- About Volunteering
- Some activities you can help with
- Volunteer Site Leaders
- Site leading responsibilities
- Site Leader Induction
About Volunteering
There are many activities that you can help with across our garden, orchard, wildlife areas, buildings or site features. Everyone is welcome, catering for all ages, experience and interests, from light gardening to more physical or technical activities. Children under age 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
We aim to have a Site Leader on hand at our volunteer open days to guide activities. Please go at your own pace, do what you are comfortable with and ask for help or guidance as needed.
Along with our seasonal volunteering activities, we regularly host themed events, such as arts, crafts, painting, ceramics, woodworking, meditation, sustainable building, music, theatre, drumming, Kung Fu, or storytelling.
Please check the shared calendar for more info.
Some activities you can help with
- Maintaining the garden, growing food, flowers, culinary and medicinal herbs in our veg beds, perennial beds and polytunnel
- Caring for the wildlife areas and enhancing habitats, such as scything, planting trees, making bird or bat boxes, coppicing and pollarding trees, transplanting saplings, planting out wild flowers, clearing overgrown bramble.
- Caring for the fruit trees in our community orchard
- Eco-building and carpentry or repairs
- Green woodworking
- Natural bee-keeping
Volunteer Site Leaders
Volunteer site leaders help to run our regular Saturday open days from 12.00pm -4.00pm.
Site leading responsibilities
- committing to a Saturday open day or half day slot (4 hours or 2 hours)
- opening and/or closing the site
- welcoming visitors and volunteers
- giving a brief induction to new volunteers
- guiding hands-on volunteer activities such as wildlife activities, gardening, site maintenance, tree-care and other practical projects
- supporting care of the site for the day, such as making sure rubbish is taken away, tools are put away, hand-washing water is available, the compost toilet is clean and the site is well cared for
- being responsible for health and safety on the day
You can commit to however many Saturdays you like. We suggest a minimum of 3-4 Saturdays a year. This will help you get the most from this volunteering role and build continuity and experience.
Site Leader Induction
An induction can be provided for new site leaders. Download the guidelines for site leaders below to find out more:
Green woodworking @MOP
Traditional skillsGreen woodworking is a traditional method of woodworking where freshly cut, or “green,” wood is used, that is wood that hasn’t been kiln-dried or “seasoned”. Green woodworking mainly relies on using hand tools and traditional techniques to work the wood while it is still in its green state, unlike traditional carpentry or joinery where…
Why Volunteer?
What are the benefits of community gardening? Gardening and particularly gardening as a group has a lot of health benefits, both physically and can benefit wellbeing too. Better physical health Can be achieved through: Better mental health Social inclusion New skills Improved wellbeing from being close to nature
Meadow Orchard Project 
You must be logged in to post a comment.