Viper Training

Will Rangers Stay Relevant

Author: Jim Hardcastle

Jim has helped organisations and groups communicate more effectively for nearly 20 years. His background in the countryside and rural sectors provide him with a wealth of experience. Fueled by coffee with Post-Its at the ready, he’s here to help .

The South West Ranger Forum is a chance for these rangers to get off their patch and meet others doing the same job, share some learning and take stock of what’s happening in the world around them. The Forum was hosted by Viper Marketing & Communications this year at Folly Farm and supported by the Countryside Managers Association.

Clearly one of the biggest changes that will happen to the public sector is a reduction in funding. When decisions about priorities are made it’s fair to say that the countryside elements of local authority work are the easiest to reduce. All the more reason for Rangers to be seen and heard. You’ve got to stay relevant these days. If you don’t the whole world rushes on by you and you’re forgotten.

The Scottish Countryside Rangers Association (SCRA) are just about to launch their Continuing Professional Development Programme, with some help from Viper. SCRA are taking it seriously, they’ve got national outcomes agreed and now they’re positioning themselves as well-organised and well-trained and relevant.

Rangers from Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Quantocks, Cornwall and other areas came to Mendip for the Forum with this in mind. They were really keen to learn how digital technology can help them. A lot of them are using digital recording techniques on their patches. Wildlife habitats are mapped using GPS, individual trees are recorded and loaded on to databases etc. But the digital age is changing the way we communicate. Rangers will have to embrace the new tools to be seen and heard.

Fact of the month; there is more bandwidth in You Tube today than there was in the whole internet 9 years ago. This digital malarkey ain’t going away. It’s not about every Ranger suddenly Twittering and having LinkedIn pages though.

The lesson to be learned is that the visitors, us, are adopting this new technology at an ever-increasing rate. I can go for a ride, track that ride on my phone, post the track and photos along the way to a website for others to comment on. That’s a really powerful tool for us, the public, to engage with our countryside custodians. If people complain about the trail Rangers can now respond and open a dialogue, win some hearts and minds. Ignoring the digital age of communication is not an option. Quantock Hills AONB have a very successful Facebook page. The countryside is ‘open’ 24hours a day and so should access to information about these areas.

Most importantly for the future of Rangers looking after our most special areas is that a lot of these new ways of communicating with people are free. Just log-in.

A word of warning though, just because you can do it doesn’t mean you have to. The new social media like Facebook and Twitter are just tools. Do your communication planning beforehand to make sure you’re doing it for the right reason.

It’s not necessary to have big budgets for printing leaflets. A whole new audience is waiting out there who don’t want to access information through traditional means. New communities of people are getting active in the countryside, these communities are just as vital as the ones living in the countryside. In fact they may be the same people. Rangers must stay relevant to the new digital generations.

Viper are running the Digital Ranger course at Folly Farm in December. For more details click here.

- Posted on Monday 19 Oct 2009 at 21:13 by Jim Hardcastle

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