
Buzzing Stations is a new collaborative project involving Friends of Glossop Station, Friends of Hadfield Station, Friends of Buxton Station, The High Peak and the Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership and The Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
In January Rhodri Green Regional Organiser for the Trust gave an inspiring talk for the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust at Bradbury House in Glossop. Rhodri also introduced Darcey Gillie a local volunteer to the audience. The Trust has been actively working with the Peak Park since 2018 on a project called Pollinating the Peak. Rhodri said how fortunate we are living in this area because on our doorsteps is the rare but iconic bilberry bumblebee (below). This gave Neil and Mary who were at the meeting the idea for some joint work. Darcey runs and organises bee safaris in and around Glossop. She is keen to develop this work and sees Glossop station and the work achieved by FOGS as an ideal environmental match to the concepts of Buzzing Comunities, Buzzing Schools, Buzzing Gardens and Buzzing Tourism that the Trust already promotes. We could see the potential for some effective joint working - FOGS has considerable experience in community events especially those involving children. We approached Rhodri and Darcey at the end of the meeting who said enthusiastically let's see what we can do!
The following day we got in touch with Dave at Buxton and Joy at Hadfield. Both said FOBS and FOHS would most definitely like to be involved. We then discussed our ideas with Andrew and Catherine at HPHVCRP and Becky at Northern. All gave Buzzing Stations their support!
On Friday 8th May a 90 minute online meeting took place with participants from FOGS, FOHS and FOBS with Catherine from HPHVCRP and Rhodri and Darcey from the Trust. The Peak Park will be involved too. There was much enthusiasm to get Buzzing Stations off the ground!! Catherine, pulling ideas together, suggested a three strand approach for a pilot project: Art/Education at Glossop/Hadfield, a new bumbleebee friendly planter at Buxton and the involvement of a Hope Valley line station so that all three lines in the partnership are involved. So Buzzing Stations has begun!
Clearly a number of station based activities will not be able to take place whilst current Corona virus restrictions exist. But in the meantime we can plan and develop our programme. Please get in touch with any ideas you may have!
Click here to read more about The Bumblebee Conservation Trust