A visit from the Chief Executive
WWT's Chief Executive, Martin Spray, has visited Martin Mere today to give a motivational talk to our volunteers and staff this afternoon. I spent some time with him this morning walking around the grounds with him, but he is aiming to come to each centre every few months to give an update on the Trust. As with every other business, we are obviously putting plans in place for how we can adapt and change in light of the current economic climate, but it is a positive that we are still maintaining our level of development and moving forward as a Trust. I think everyone is confident here at Martin Mere that we can continue to progress well with the new developments we are going to have over the next few years but all the staff and volunteers do appreciate it when Martin personally visits us and we have an opportunity to ask questions or put ideas forward.
In other news, we have also had a meeting about the roundhouse village. It is our plan to have it open with different activities every school holiday but we are trialing this in February Half term with just having one member of staff manage this with a group of volunteers. We want to prove in February Half Term that the village can at least break even against all staffing and materials costs so we can start to build it up as a key part of the Martin Mere visitor experience. Hopefully this should work well as I think it is important to use the roundhouse village to get key messages across about how important wetlands are, in the past, present and future.
I have my first budget meeting tomorrow so I will let you know how that goes on Friday.
