Volunteer
Job description
Do you love being outdoors? Are you curious and friendly? Interested in influencing and inspiring people? If so, we want to hear from you…
Join The Royal Parks as Volunteering Programme Trainee, part of the New to Nature programme, made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. New to Nature is an exciting programme of paid work placements in nature-focused roles.
About us
The Royal Parks (TRP) is a charity created in March 2017. We manage over 5,000 acres of diverse parkland, rare habitats and historic buildings and monuments in eight Royal Parks across London. These are: Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, The Green Park, St James’s Park, The Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park, Richmond Park and Bushy Park.
We also manage other important public spaces including Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens. Our eight Royal Parks and other public spaces are among the most visited attractions in the UK with 77 million visits every year.
The role
The Royal Parks’ Volunteering Team works to create meaningful volunteering opportunities, so park-lovers of all ages and backgrounds can discover, understand and contribute towards the protection of The Royal Parks. We provide inclusive, enjoyable and unique volunteering experiences, inspiring curiosity, a love for nature and heritage, and promoting wellbeing.
The Royal Parks are incredibly grateful to have a community of wonderful volunteers who help us to keep our open spaces healthy, beautiful and havens for nature. You will spend time in the outdoors, connect with staff, volunteers and the wider community, gain skills for life and learn how our Parks are managed. Our placement will provide an experience of volunteer management, but also vital skills in tool use, and in urban park and habitat management.
Working alongside our 2,000 volunteers, you will deliver opportunities with coordinators throughout the parks to ensure that everyone’s experiences are of high-quality, enjoyable volunteering, while enhancing and adding value to our green spaces.
Our Volunteering programme provides over 50 opportunities for those who want to contribute to our parks, and we are working towards a more diverse volunteer population to closer represent the communities of London. You will work for the first 6 months with our Volunteer Rangers and our Conservation Volunteers, to scope, plan, deliver and report on tasks carried out. Then during the next 6 months the Trainee can specialise and focus on leading projects that are of particular interest to them.
You will work alongside our wider colleagues and trained volunteers, and benefit from an insight into the charity environment and heritage sectors. You will also gain exposure to other functions across the parks from biodiversity and nature conservation, to communications, interpretation, fundraising, and more traditional office roles.
This role provides an exciting opportunity for someone who is interested in a career in volunteer management, engagement or working outdoors, and who is enthusiastic to learn about and share these amazing spaces with our visitors. This placement will provide invaluable experience that is transferrable across environmental employers and other charity and voluntary groups, and an opportunity to get hands-on experience and skills.
Whilst based in Hyde Park, this role has extensive travel to our other parks and you will have the opportunity to work in each of London's Royal Parks.
Person Specification
- Interest in and curiosity for the natural environment
- Good communication and presentation skills
- A friendly and welcoming attitude, comfortable talking to volunteers and visitors of all ages
- Interest in volunteering
- Good team working skills
- Confident in proactively looking for solutions to problems
- Keen to work outdoors as well as in an office
- Reliable and punctual
- Commitment to The Royal Parks’ values of being responsible, excellent, inclusive, open and respectful
We particularly encourage applications from young people aged 18-25 years old who are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, living with a disability, and/or are from low-income households.
You can apply for this placement via the following link: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NTNPlacementApplication22
Please ensure you select “The Royal Parks” when applying to the role.
This is hosted by Groundwork UK who will check the suitability of applicants, before passing the application on to the placement organisation, who will shortlist applicants to an informal interview process.
If you have any questions about the application form, contact Groundwork UK at: [email protected]
New to Nature is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.
