Help angling and the environment – become a volunteer

“Volunteering? That’s giving up your time for nothing, right?”

“Well no, not exactly. If you’re thinking about it in financial terms then by its own definition, volunteering offers no monetary gain, but the wider rewards are almost limitless.”

It’s a hypothetical exchange of course, but it’s also a fair guess that its essence will have been played out across England, Europe and the entire world on a very regular basis.

According to the website, HelpGuide.org volunteering can be a mutually beneficial experience for those involved. Specifically for the provider, it offers a pathway to potentially life-enriching benefits.

“With busy lives, it can be hard to find time to volunteer.
However, the benefits of volunteering can be enormous. Volunteering offers vital help to people in need, worthwhile causes, and the community, but the benefits can be even greater for you, the volunteer. The right match can help you to find friends, connect with the community, learn new skills, and even advance your career.”

^{From Helpguide.org}

From the career perspective, volunteering can help you to experience a specific area of interest and meet people who are connected within that field. In that regard, volunteering within angling is a perfect platform for anglers. In helping others learn skills, or offering assistance for environmental projects, you’re nearer to your passion and closer to making it worthwhile on a far deeper level than just catching fish.

So how can you volunteer within angling to ensure you make a difference and potentially take out as well as put in? We’ve highlighted 5 options available through the Angling Trust website that offer opportunities to put mutual benefit into action.

Coaching

Coaching offers direct interaction with others and, potentially, instant results! In a recent Lines On The Water blog, we established that if you already know how to fish, you’re already on the road to becoming a fully licensed coach. You don’t have to be a competition winner or specimen record holder, merely someone who wishes to spend more time at the waterside with others and pass on the knowledge you have. You might not immediately think you have knowledge to pass on, but if you fish and can catch fish, then you most certainly have.

If you can fish, you can coach.

Coaching focuses on all abilities of anglers from outright beginners to others who are perhaps at your own level or even above, but who want to learn more. Even someone you regard as being ‘better’ than you can potentially derive benefits from a different approach or a knowledge of tactics for species they consider themselves to be weak in.

The benefits to you as a volunteer coach are obvious. Social interaction, deeper participation in the great outdoors and the wholesome satisfaction of being party to someone else’s success.

The future of angling starts here.

As the recent blog highlighted, the route to becoming an angling coach has recently been made easier and the initial steps can be followed by opportunities to participate in professional development courses.

You can find out more and request further information on the coaching pages of the Angling Trust website.

Water Quality Monitoring Network

The Angling Trust’s Water Quality Monitoring Network was launched in May 2022.

It harnesses the power of angling clubs and anglers to understand the quality of water across England and Wales and to establish a solid foundation of data. The findings from tests taken by club volunteers help the Angling Trust to keep up the pressure to improve our rivers, streams and stillwaters.

Sourcing and reporting,

The network itself is effectively formed by the individual angling clubs, anglers and other volunteers who undertake the regular monitoring activities. Clubs recruit and organise teams of local volunteers who are allocated monitoring sites and on a regular and consistent basis, gather a range of data. A report is required from each site, once a month for at least two years although clubs can collect data at more sites and more frequently if they wish.

As well as monitoring water levels, flow rates and the possible presence of pollution and algal blooms, the samples taken assess levels of nutrients such as phosphates, nitrates and ammonia. The Trust supplies monitoring kits and consumables to the clubs at cost and the volunteers carry out the process and report the findings for analysis. This is important work at a local level and affords the volunteer active local participation in a national programme. It also offers the opportunity to enjoy the countryside and local environment.

Ongoing monitoring of our waterways by the Environment Agency samples water quality and biological quality with long-term data sets held on record. The Trust’s network, supported by the volunteers, helps supplement this information and fills in the blanks with data which is made available to help inform the wider understanding of water quality.

More information is available on the Angling Trust website or directly from the scheme’s administrator, Kris Kent at: [email protected]

Anglers Against Litter

Alongside the Water Quality Monitoring Network, the Trust’s Anglers Against Litter campaign offers an alternative option for tackling pollution.

The campaign is sponsored by tackle company Shimano and there are regular presentations to volunteers – or ‘champions’ – who have made significant contributions to help clean up their local waterways, banksides and general communities.