Environmental visit for Lantra Chairman
18 June 2008
Lantra Chairman, Dr Gordon McGlone OBE recently spent time with Conservation Volunteers to find out first hand about the skills issues facing both employees and volunteers within the environmental conservation sector in Northern Ireland.
Lantra champions the recognition of skills in the workplace, urging businesses to see the commercial case for investing in skills development and valuing existing knowledge and experience.
Gordon met Barbara Boardman (Director) and Robert Shearman (Senior Development Manager) at Conservation Volunteers’ offices on the Clandeboye Estate, Bangor.
Barbara explained how, as well as having their own training programme, Conservation Volunteers have a staff training matrix which outlines the qualifications required for certain roles: “At Conservation Volunteers we want to give volunteers the best experience possible, we believe in learning through doing.”
This is a subject close to the heart of Lantra who have spent some time researching the skills needs of volunteers. Gordon said: “The volunteer of the future is going to be a different kind of individual. We’re seeing an increasing demand for skills development, and people want to learn about the environment. You have to invest a lot of time in a volunteer to bring the best out of them, but the rewards are enormous.”
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