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On August 24th, we ran a junior event called Practical Activities. This proved to be a popular event as our juniors do seem to enjoy the more practical aspects of our regular meetings. During the 3 hours on site our junior members brainstormed to identify just how many ways they could think of to help animals in a practical way. Then in their groups they each planted a 2 year old oak tree and foxgloves in the wood. They also dug 3 more mini ponds as these had been so popular on our last junior day and then they all built bird boxes which were made up from flat packs put together by our maintenance man Bob. These bird boxes, some suitable for great tits and some for robins, were sold to the junior members at cost but any not bought will be sold at our Christmas Craft Fayre on the 16th November in Groby (obviously for a little more!)
Each year we have asked our junior members to donate small items which can be fitted into jam jars so that we can run the jam jar tombola on our Junior stall at the Christmas at Woodside event. During the afternoon they decorated the filled jars and also, using glass-painting pens, made up spider rescue jars. These jars, complete with an attached piece of card, are extremely useful to have around the house to catch spiders, bees and wasps which can then be released safely outside. Once again the junior members were able to buy any that they wished to at the end of the afternoon and any unsold ones will be put up for sale at the Craft Fayre. It was an extremely busy afternoon and a lot was done in the 3 hours. We ran out of time so our usual competition time was abandoned but the youngsters were sent home with a going home pack listing other suggestions of how to help animals around us. The trees, foxgloves and ponds are all regularly checked and are doing well. We suspect that one of the ponds in particular is a watering hole for foxes as it does tend to need topping up more than the others but they still look good.
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Megan: “Practical Activities was one of my favourite afternoons this year”
If you would like to join in with these Sunday afternoon events next year, you will need to join the Animal Action Club. This means you will need to send off your membership to the RSPCA at Horsham and we will then send you the new programme in February/March. We look forward to seeing some new faces in 2009 and hope that you will enjoy these special afternoons with us.
Ruth Lane
Junior Membership Coordinator for Leicestershire
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