A week's worth of invaluable experience
I chose to come to Westonbirt Arboretum as I hoped I would experience a wide range of jobs and gain a better knowledge of the wide world of work.
My time here has certainly lived up to this, as I have been helping to fell dead trees, herding 4 and 5 year olds on their teddy bears’ picnic activity and learning about the enormous amount of effort and detail that goes into the extensive databases of the collection here. My experience really couldn’t have been much more varied!
I began on Monday with several extremely commited members of the learning team on a years 3 and 4 school visit about trees’ role in climate change. Although I was only watching and listening I felt exhausted by the end of the day, giving me much respect for everyone who does this almost on a day to day basis! I finished the day helping out with a health and safety check on the outdoor play facilities.
On Tuesday I was with the tree team for the majority of the day. I assisted with felling a couple of dead trees and feeding them into a loud, grinding wood chipping machine! It was definitely something far from what I am usually able to do and was quite exciting until we found ourselves looking for rather elusive trees in the rain.
I was later able to talk though the incredible databases held of the entire Westonbirt collection with Sally Day. She showed me some of the original hand-drawn maps made of the arboretum on which someone had marked each tree on by hand as a dot with a unique number. It is outstanding the detail the maps and databases go into and the organisation of it. It is clear that the running of Westonbirt wouldn’t be nearly as efficient without them.
I had a good time on Wednesday morning with visitor services, driving around Silk Wood in their truck. We were clearing out bins, and I listened to their interesting and funny anecdotes of their past experiences at the arboretum was very entertaining. We found a lovely dog that had run away from its owner, a regular visitor to Westonbirt, so we took some time trying to find him and were relieved to finally reunite them. Judy, the dog, went straight on her lead!
On my last day I spent an hour talking to Sophie Nash about architecture and new landscaping designs that will hopefully be realised at Westonbirt in the future. I am interested in going down an architectural based career path and so I found looking at the plans and different designs quite inspiring. I now really appreciate how much care goes into every individual feature of the designs for a new welcome building and the parking arrangements which involve even small things such as guttering and stair regulations that are rarely even noticed.
I spent the rest of the morning in the Plant Centre helping out with day to day tasks that are necessary to keep the shop as nice as it is. Finally, I spent the last few hours with the marketing team. I was talked through all of the promotional material and was able to proof read the current draft of the programme for this year’s Treefest which looks fantastic!
As is probably clear from the amount I have written here, I have had a busy week at Westonbirt and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I would certainly recommend coming here for work experience, even if you are not set on having a career specifically in subjects here because the experience I have been given has been brilliant. Thank you to everyone who has made me feel so welcome here!
