I’m always made to feel welcome and valued. When you have been made redundant from your job it really gets you down and volunteering with Kent Wildlife Trust has helped.Volunteer, Kent Wildlife Trust
Our volunteers tell us that they feel the benefit of volunteering too. Many have met new people, feel better for being outside and making a contribution to our shared world and communities, others have told us about improvements to their own physical or mental wellbeing.
Our volunteers have also been able to share their existing skills or gain new ones; and we’re working hard to support them in as many ways as possible – offering roles which meet their expectations, providing ways in which they can share their ideas and knowledge and aiming for our volunteers to have the best experience they can with us.
We’re always looking for new volunteers to join our team and we hope that you’ll consider supporting our work when thinking about what you’re hoping to achieve in 2018 and we hope these ideas will provide some inspiration for your own plans for the year ahead.
Wild About Gardens visit
Our Wild About Garden Adviser role is all about engaging with people in their own homes and communities. Working alongside our friendly and collaborative team, as well as an experienced mentor, you’ll be visiting award entrants at a time convenient to you and them to assess their gardens for our annual awards – you don’t need to be a wildlife expert for this role, but you must be a wildlife gardening enthusiast and have the time to commit to our training sessions.
Find out more about our Wild About Gardens volunteers.
It’s nice to meet other people who share the same interests and also help to restore areas back to their previous role with native species and wildlife. Very satisfying to look back at end of day and say ‘I helped do that’.
Our Practical Conservation volunteer teams work at Reserves across the county on different days of the week (including weekends during the winter months). You don’t need any previous experience, but must be happy to be outside in all weather and willing to get stuck in!
Find out about where and when our tasks take place.
We are hosting a taster day for volunteers to join us and see what our work is all about. This is on 17 January at The Gill in Goudhurst.
We hope that all of our volunteer roles will provide volunteers with an opportunity to learn something new – either through on the role learning, practical learning or through specific training courses. However if you were looking at gaining experience of working in the charity sector within a busy marketing team, we are currently looking for Digital Media Volunteers and Membership Retention volunteers.
Our Guardians of the Deep team are currently recruiting for volunteers to join their Coastal Guardian programme across the Medway and Deal-Dungeness areas – this is a really flexible role for anyone who loves being on the coastline, training in species ID and reporting is provided.
Don’t forget that many other organisations look for volunteers to support their work, and we’d recommend visiting Countryside Jobs or www.do-it.org
In this guest blog from the Rescue Hoad's Wood Campaign, the author highlights the threat to the River Beult SSSI posed by plans to discharge 1,000 cubic metres of treated sewage daily—a consequence of the Chilmington Green housing project.
At Kent Wildlife Trust, our volunteers are one of our most precious resources in the journey to create a #WilderKent. Without their passion, dedication, and tireless efforts, so much of what we achieve wouldn’t be possible.
Head of Strategic Conservation Initiatives at Kent Wildlife Trust offers her take on the hotly anticipated Labour budget to support rebuilding Britain.
