Volunteering
Planning a volunteering day
If you are planning a volunteering day, the following list is a good practice guide to help you manage your work or activity. It might remind you of areas you have not considered when carrying out volunteer work either on your own or as part of a group.
Organisation
- Decide when you will do the work or activity
- Make sure your volunteers know where and when to meet, what clothes to wear and what equipment to bring. Make sure they wear suitable clothing and reference any potential weather and land conditions
- Rally your volunteers! Try to get support from other groups and individuals to make it a community project. Put posters up in your local shops, libraries and schools to advertise your planned work or activities
- Get some publicity. Call the media, or write a short press release about what you are doing and send it to them
- Have a contingency plan in case you have to cancel. Make sure someone is at the arranged meeting point in case a volunteer does not get a message that the activity has been cancelled
- Before starting, brief volunteers on the aims and objectives for the day, the type of work they will be doing, details of breaks, lunches, and finishing times
Permission
Identify the area you want to work on, and make sure you have permission. You might need to contact a landowner to make sure you have legal access to the area you want to work on. This could be:
- Town, District or County Council
- a farmer
- the Canals Trust
- local estate owner
Equipment
- Work out what equipment you will need. For example, for a litter picking project you will need litter pickers, wheelbarrows and bin bags. You can email waste.services@pendle.gov.uk who may be able to help
Health and Safety
Make sure all health and safety arrangements are in place:
- Carry out a full risk assessment of the area or look at risk assessments already in place
- If you are going out alone:
- tell someone where you are going and what time you will be back
- carry a mobile phone
- make a site map - note your route and identify locations for first aid, toilets, public phones, useful amenities, break areas and so on
- Try to wear hi-vis or bright clothing (preferably with livery detailing which group you are associated with)
- Brief volunteers about the safe use of tools and remind them that they must wear the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) provided
- Remind volunteers that if they come across anything such as syringes, drugs paraphernalia, glass, heavy objects etc that they should leave them and report them to the Volunteer Group Leader. The leader will assess whether the problem can be dealt with by the Group or whether it needs passing on to us for a member of staff to deal with. If you are a lone volunteer, leave it and report it to us
Risk
Any doing volunteer work on an ad-hoc basis is doing it at their own risk and you should make this clear to all members of a volunteer group. It is a good idea to have a waiver form that all volunteers sign prior to doing any work, where they agree that the work is done at their own risk
Insurance
Consider getting adequate insurance cover in case of accidental damage or injury. If your event is on land we own, your volunteers will be covered by our insurance.
The Conservation Volunteers provide a community network package that includes insurance and other benefits.
Children
Make sure that any children under 16 who want to volunteer are accompanied by a parent or guardian. This is so that safeguarding and child protection policies are adhered to.
If you are not sure about anything relating to vulnerable adults and children, contact our Safeguarding Officer for advice.
After you've finished
Arrange for collection of any rubbish, materials and equipment. Dispose of the rubbish yourselves, or contact us - we need a minimum of 48 hours notice of the location of the bags to be collected. If you are going to be doing work on a regular basis, for example, litter picks, speak to us about setting up a schedule. Always make sure you get specialist help for heavy objects.
You can download and print this advice in our Volunteer Checklist. You can also download a sample risk assessment to help you.