NWT Volunteering Award

 From Team Leader Margaret, dated 20^th August 2026

You might be aware that it is NWT’s 100th birthday this year. To celebrate they had a volunteers’ get-together and for the first time included an awards ceremony. One category was a group or volunteer to be nominated by volunteers. Now everyone of you could have been entered as without you our little group would not exist. We thank you as always for your contributions to keeping the Commons looking so good. There has never seen so much Devils Bit Scabious as this year, do go and have a look. Sorry! Back to the matter in hand!

We decided that there was one person who stood out so we nominated Duncan, we hope you all approve. This is what we wrote;

“The team at Southrepps would very much like to nominate Duncan Westlake for the volunteer nominated award.

He is one of those special people that makes us all feel good. Never at the front but always beavering away to make things better. He has volunteered on Southrepps Common for 20 years quietly creating data, firstly on the volunteers with comprehensive and beautifully compiled figures: we know he loves nothing more than a spreadsheet! He has kept meticulous records on all the flora and fauna for the last twenty years which has helped inform the way the Commons are cared for. He sends monthly data to NWT as well as three-monthly fixed point photography, which he had started long before NWT took us over.

To help support our group he started a blog and after every working party he writes about the group and the Commons. This he has expanded to showcase the flora and fauna with sightings lists and photographs. All of this without being asked and expecting no plaudits. Do check out his blog  https://southreppscommonsvolunteers.blogspot.com/

We all wait in expectation each Sunday night to see what he has managed to find to write about.

He works extremely hard on the working parties, or so he tells us, but best of all he makes us all laugh and are glad we came. He has an enduring love for Southrepps Commons. He just makes volunteering better.”

We are delighted to tell you that Duncan won the award yesterday (19^th August). We look forward to a swollen head and much bragging at the next working party. I am sure you all agree that it was richly deserved.

Well done Duncan.

Thanks again to all of you.

Margaret (for the Team Leaders)

 

Back to your usual correspondent.

Well, that was a thing wasn’t it? The awards bit of the event took place in the capacious Blakeney Village Hall, which was full of NWT volunteers from all over the county. It began with a round-up of the successes for NWT in the past year, and over the last 100 years. We were shown a short film about it: go to https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/Centenary to see it for yourself – it’s excellent. Then the CEO, Eliot Lyne gave another speech, before handing out the awards – one of which came my way.

Flattering though it is to have had my contribution recognised in this way, as Margaret has written above, it could just as equally have been another one of our excellent group. Much was made of the fact that I have been involved for around 20 years, but even then, there are others with longer track records. (As I said at the presentation, the last time anything like this happened to me was when, at the age of 12, I received a school prize for “Perseverance”. I view this one in the same light!)

There’s nothing remarkable in the part I play in our group, except of course I have had a whistle since before even the NWT era, and as everyone who comes to the working parties knows, I blow it whenever I can. Now I have my own trumpet too, which I must try not to blow too often.

As it says on the Southrepps History Hub website (https://southreppshistory.org.uk/places/southrepps-commons/) Norfolk County Council, with the agreement of the Gunton Estate, had been carrying out conservation work on the Commons in the late 1980s. Subsequent to that, on the death in 1988 of Dame Cecilia Harbord, the last direct connection with the Gunton Estate, ownership of the Commons was transferred to Southrepps Parish Council, and a committee was formed to manage them under the guidance of Norfolk County Council and Natural England. Further down the line, in 2005 Southrepps Commons Trust was formed to manage them on behalf of the council, and in 2019 management and ownership was taken over by Norfolk Wildlife Trust - with very many of the previous SCT volunteers continuing to work on behalf of NWT. So our commons have been looked after for the benefit of nature and the local community, by the local community, for around 40 years. That’s a lot longer than many similar groups manage, and I reckon that’s because we have always had a wonderful lot of people who all enjoy the work and, crucially, the sociability of our working parties. And most importantly, we have always been very well led, which is as true now as it ever was.

Why have I stayed involved for two decades? Simply because I am passionate about nature and the desperate need to protect it and help it recover, so any little bit I can do in that way is I hope of some value, and it certainly is to me. But on top of worthy stuff like that, I keep doing it because I greatly enjoy the company I keep and all the fun we have – especially the singing, led by the irrepressible Noel! As my dear wife Sarah said, now she knows where I have been for the last 20 years!

Here is a photo of the wooden trophy I was awarded: as has been pointed out to me, it looks like I have done 100 years!

I want to say that I am immensely flattered to have been nominated, and even more surprised to have been chosen for the award. Many thanks indeed to those responsible!