I'm the Education & Community Engagement Officer for Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens & Brompton Cemetery. I was asked to put a few words together to describe my job: now there's a challenge, I've just used 21 giving you my job title! But challenges are nothing new to me - my job encompasses a wide range of skills and knowledge areas and it can be really demanding. But the rewards easily outweigh the challenges!

I coordinate and support volunteers, who help to deliver our extensive programme of education activities. These range from pond dipping, map reading, park occupations, recycling & model-making -for primary schools through to guided walks for anyone who is interested.

Walks are themed on everything from tree identification, winter birds & landscape changes through to buildings, monuments and the early life of Peter Pan! People travel from all over London and the south east for these walks and we are hoping to expand them over the coming year. I also plan and lead walks for community groups, summer holiday activities for children and community engagement partnership projects.

These range from Vaisakhi in Hyde Park (a celebration of the Sikh/Punjabi festival of Harvest) to the Big Draw in Exhibition Road & Kensington Gardens - encouraging people to get in touch with their more creative side through drawing, painting and craft-work. Last year saw Quentin Blake donating his considerable artistic talents to the cause. A programme of outreach visits to primary school assemblies using an interactive PowerPoint presentation helps to raise the profile of the parks and we get great feedback from teachers.

Less exciting but equally important is the administration associated with all these activities - taking phone calls, emails & written bookings, assimilating evaluation reports and dealing with income - all essential for the smooth running of our service. Add to all that general enquiries for information, teacher & volunteer training courses, INSET days, work placements and liaison with the parks' friends groups - there's certainly a lot to keep me occupied!

Looking ahead to the Bushy Restoration Project, Tour de France, and the Olympics (to name but a few), there's certainly loads going on in The Royal Parks. I am honoured to interpret these fantastic spaces, and get a real buzz from bringing the parks to life for other people.