With Josh on annual leave, week 11 became a week of community engagement for me, as I stepped up my efforts on my solo Social Return project.
2025 Marine Interns Blog: Weeks 11 & 12
In weeks 11 and 12, Ryan focused on community engagement and developing his individual project, including connecting with volunteers whilst he collected seagrass seeds with the Wilder Humber team at Spurn Point.
Spurn Point
To start off the week, Imogen from the Wilder Humber team and I ventured back up to Spurn Point to take part in another seagrass seed collection day. Rather than being there solely to collect seagrass seeds, this time I was also attending on project business. It was great to connect with new volunteers and hear the stories that have led them to join us for the event. One of the most memorable conversations was with a volunteer who said she had added helping out with the project to her bucket list after seeing the Wilder Humber segment on Countryfile. It was also lovely to reconnect with members of the wider Wilder Humber Team.
That week also brought significant progress in the development of my solo project approach. I’m currently exploring the use of a Social Return on Investment (SROI) model. This method involves assigning proxy values, such as a day pass at a local gym, to the social uplifts that volunteering achieves, like improving physical fitness. This is a new way of measuring social value for me, so I’m excited about building my skills and knowledge in this area.
Over the weekend, I supported the Wilder Humber Team at East Marsh Saltmarsh Nature Day in Grimsby. It was great to connect to the local community and share more about the Wilder Humber Project and my role as a marine intern. I really enjoyed the day as everyone at the event were incredibly friendly and appreciative of our efforts.
The following week, Josh returned from his holiday, and we kicked off his return with a trip to Norfolk to join Ørsted and RSK for their post-construction monitoring survey. This was the first time that we have met Samir, their Biodiversity Lead, and Jemima, an Environmental Manager. It was great to learn more about how they’re working with RSK to restore an area of saltmarsh where their offshore export cables were laid. Samir and Jemima were also very insightful, offering us valuable career development advice and sharing details about their roles within the organisation.
We also made significant progress on our joint project during this week, with our initial stakeholder interviews taking place. We’ve really enjoyed conducting the interviews so far. It’s been great to connect with influential individuals across a wide range of organisations and hear their perspectives on a topic we’re both deeply passionate about. We’re looking forward to engaging with more organisations over the coming weeks and developing a broader knowledge base to support the next stages of the project.
We are looking forward to sharing what the next fortnight brings as we reach the halfway point of the internship!
Ryan