New Visitor Centre coming to College Lake
Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) is planning a great new visitor centre for their flagship reserve at College Lake near Tring. We had given the group a talk about The Biggest Twitch back in December; this was arranged through our great friend Richard Birch. While we were down for the talk Richard arranged a visit to the College Lake reserve and while he and Ruth went for a walk, Alan joined the reserve staff for a brain-storming meeting on new visitor centres. Alan was site manager at RSPB Conwy Nature Reserve here in North Wales when the new visitor centre was planned and built, so his experiences were welcomed by the College Lake team. The meeting proved very useful and a plan was hatched for a visit to see RSPB Conwy so the team could see first-hand how Conwy had developed and how Alan’s ideas had been implemented. Luckily it was a lovely sunny day and RSPB Conwy was looking at its best when they met up in the car park at 10.30am. With it being half-term, the car park was already busy.
First they walked back to the entrance to get an overview of the reserve with its amazing views of the Conwy Estuary and medieval castle with the snow-capped mountains beyond, pretty good. Problems with access and parking were discussed before moving to the visitor centre where the all important “meet and greet” was chewed over. Alan stressed the need to get this right as it sets the tone for any visit. Retail was also looked at as the new centre will include a shop. Then over to the coffee shop and ideas of what sort of menu would work best at College Lakes were thought through. Alan has always been a quick turnaround man, and thought that high quality drinks and cakes would work best, keep it simple. With the sun still out, they just had time for a tour of the reserve and they all enjoyed a lovely walk around the lagoons and back along the estuary track to marvel at the amazing views of Snowdonia. Displaying Red-breasted Mergansers and Black tailed Godwits were the bird highlights.Back at the centre, a question-and-answer session finished off the visit which was a great success, with the BBOWT team leaving very happy that they had a much better understanding of the site, and many ideas they could consider for their own centre. It will be wonderful to return to College Lake and see the finished centre in late spring 2010. We wish them every success with their project. Check out this link to read more about College Lake and the plans for the new visitor centre and education centre: http://www.bbowt.org.uk/content.asp?did=23523.If you have a bird-related project that we can help with, whether it’s developing or expanding a visitor centre, increasing people engagement, or marketing your site/business, we are here to help. Just drop us a line at info@thebiggesttwitch.com and we’ll be happy to discuss your project with you.