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Use the extra day in this leap year to volunteer and help save wildlife, says RSPB Cymru
12 January 2012
Dana Thomas
Communications Officer
E-mail: dana.thomas@rspb.org.uk
With 2012 being a leap year RSPB Cymru is asking people to make it their New Year’s resolution to donate the extra day to help save wildlife.
Despite recent government figures* showing the number of people volunteering formally at least once a year had fallen to its lowest level for 10 years, 2010/11 was RSPB Cymru’s best-ever year having reached nearly 75,000 hours volunteered for the same period**.
For the first time ever the charity’s 939 volunteers donated 72,652 hours between April 2010 and March 2011, this equates to an extra 40 full time staff for the charity.
The wildlife conservation charity, which was started up by a group of volunteers in 1889, involves volunteers in almost every part of its work in Wales, the UK and internationally, with doctors, translators, IT specialists, health and safety experts, carpenters, quantity surveyors, pilots and even a burlesque dancer all donating their time and talents to the RSPB.
Emma Roberts, Volunteering Development Officer for RSPB Cymru, said: “Our volunteers have given us the gift of time to help us save nature.
“From wardens on reserves and people undertaking surveys of birds on farms, to raising money in the local community and repairing and recycling binoculars for use across the globe; these are just some examples of the hundreds of ways volunteers support and enhance the RSPB’s work.”
Amy Owens 29 from Barry, volunteers for RSPB Cymru as a Community Fundraising Assistant. She said: “I think the thing that struck me most about volunteering is that I've never felt overwhelmed or overloaded by the role. It’s been really flexible and accommodating to my needs depending on how much time I can give, which has worked really well for me as someone who is in college full time and inevitably has to juggle different priorities.”
Emma Roberts continued: “Volunteering is a fantastic way of doing something that benefits a great cause and makes you feel good about yourself at the same time. Many people go on a diet or join a gym in January, but why not make volunteering your New Year’s Resolution?
“Thanks to the leap year we’re all going to get an extra day in 2012. Do something useful with it and lend your time and talents to the RSPB to help us reach a million hours next year!”
To find out more about volunteering opportunities with the RSPB visit http://www.rspb.org.uk/volunteering
Notes
• *The Communities and Local Government department surveyed almost 16,000 people in England and Wales through two polling companies for its Citizenship Survey 2010/11 - http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1095182/
• **Year to the end of March 2011
• 2011 was the European Year of the Volunteer http://europa.eu/volunteering/en/home2