Starting a Birding Club at my School: A Thread (1 Viewer)

[MohoNobilis]

Hello everyone! I am glad to announce that I will be introducing the joy of birding (in a more simplified and humorous way) to the students of my school campus!

Not really much to say today except that I am trying to get more people into birding lately and that I have whipped up a special artwork just for promoting my little club. Since I do my birding mostly within the school campus and shared this with the people that I am familiar with around the school (mainly staff members), one of the school staff suggested that I should start a club dedicated to birding.

So, that was what I did a few days ago. Even though I am new to my school, I am determined to make more new friends through my interests in connecting people with nature. I hope you all can join me in this adventure of educating others about what I know about birds as well as finally being able to meet more people who are around my age and have similar interests as me!

 

[KC Foggin]

I wish you a tremendous amount of happiness getting other students in your age group interested in both birding and wildlife. Can you contact an adult birder who could help you get it started and share his/her knowledge to them to get them started. Getting them to start a life list of all the birds they come across would be a starter.

Definitely put up notices on your endeavor and see how many you can draw in and perhaps getting in touch with a local Audubon Society to help you out with some connection to get your group started on a couple of birding trips and suggest they all bring cameras with them or mobile phones with cameras. I'm really happy wit this news and please keep us updated on your
endeavors. It will be good to hear about your progress. Good luck Moho!

 

[earlytorise]

I happen to have seen this resource before:

What can BTO Youth do for you?

Free events Funding for equipment and volunteering Work experience Resources and learning Strategy, conduct and safeguarding

www.bto.org

Apparently they can help your youth club get a scope.

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

Very best of luck with this. As a retired teacher I am very happy to help in any way possible; for example if you were able to bring your group to Burton Mere (Wirral) I’d be delighted to help show them round.

 

[delia todd]

Does your school have an area on the school's internet where pupils can post blogs?

 

[Kits]

What a great idea. Good luck!

 

[MohoNobilis]

Update 1/?: Before I reply to each reply individually, I would like to thank you all so much for your support! Since I am still at school right now, I will be kind of busy for the next few hours mainly due to the me having to reveal the club in front of my entire school in order to let others sign up for it. Here is an image of my stall, which is basically where I am at the moment:
(some text censored due to privacy reasons)


I hope I will eventually succeed in bringing students of my school closer to nature by introducing them to birding!

 

[delia todd]

You could also think about the winter evenings, maybe, and perhaps find a local birdwatcher who can give a talk on a birding subject which interests him/her.

I did one once to a local U3A birdwatching group. This one was on having a Local Patch!

They don't need to be long, or in depth but interesting and possibly amusing.

 

[MohoNobilis]

I wish you a tremendous amount of happiness getting other students in your age group interested in both birding and wildlife. Can you contact an adult birder who could help you get it started and share his/her knowledge to them to get them started. Getting them to start a life list of all the birds they come across would be a starter.

Definitely put up notices on your endeavor and see how many you can draw in and perhaps getting in touch with a local Audubon Society to help you out with some connection to get your group started on a couple of birding trips and suggest they all bring cameras with them or mobile phones with cameras. I'm really happy wit this news and please keep us updated on your
endeavors. It will be good to hear about your progress. Good luck Moho!

Update 2/?: Thank you so much for your reply! In fact, a few adult birders (and even the principal of my school) have been made aware of my birding club, so I did get them to help me get my club started a few days after revealing my club to everyone in the school!

Apparently, my school is now looking for posters about clubs and such to be put on display in the main building, which serves as another form of advertisement to get students to join my club! I might get in touch with the RSPB, BTO or the Wildlife Trusts (the closest option) in the UK to help me with my club in the future, and I have started a small groupchat to keep my small club (I call it small because all the other clubs have 50+ members but it is quite a large one to me as I have approximately 25 members (excluding me) in my club) updated with information. I am quite happy with what I have achieved so far, and I am excited to show students the birds all around my campus next Sunday!

 

[MohoNobilis]

Does your school have an area on the school's internet where pupils can post blogs?

I wish there was, but my school does not allow self-advertising on their website. So, I had to improvise and created a small blog on my own and shared it with all the students in my school.

 

[MohoNobilis]

You could also think about the winter evenings, maybe, and perhaps find a local birdwatcher who can give a talk on a birding subject which interests him/her.

I did one once to a local U3A birdwatching group. This one was on having a Local Patch!

They don't need to be long, or in depth but interesting and possibly amusing.

As many staff members of my school are actually interested in birdwatching as well, I have asked some of them if they could maybe tell more about their experiences in birdwatching in one of our weekly meetings as a club. I am sure most of the members will find their talks rather interesting

 

[delia todd]

As many staff members of my school are actually interested in birdwatching as well,

That's good news.

Have you set up your club to be purely for the pupils, or does it include adults as well?

Worth thinking ahead... what happens when you finally leave school, who will take it over?

 

[MohoNobilis]

That's good news.

Have you set up your club to be purely for the pupils, or does it include adults as well?

Worth thinking ahead... what happens when you finally leave school, who will take it over?

It is mostly for the pupils (who had a lot of fun during our first meeting yesterday), but I will often do collaborations with other adult-led clubs as well as Duke of Edinburgh Award participants who need to feed the birds for their programme. This can help boost the popularity of the club as well as an increase in club participants turning up to participate in my meetings and walks.

I don't expect anyone to take over my birdwatching club, as most members are around the same age as me and are about to graduate in a few years. The younger students have paid little to no interest in the club, so this club is most likely going down with me as I graduate from sixth form. There is still hope, as I can maybe start another one once I start university in the future. If there are any keen young birders in my club, I may tell them to take my place in the future (though that is very unlikely).

 

[delia todd]

adult-led clubs as well as Duke of Edinburgh Award participants who need to feed the birds for their programme.

Aaaah!!! That wasn't one of the programmes when I did it LOL

I don't expect anyone to take over my birdwatching club, as most members are around the same age as me and are about graduate in a few years. The younger students have paid little to no interest in the club, so this club is most likely going down with me as I graduate from sixth form. There is still hope, as I can maybe start another one once I start university in the future. If there are any keen young birders in my club, I may tell them to take my place in the future (though that is very unlikely).

Oh that would be a shame, especially after you've put such a lot of work into getting it going.