Our pilot day at Fistral beach…
As expected with our wonderful and wacky Cornish weather: one minute glorious sunshine, and the next a downpour of rain – at one point we even experienced a cascade of hailstones (which actually brought some more people to our tent, which was a bonus!) – the trickiest thing about the weather was the powerful winds, which we have realised that as beach rangers (step aside power rangers), the wind is something we are definitely going to have to accept (and maybe even) embrace.
After struggling slightly with putting up the gazebo, our position was set! We placed ourselves just below the rocks, under the cafés and shops, for maximum visibility, and easy access. Improvising with rocks from the beach to pin down our bounty of leaflets, colouring sheets, and id books, we nervously filled the tables, aiming for an attractive, appealing look, but with also a lot of stability…
The aquarium had kindly let us some exciting bits of coral, non native shells, and a reef shark jaw, which did great to bring both adults and kids over to find out what they were!
One thing we realised was that due to the nature of the extreme weather, the majority of people at the beach were there for a bracing blustery walk, rather than a ‘stay and play’ kind of time, which meant that not a lot of children (who are arguably our target audience) were about, or willing to stand in the cold wind for too long – probably a good thing, coloring sheets would have been a disaster, and we’d have been making more work for the amazing lot that showed up to do the beach clean at Little fistral and the gazzle (shout out to Newquay Beach care, well done team!) Nevertheless, we managed to catch and speak to a fair few of the public, including some children, which was totally great to see how easily their interest is captivated by exciting animal stuff! Also this type day made it obvious we’d need activities (and to be prepared) whatever the weather.
Overall, it was truly fabulous to finally see the NMG Beach ranger stand set up and in action, all be it a bit of a mad day weather wise, and we all felt the more ‘ranging’ we do, the more we’ll all learn what works well and doesn’t… so bring on next time!
