Establishing the Hull Mammal Group

Photos and text by Koko Sutter

Although I was already a member of the Mammal Society, I wanted to take part in more hands-on activities related to mammal research and was searching for ways to become more involved. I discovered the local groups network and the idea of a local volunteer group sounded like the perfect way for me to become more involved. The only problem was that there was no local group in my city. This left me with the options of traveling an hour or more to other cities to join their groups or considering starting a new group in my area. Luckily, I was up to the challenge of starting a new local group and have officially established the Hull Mammal Group as part of the local groups network!

I wanted to write a short blog documenting my experiences in establishing a new local group for those who may be considering starting their own groups. I know how daunting it can be to start something from scratch, so hopefully my own experiences can encourage others. By being affiliated with the Mammal Society, I was never left to fend for myself as the staff and other local group volunteers were always there to offer their support and assistance.

Steps taken to starting the group

My route to starting the local group was not completely linear, but I think seeing the realistic timeline of the process can be helpful. Below I’ve created a timeline of the key events that took place when starting the group.

How was the process?

While a lot of work has gone into starting and running the group, the entire process has been really rewarding. I felt very privileged to be able to work alongside the Mammal Society staff and have their support throughout the process. I had a lot of questions when first getting started and I always received quick and helpful feedback from the staff. It was crucial for me to have the support of the Mammal Society when starting, and knowing that they were there to assist me made me feel confident enough to undertake the role as chair of a new local group. Being able to attend the local group forums and learn from well-established groups helped me understand what it takes to run a local group. I also greatly benefited from the Mammal Society posting about my group to their social media accounts, as it exposed a much larger audience to the group than I could have done on my own.

I knew I needed to start a local group in my city because I wanted a way to bond with my local community and make connections with others who volunteer or work with wildlife or the environment. As I had only moved to my current city to attend university, I did not have a strong sense of place in the community. However, by starting the local group I have been approached by so many wonderful people and forged many new connections in the community.

I soon realised that there were lots of like-minded people who were very interested in wildlife and, like myself, were just waiting for an opportunity to become more involved in their community. I have been able to make connections with professors, students, research groups, NGOs, wildlife professionals and more through growing my group. I’ve already learned so much about what is currently being done for mammals in my area, and I know the more work we do as a group, we will become even more entrenched in the community.

What went well and what was challenging?

As with any project, there were steps that felt quite easy and others that felt almost impossible. Luckily for me, I was able to really give a few weeks of time to starting the group, which allowed me to organise everything and hit the ground running with recruitment. After launching the group, I hosted three events, which really helped to get people interested and showcase what the group was all about. I hosted an owl pellet dissection and two harvest mouse surveys in the span of two weeks. Fortunately, I had the support of fellow colleagues and professors who shared the group with their research groups and students and attended the events themselves.

When it comes to the more challenging aspects, I would say starting a group by myself was difficult at times. I had a fairly limited reach through my own personal connections, so I struggled to recruit members at first. However, the Mammal Society was very kind in posting the group to their socials, and this helped drive up membership overnight. While it was amazing to have such an influx of members all at once, it also was a bit time consuming to try and organise everyone’s sudden interest. In the end, a few days of chaos really paid off as I was able to find enough members to fill all the committee roles and I developed a solid group of volunteers.

To the future...

While the group is still very new, we have lots of exciting things to look forward to in the future! I have just hosted our first committee meeting, and I was able to start assigning tasks and activities to different committee members, so our group is officially no longer a one man show. We have plans to host collaborative events with other local groups and organisations and hope to offer a wider range of activities now that we have a larger group.

 If you are interested in being a part of a local group in your area, check out the Local Groups Network to see if there is already an established group in your area. If you are interested in starting your own local group reach out to localgroups@themammalsociety.org.

 If you have any questions about my experiences or want to keep up to date with the Hull Mammal Group’s activities, please feel free to contact us through the links below.

 Email: hullmammal@gmail.com Instagram: @hull_mammal_group