An eventful season at the Scottish Dolphin Centre

As the season here in Spey Bay is sadly coming to an end, I thought I’d do a little recap about my experience as this year’s events volunteer at the Scottish Dolphin Centre. All in all, it’s been a blast and I’m very happy that I packed my things and came up here 7 months ago.

I learned so many new things, discovered skills I didn’t know I had and was able to improve on many levels, especially since I had to make use of my strongest abilities extensively. After all, breaking it down, working on events is all about communication and organization. Communication is, of course, the key to successful public work. But it’s not as simple as it sounds as you need different types of communication for different tasks and to ensure efficient organization, you need to know exactly when each of these types is required. Every time the volunteers went on external events, we had to use all our communicational skills to inform people, raise their interest, answer specific questions and try to spread the passion about the protection of whales and dolphins. Being open, friendly, energetic and knowledgeable – that’s the kind of communication members of the public get to experience from our charity. But there is so much more involved behind the scenes. Just to give one example, communication is necessary for deciding together on what equipment to take and how to display it at the event, so people get interested and come over to talk to us. Over the last few months, our stands have developed quite a bit and every location was a new challenge. The Hopeman Gala was the most adventurous, as we were short on a few things and almost got blown away thanks to the lovely weather. But a positive attitude and strong teamwork helped us to make the best of it.

It was good fun every time we went out, although I have to say that for me, organizing our events at the centre was the most enjoyable. And there we had a whole lot of different kinds of communication working its magic. Gathering ideas, deciding on the content of adverts and posters, publishing said posters, distributing duties and regularly checking on the status of supplies with everyone makes up most of the planning part of our events. Whereas on the day, you have to make sure everyone knows what their task is, where they are supposed to be at certain times, and that they are equipped with everything needed. The best kind of communication usually comes at the end of such events, when you can thank everyone for making it happen.

I was very lucky for getting the chance to do all this with barely any experience, just by learning on the job. The volunteer programme worked really well there, never leaving me clueless and gradually increasing responsibilities according to the state of confidence. A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought that I could manage to do these things without extensive training beforehand, but in hindsight it went quite well. It’s amazing what you can do if someone gives you the opportunity and believes in your skills. A special thanks to all the staff from the centre for that! I was a bit unsure about my awesome supervisor Kate leaving in the middle of the season, regretting that I couldn’t learn more from her and generally not knowing what would happen afterwards. Turns out I got lucky again, as I got another great supervisor to work alongside when Lisa took over Kate’s position. She dove straight into work, fitting in just right with the team and was a real pleasure as my desk neighbour. In the end I had the opportunity to work under two very different but equally lovely and competent ladies, sharing their wisdom with me. I am a keen watcher and I think I’ll profit in the future from keeping the best tricks of both of them up my sleeve. Kate, Lisa, and all the members of staff have grown on me very much and I have a special place reserved for them in my heart for when I go back home. It’s been so much fun working with everyone and the chats in between have been priceless.

When I leave in 4 weeks, I will not only walk away with bucket loads of amazing memories, lots of new friends and great work experiences. I’ll leave standing a little bit taller, having regained some confidence in myself. Thank you Spey Bay and goodbye!