Maya Hall-Balfourth, Cudham Environmental Activity Centre’s Jack Petchey Intern has just passed the six month mark on her internship, and it has been a very busy six months!
Starting at the end of March, Maya got settled in at Cudham quickly, meeting the Cudham volunteers and getting to know the site as a worker rather than a visitor. She launched into April with a local tour of the Cudham area, and had the Jack Petchey launch conference, where she got to meet all the other JP interns. Towards the end of the month, General Council visited Cudham, and Maya got to observe some of their conversations.
In May, Maya helped run a weekend camp at Woodcraft Folk’s reignited campsite Scarletts in the South. She organised lots of nature-based activities: a bat walk, a bird watch and habitat creation. She also led an activity in knot-tying, which was used to create quadrats for biodiversity surveying.
Maya’s tour of the Woodcraft centres didn’t stop there, in June, she headed down to Biblins Youth Campsite in the Wye Valley for a week of wardening after Annual Gathering. She got to meet the team at Biblins, learn more about the day-to-day at the campsite, and shadowed some activities for a visiting school.
In July, Maya made use of her training bursary to get some first aid training. She also got started on a woodland education booklet, based off of the newly approved Woodland Management Plan, to help visitors to Cudham get to know the woodland. Free to Be Kids, Cudham’s partner charity, arrived to set up at the end of the month, so Maya helped them get ready for their summer activities with young people. Following this, Maya spent a week with Free to Be, learning all about how they run. Maya said “I had so much fun supporting all the amazing activities and getting to know the young people in her group. It was a tiring week but a fun one!”
Finally, in September, Maya spent a weekend in Shrewsbury attending a course in Woodland Condition Assessment. She came back just in time for Staff Conference in Lockerbrook, and finished the month off with another weekend camp at Scarletts.
Now, Maya is getting ready for the next six months, and she can’t wait to see what they bring!
