Testimonials from participants of an EU-funded training programme on biodiversity in County Clare, Ireland 2021
(Abbreviations - CLDC: Clare Local Development Company)
“From a personal point of view, I did not seriously think that I would complete this course, but delightfully not alone did I complete this course, biodiversity has become very mainstream in everyday life now. Fran, Linda and Deirdre have a brilliant way of making the public more aware and conscious of their surroundings and a gentle reminder for all of us to mind the world we live in. 110% to all involved.”
“These are exceptional teachers, and the mixture of passion, knowledge and personality deserves to be more widely seen.”
“Well done CLDC for funding this excellent course”
“Thanks to CLDC for putting this course on and again many thanks to Fran, Linda, Deirdre and Phoebe for opening my eyes and encouraging me to share this knowledge. This was one of the most professional courses I have ever been on”
“Both instructors were Excellent! Very engaging, helpful, approachable, and great communicators who made the course very enjoyable and at the same time educational. THANK YOU.”
“Our instructors, both, displayed a high level of knowledge - but also, and equally important, they radiated an infectious enthusiasm which animated an already fascinating content. Thanks Linda & Frances!”
“The ladies were amazing. Open and enthusiastic and it always had a feel-good factor to it. They were so knowledgeable I wish them the very best.”
“This has been a wonderful programme. The enthusiasm, expertise and support provided has been unparalleled. This is one of the best courses we have completed.”
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“An opportunity for interaction with the other participant groups would be good for networking purposes. Thanks to CLDC, Deirdre, Fran and Linda for putting on a wonderful course! Your enthusiasm is infectious and inspirational. I am so looking forward to observing the fruits of our labour and hopefully educating our volunteers and the public on the important benefits of enhancing our biodiversity.”
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“The training was life changing and is the missing piece of the jigsaw of training I undertook years ago. I have a renewed passion for the natural world and feel it will bring new achievements to me personally and in my work life and of course to our beautiful community garden, truly grateful and excited. Thank you.”
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“The series of webinars worked extremely well on many levels. The technology was appropriate to the task - we could communicate with the facilitators and with each other. Sharing the speaker's screen was beneficial too. The amount of interesting, fascinating information and skills that were presented during these weeks was amazing and the ability to watch the webinars afterwards and to save the additional resources added value to the course. I couldn't heap enough praise on our facilitator, Deirdre, and our tutors, Fran, and Linda and the guest speakers. Presentations were professionally delivered in a relaxed, communicative manner. There was time for questions and chat. Queries that came up during a session were researched during the week and we were given the information the following week. Follow-up happened frequently.
I'm just sorry we have come to the end of our Wednesday evening webinars! I learned so much, I enjoyed looking up links, I watched the recordings over and over and still learned more each time. I feel a lot more confident now in implementing our biodiversity plan, in bringing the community with us on our new journey! A huge, shout out loud thanks to you all.”
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“Thank you for offering this course. It has been invaluable, and I am sure it will have an impact throughout County Clare. Please keep doing more of the same. We did miss out on not being able to network with other participants but given the restrictions it was great that it went ahead online. More people would have liked to be part of it. Having the recordings of the webinars available to forward on was very helpful for getting more people involved.”
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“It was an excellent course and I really enjoyed it and would love to do something similar again in the future.”
“Absolutely Loved the course, thank you so much.”
“Really enjoyed the course, more aware of biodiversity as I did not know much about it at the outset. Trainers very informative and helpful.”
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“The Standard of presentation on this course was first class. The information given to us was both interesting and relevant to our situation. The accompanying notes and Videos were obviously well researched and very useful to us. The two presenters complimented each other, and the knowledge we received was well received. Thanks for a most enjoyable and rewarding experience.”
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“The webinars were very effective. The knowledge and skill for imparting that knowledge of the two presenters cannot be overstated. Thank you, ladies.”
“The knowledge, energy and passion of both facilitators was inspirational. The amount of work that had to be done by us volunteers as part of the course was overwhelming at times but maybe if we had known this at the beginning, we wouldn’t have signed up and learned so much. Thank you to Fran, Linda & Deirdre”
“We would like to thank Fran, Linda and Deirdre without whom this would not have happened. Their dedication and love of subject light a spark that I hope will never go out! Thanks.”
“I loved it. I loved learning more about biodiversity and particularly about what biodiversity means in my environment. The Wednesdays were excellent, full of information and also very sociable. I missed a couple of weeks but was able to view the recordings. In fact, I'm going back over all of them again. The online community worked very well, we became more familiar with names and faces as the weeks went by. Isn't it uplifting to be learning with likeminded people? It gives you a huge boost. The evidence for this could be seen in the way we asked questions, made comments, and wrote in the chat. Very often in a 'classroom' type setting people become shy and afraid they'll display their lack of knowledge. There was none of that with our group.”