It's my party

Julie panics about whether anyone will turn up to hear more about the exciting project...

Have you ever organised a party at your place and then, just before everyone arrives, you start panicking about whether anyone will come, whether you have enough food or drink or space or good music? You wonder why you decided to have this party in the first place! That was me on a Wednesday evening in August.

We stood at Grimley Peace Hall – me, Dom, Nick, Rob and Becca - about to run the first community event I had ever helped to plan for the Trust. The car park looked very empty at 6.15pm and I considered that perhaps I would have to freeze some of the delicious cakes I had bought. I went into the kitchen to optimistically organise cups and saucers when I heard a car; thank goodness at least one person had turned up! Luckily for us the car park just got busier and busier - thank you Nick for you and your high viz jacket to direct the vehicles.

Cup of tea and pieces of cake on a picnic table with lavender in the background — Cup of tea and a slice of cake (or two)

It turned out that 47 people came to the party! They listened to talks about Worcestershire Wildlife Trust’s role in nature conservation by Rob Allen, the support that Natural Networks can provide by Becca Bratt and the development of orchards, hedges, woodland, meadows and ponds on the newly purchased land at Green Farm, adjacent to Monkwood nature reserve, by Dominique Cragg. They even stayed to listen to talks on the importance of involving communities in nature by Nick Packham and how we can support local villages to get involved in the project by me (maybe that was because we saved the cakes until after the talks)?! The event felt very positive and the atmosphere was one of interest and enthusiasm. Questions about biodiversity, recording of existing species and monitoring of wildlife populations then led to various discussions around the room, all whilst people were looking at displays and balancing tea cups, saucers and cake plates (always tricky, I find). Thank you to Millie and Jonathan for serving refreshments and keeping control of the chair situation.

It was amazing and wonderful to see that so many people were keen to know more and to take action for nature - maybe by planting trees on the new fields at Monkwood, making their gardens more friendly for hedgehogs or merely celebrating conservation projects around the area. And it was lovely to talk to some very knowledgeable people about the beginnings of the Wildlife Trust in Worcestershire and the history of the wood at Monkwood.

So it turns out that I didn’t need to panic about whether anyone would come because people around Monkwood do care about nature and, yes, I had enough cake and drink and space.

A big thank you to everyone that made the evening really rather enjoyable; perhaps we'll have another event after all? Definitely watch this space.