Meet Friends of Deal Island Treasurer, Jo Widdowson
My husband, 7yr old son & I were fortunate to be able to spend 3 months on Deal Island as part of the Parks & Wildlife Volunteer caretaker program last summer.
We had the most amazing time, we all fell in love with the island and felt very lucky to be able to experience it.
The Friends of Deal Island had a 10 day working bee on Deal whilst we were there. We enjoyed spending time with them and it was eye opening to see the achievements the group had made over the past 20 years. The impact of the weeding program was clearly evident and we were blown away with the Museum as are so many visitors to the island! It was clear that this group of people had given a lot of time & energy to the island over the years especially the core members.
I wanted to give a bit of something back to the island after our return and I felt the Friends of Deal was the way to do this. I initially joined as a general member and started thinking about what I could contribute. I offered to manage and drive the social media, as a fairly regular Facebook user I felt I could do that & have challenged myself to add Instagram for the group as something new to learn!
I put up my hand for the treasurer role at the recent AGM as I think the workload should be shared amongst members and wanted to do my bit.
I’m looking forward to learning more about Deal and Wildcare/Friends of Deal from those in the group with so much knowledge but I also hope to lighten the load a bit, bring some different ideas and help convince others to support the group.
My vision for the Friends of Deal.. a diverse, motivated group working together with passion and enthusiasm with sufficient funds to achieve its goals!
Oh ..and if you haven’t already followed Friends of Deal on FB please like our page(&share!!). You can also find the Deal Island Wildcare Branch page here.