Many organisations give their staff paid time off to volunteer as part of their corporate social responsibility. Visit the Go Volunteer Glos website to find out more about employer supported volunteering.
Come and volunteer as a business group with us and reap the benefits of being outside and doing something positive for the local wildlife and community. Please see below the types of work groups you can get involved with during winter and summer, which help us achieve different things in our parks and green spaces.
Winter work
- When: September to March
- What: Help us with our conservation work in our wilder areas and corners across town. You will help us maintain and manage these spaces through cutting back shrubs and brambles with hand tools, to create our much-needed mosaic of habitats which supports and increases biodiversity
Summer work
- When: April to August
- What: Make a big impact as a group and help us edge our paths in the parks or bring a pop of colour to some park railings which need some love. A great before and after shot awaits and guaranteed sun (or maybe not with our well-known UK weather!)
Our promise
- We promise to work with you to find a date which works for you and our staff
- We will find a suitable job which will make an impact for the local community, be achievable in the time you have and have a good before and after shot for the social media photo
- We will give a "tools talk" at the beginning of the working party where we will talk about the job and how we will do it. We will talk through the tools and how to use them safely and effectively
- We will provide all tools and PPE required to keep you safe and work effectively
- We will keep in touch with you if anything changes in the lead up to the working party, for example if we need to cancel due to poor weather
- If we don’t have resource to support you we will work with you to find another constituted group who work in our parks. You'll find details of friends and residents groups in the tab below
What we'll need from you
- We need at least 2 months’ notice to find and book a working party in. Please get in touch early if you want to volunteer in a specific local green space to give us time to prepare
- We need you to fill out our group volunteering application form and your company must supply your public liability insurance certificate (PLI) and a risk assessment (RA) for the activity you will be completing in the park. More support can be found here Please note we cannot support business groups who cannot provide their own PLI or RA for their employees
- We need you to keep in contact with us if anything changes in the lead up to the working party
The application process
- Please send us an email at greenspacedevelopment@cheltenham.gov.uk and include:
- a few dates which work for you (please note the summer and winter work available above)
- how many volunteers you have available (this will impact how many staff & tools we need to provide)
- if there are any access needs we need to provide to support your staff. This may impact the job we choose for you
- Once a date has been decided we will send you a group volunteering application form which needs filling out and returning
- You will also need to supply us with your risk assessment and PLI for the activity
