Peaks & City Takeover - Saturday
Bright and early on the Saturday of the Peaks & City Takeover weekend, one group of Nature-Networkers went off to help Action for Stannington as their city task. Chris Bradshaw tells us what they got up to on their task, and gives an overview of the rest of the day...
Doing a task with this group is always well received, so when they agreed to put on something for us as part of the Peaks and City Takeover I was more than excited, so much so that I put first dibs on leading it!
Danny, Action for Stannginton’s leader, seemed more than happy to get involved with the weekend events. He had arranged for a photo exhibition of the work his group had undertaken in Stannington and of the specific tasks that we had helped out with in the past – I recognised a few familiar faces in the photos!
After showcasing the photos and a brief talk about who they were to those who had never been to Stannington before, he introduced us to local historian Richard who proceeded to take us all on a walking tour of the area. Our first stop was Underbank Chapel Unitarian Chapel, which was a little beyond the urban edge of city heading out towards the Peak District. The chapel had been specially opened for us that day to have a tour inside and see preservation efforts. Along the way, we were invited into a community hall for a brew and cake, we did want to go in but (tempted to say unfortunately) we had a schedule to keep.
After the chapel we walked down into Loxley Valley, through the hamlet of Storrs and over fields to Our Cow Molly Dairy farm, famous for its ice cream. After a quick cone and a chat with the cows, the tour continued across the Valley to the former Dyson works that are currently being demolished. Efforts to stop the demolition were in vein and attempts to get significant historic aspects of industrial heritage were ignored to allow the construction of a new housing estate.
It was not all ice cream and hiking, along the return journey we picked up bits and pieces of litter and rubbish from fly tippers, this weekend was planned under the premise of helping out the environment after all.
We all headed back to uni and after a buffet we were all split into focus groups for the second part of the day. The groups were headed by Ben Le Bas of Natural England, Helen Taylour of Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, Karen Devine of the British Ecological Society and our very own Cat Stokowska. Ben and Helen were not only Sheffield Alumni but were both involved in SUCV in the past, albeit at different times.
The workshops were constructed to give a feel for the different elements relating to environmental employment, on how to maximise your time at university, utilising skills learned on committees and also employment advice for when university is done. In all, I think everyone got something from them.
The evening was highlighted by a guest talk from James Borrell from Queen Mary University. James talked about his expeditions to Madagascar, the Peruvian Rainforest and the Dhofar Mountains in Yemen.
James really highlighted the importance of worldwide conservation efforts and challenged traditional views on what many would most likely consider as poachers and poaching. Despite what seemed to be his tendency to focus on conservation efforts in other countries, he was more than happy to help out on the domestic front by coming with us on task to Blacka Moor the following day.
All in all, not a bad Saturday!