Cardiff University's CPD Unit team volunteer at Grange Pavilion

Cardiff University's CPD Unit team spent an afternoon volunteering at Grange Pavilion, digging, re-homing plants, and litter-picking at the local community centre last week.

Cardiff University’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Unit is a team of eight that support academics and professional services staff from across the University to develop and deliver a variety of professional development activities for those external to the University. They help to support the up-skilling of professionals in the workplace and the dissemination of University research into the business community through CPD activities such as short courses, webinars, workshops and access to single modules of postgraduate programmes of study.

The team joined a volunteering session at Grange Pavilion, Grange Gardens that was hosted by RSPB Cymru. Work involved carefully digging up plants, transporting them across the Green, and replanting them, members of the team also litter-picked the green.

Claire Sinclair, Head of the CPD Unit said:

"The aim of our away day was to connect as a team and volunteer our time to a good cause.  The day was a success on both counts!   We had a morning of marketing priority workshops in the Grange Pavilion and then spent the afternoon outdoors digging and planting in the flower beds. Being in a different environment for the morning session was enormously helpful in giving us a space to think and develop a different perspective on topics.  In the afternoon, with the sun shining on our faces we helped move plants to their new home on the other side of the field in preparation of the building plans for a new pavilion building.  Hearing about the great work and plans for the Grange Pavilion Project and meeting some of the amazing people involved really brought to life the importance of initiatives like this and helped the team see the impact the University is making through the Community Gateway.  As a small team, opportunities like this are so important for development, raising awareness and widening involvement in our local surroundings.  It was a really positive experience and one we will organise again in the near future".

With the help of a Big Lottery Wales grant and creative fundraising activities from local residents, the Grange Pavilion is being demolished and redeveloped in 2019 into a brand new multi-functional community facility that will provide opportunities for education, training, health promotion and enterprise development, with a café, office and meeting spaces.

The impending redevelopment of the Grange Pavilion means that some of the existing planters, filled with plants and flowers that attract birds and other wildlife need to be moved to a new home on the green and the CPD Unit has been a great help with the move.

To find out more about volunteering opportunities with Community Gateway for your team please contact: communitygateway@cardiff.ac.uk

For more information on the CPD Unit please visit their website

For more information about the work that Grange Pavilion and RSPB Cymru do in Cardiff, follow them on Twitter:

@grange_pavilion

@rspbcymru

#wildcardiff