020 and sharing it with you!
So colours nailed to the mast lets get stuck into 2020 and enjoy raptors, support raptors and generally just give a crap about the natural world!
Happy new year you lot!
Jimmi
P.s I should also mention using this blog and social media I have every plan to bang the drum for our environment, get on my soap box for conservation and raptors and carry out the odd truth/fact finding post that might ignite some debate.