Sussex Wildlife Trust response to Coronavirus

As the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve recently held its first guided walk in several months, the Sussex Wildlife Trust recently announced that they have achieved the official UK Tourism ‘We’re Good to Go’ industry and consumer mark as they slowly begin to re-open their facilities and limited events to the public. The trust recently released the following announcement.

Sussex Wildlife Trust has achieved the official UK Tourism “We’re Good To Go” industry standard and consumer mark. This demonstrates that the Trust has worked hard to follow Government and industry COVID-19 guidelines and has an enhanced set of processes in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing across our sites.

Events

Sussex Wildlife Trust is now delivering some small-scale events for members, school children, volunteers and the public. We are prioritising being able to deliver these in a way that is safe for participants and our staff. We have not returned to our full events calendar yet, please see the individual events for more details.

We have created an bespoke set of Covid-19 Risk Assessments for all of our events and where we are working with other organisations, for example schools, we ensure that they have carried out their own Risk Assessments.

Nature Reserves

Following the new Government guidelines we can confirm that Sussex Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves remain open, although all visitor centres and information offices closed.

We would ask that all visitors follow strict social distancing guidelines during their visit to ensure their safety and the safety of those around them. Please also respect the need to keep dogs on their leads at all times to protect ground nesting birds and other wildlife.

Important. Please note that dogs (except guide dogs) are not allowed at Woods Mill nature reserve at any time.

Please note that some council owned car parks remain closed at this time. This is outside of Sussex Wildlife Trust control so please take this into consideration if planning a visit.

Coronavirus update on membership recruitment

As lockdown eases across England and society begins to cautiously open up, we have carefully restarted our engagement with members of the public. From the middle of August 2020 our membership recruiters will be found in selected spaces that have been determined safe to operate in – such as on Trust-owned nature reserves, in local garden centres and at open or well-spaced outdoor markets and events.

Our ability to recruit new members has been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the work of our membership recruiters will be critical in helping to recover in the coming months, and to be able to deliver the vital conservation work across Sussex.

Guidance on the safe operation of membership recruitment has been developed and published by the Institute of Fundraising, the professional body representing fundraisers in England, and the Fundraising Regulator – the independent watchdog for the industry. Over the past few weeks these bodies have been working directly with government to develop rules for the safe return of fundraising nationally in public places.

Our membership recruiters are employed by the agency CF Fundraising Ltd, and both Sussex Wildlife Trust and CF Fundraising have conducted detailed risk assessments before resuming our engagement activity.

If you have any queries please get in touch with the membership team membership@sussexwt.org.uk.

 

 

 

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