Welcome to our new Volunteer Coordinator

Friends of the Towans welcome Volunteer Coordinator Sara Dowler

The autumn and winter months are always a busy time for Friends of the Towans, and organising the latest programme of practical conservation sessions across the dunes was one of the first tasks for FOTT’s new Volunteer Coordinator, Sara Dowler.

Sara brings to the role 12 years of experience as a National Trust ranger, including a period based in St Ives Bay, so she is familiar with the landscape of the Towans and understands its importance as the home of a huge number of different flora and fauna, some of which are nationally rare.

Sara is from Herefordshire, but she always felt drawn to the sea, and it was this which brought her to Cornwall more than 25 years ago. After volunteering with conservation charity BTCV, she became the organisation’s Project Officer for the St Ives Green Gym, which aimed to help people improve their health and wellbeing through practical environmental activities.

Almost as soon as she started her new job as FOTT’s Volunteer Coordinator in September, Sara was helping trustees and volunteers prepare material for the charity’s stall at the first Hayle Health and Wellbeing Festival. Then it was time to draw up the new season’s programme of practical sessions. The first session, at Gwithian Towans in October, involved weeding out buddleia and elder seedlings, and starting to cut through an area of gorse and blackthorn to provide an area of bare sand and encourage the growth of dune grassland.

Sara is now leading regular sessions on Tuesdays from 10am to 2pm. She is keen to build on all that FOTT has have achieved in the last 10 years. “I want to get people enthused about the dunes, and realise how special they are,” she says.