News Release

16December 2014 – For immediate release

Quadron strengthens conservation and volunteer management skills with bespoke training course

Quadron Services has invested in a bespoke training course to strengthen its ability to deliver volunteer-based activities to its clients.

Nine members of staff from Quadron’s Southwark contract have successfully passed the new Work Based Environmental Conservation training programme, which was developed in partnership with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV).

Quadron and TCV designed the course with the aim of improving staff’s capacity to work with community and corporate volunteers on conservation activities in Southwark’s parks. This supports Southwark Council in its aim of increasing third sector involvement in the delivery of its parks services, while continuing Quadron’s commitment to developing its staff through ongoing training.

The course, which commenced in July 2014, involved ten practical sessions in Burgess Park and Nunhead Cemetery, led by TCV’s tutors, as well as assessed coursework elements including developing habitat surveys and carrying out butterfly transects. The course aimed to improve staff’s knowledge of conservation work and how to effectively and safely plan and deliver conservation activities with volunteer groups. The areas covered included:

  • Health and Safety and Risk Assessment
  • Conducting habitat surveys and report writing
  • Hand and power tool maintenance for events
  • Woodland management including coppicing and dead hedging
  • Leadership training for event leaders
  • Planning events

The course culminated in November with a practical assessment, which saw the learners leading a team of corporate volunteers from Burberry as they undertook a coppicing and dead hedging task in Burgess Park. Over the course of the session the Quadron staff were assessed by their tutors from TCV on their management of the event.

The Quadron team was pleased to learn that everyone had passed with flying colours. Sam Cook and Alan Marchant from the TCV training scheme presented the staff with their certificates of achievement on 19th November. They were joined by Jonathan Best, Southwark Council’s Ecology Officer, who is keen that the council’s green spaces continue to be managed with consideration for conservation issues. He says,“Southwark is sixth in England with 76% of our Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation in positive management. This success is down to all the people involved in maintaining our green spaces, and in a large part to Quadron, who deliver this work in our parks and open spaces.”

Feedback from the participants on the course has also been extremely positive, including these comments:

Gerry Kelsey, Head Gardener, Burgess Park: “The course was thorough and challenging. It tackled many conservation issues and I now feel equipped to lead a volunteer team with confidence and self-assurance.”

Sissel Dahl, Head Gardener, Dulwich Mobile: “I really enjoyed the conservation training; I thought it was well organised and presented. It was useful to learn the standard method for conducting habitat surveys and I will use this to survey some of my parks. The tree felling was fun and challenging, but done in a safe manner. It was great working with the volunteers and I recruited a few new members to our local Friends of the Parks groups. I would recommend this course to my colleagues.”

The Southwark team is now looking forward to putting their training into practice and delivering further conservation-based and volunteering activities in Southwark’s open spaces. They are currently developing structured volunteer maps and calendars for each of their parks, to providing more structured opportunities for community and corporate volunteers to carry out conservation-related activities in parks and support Southwark Council’s Green Flag management plans for its parks.

Quadron’s Oliver Miller delivers health and safety induction to volunteers from Burberry

The Quadron team with their certificates of achievement

Ends

Notes to editors:

About Quadron Services

Formed in 1993, Quadron Services is an award-winning green space management company focussed on ‘Cultivating Sustainable Green Communities’.

Quadron has been providing grounds maintenance services to Southwark Council’s parks and green spaces since 1996.

Quadron’s other clients include The Royal Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and Kingston upon Thames, The London Boroughs of Southwark and Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth, Charnwood and Wokingham Borough Councils, Wycombe District Council, Birmingham City Council, Bristol City Council, Teignbridge District Council and Paragon Community Housing Association.

Quadron’s Managing Director is Clive Ivil.

General contact details – Head Office: Quadron Services Ltd, The Hub, Warne Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 3UU.

Tel: 01934 614444

E-mail:

Web:

Facebook.com/QuadronCommunityPartners

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