We want everyone in Avon to have access to wildlife and our activities and that is why between April and December 2006, AWT has been completing an Audience Development Plan (ADP).

We have recognised that there are groups within the Avon community that are under-represented in the mainstream of our work and are missing out on opportunities to discover, enhance or help protect local wildlife.

In order for us to engage with these under-represented people, we need to understand what people we already reach, who we don't, why we don't and then come up with strategies for engaging these excluded people. We want to gain a greater understanding of the needs of specific groups so that we can develop ways in which to involve new people in the future.

This project is being funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. The groups that we don't normally work with have already been identified as follows: black and minority ethnic groups, youth groups, people on low incomes in inner-city areas, people with learning difficulties, people with physical impairment and families, especially those with young children. However we are hoping that whatever actions we take will make the Trust a more inclusive organisation for everyone.

What has taken place
We have carried out an audit into our current activities. This has involved looking at AWT as an organisation, what our resources are and what capacity we have for widening the reach of our work. An assessment has been carried out which has given us a clear profile of our current audiences. In doing this, we can therefore have a clearer idea of who isn't currently involved.

We already have worked with some groups from our list of 6 under-represented but this has often happened on an ad-hoc basis or for particular projects. There is good practice that we can learn from these projects. Example projects include working with the Bristol City Council's Local Nature Reserve Officer in linking the Re:think Project with AWT's Lawrence Weston Moor nature reserve.

Re:think Project at Lawrence Weston Moor

There are also other organisations' work that can help us and indeed we are not alone in our work for widening participation. For example, the Countryside Agency are currently completing a Diversity Action Plan and there is lots that we can learn from this.

What we are doing now
The next step has been to try gain a better understanding of those people that we don't reach, and try and work out ways in which we might be able to engage them in the future.

In order to do this, we have the community consultants I.R.I.S. on board who have a lot of experience of consulting with our under-represented groups. They have been surveying, completing interviews and focus groups in order to get the needed information about what we can do in the future to involve a greater diversity of the community.

There will also be Member's Focus Group taking place in October which will allow members to find out more about our plans and will have the opportunity to give their ideas. More details of this can be found on the members page.

Pilot projects
We are also trying out new ideas to see what works well, and what we could do in the future. These have included the following:

• Dove Street Street Party: providing children's activities at an inner-city community festival
• Support given to Gulleybrook Lane Action Group, a local residents group from Barton Hill, Bristol, who wanted advice on how to develop their local green space for wildlife.
• AWT Pencils: promoting the Trust to school children to take the wildlife message home with them
• Two community groups attended our Gorge-ous Wildlife Family Fun-day - Felix Road Adventure Playground from Easton in Bristol, and Family Centre (Deaf Children) from South Gloucestershire.
• Talk (with amazing sound effects) given by Tim McGrath to the Daylight Plus, a partially sighted support group from Clevedon.

Family Centre at the Gorgeous Family Fun-day

We are hoping to do more in the future, in particular we will be looking at how to engage with young people and will be setting up a webpage for this.

What we will be doing next
Once we have collated all the information from the audit, pilot projects and consultation work we will be able to work out strategies and frameworks for what we need to do to encourage more participation in the future.

Some of this will result in recommendations of changes that the Trust should make in order to become a more inclusive organisation. But also a major aim of this plan is that it can identify potential projects that can be fed into funding bids for future 'People and Wildlife' projects and will identify forthcoming work priorities.

This is a really exciting project for the Trust to be involved with, and should mean the Trust is more accessible to lots of different people, and ensure that more people are able to enjoy and help look after wildlife in the Avon area.

For more information about the Audience Development Plan, contact Alex Turner, Audience Development Officer on 0117 917 7270 or email alexturner@avonwildlifetrust.org.uk