Current Work Experience or Volunteering Opportunities in Horticulture

We’re currently running a year long project aimed at reaching out and sharing garden history with a younger audience and we need new volunteers to help us do this.

The Gardens Trust is a small charity dedicated to protecting historic parks, gardens and other designed landscapes in the UK.

We’re looking for volunteers who can help us share our passion for these historic places, and our purpose to protect them, with new audiences.

We’re looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help us tell lesser-known or untold stories from gardens, parks and other designed landscapes across the country through our digital communications channels (social media, website).

The role will involve researching gardens and uncovering histories that will help us to engage new, younger and more diverse audiences.

We’re hoping this will help us foster a wider appreciation of garden history and encourage more people to support our work in the present.

We are particularly keen on creating engaging content that focuses on the following themes: sharing garden history ‘mysteries’; the relationship between historic gardens and our mental and physical wellbeing and; exploring how parks and gardens are important places for nature and biodiversity.

• Wants to help create engaging social media content

• Would like to help create short video content for social media and our website (either to help create these behind the scenes or to present to camera)

• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Appreciates the value of heritage and its relevance to us all - you don’t need to be a historian to appreciate historic places, objects and people!

• Is friendly, helpful, reliable and can work well as part of a small team

• Wants to help a small charity to protect parks, gardens and designed landscapes in the UK

• Is willing and able to travel to parks and gardens local to them

No prior experience in heritage or knowledge of garden history required!

We’d particularly like to hear from you if you’ve never volunteered in the heritage or landscape sector before or if you’re from a community currently underrepresented in these sectors including Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, LGBT+ people, people with disabilities, and those with experience of socio-economic disadvantage.

Location: Remote

Time Commitment: 5 hours a month

How to Apply: Please contact Frankie Taylor, Engagement Officer at the Gardens Trust for more information or an informal chat about the role: frankie.taylor@thegardenstrust.org and mention YPHA Website!

In Return:

• Expenses incurred during your role, eg. travel costs and lunch

• Any training you’ll need – social media content creation, garden history research, video production, how to tailor messages to the right audience etc.

• Social media and digital marketing experience - useful if you’re considering a career in these areas, the charity sector or heritage

• Opportunities to network and engage with a range of people including professionals and researchers working in the historic landscape and heritage sectors

• Support from our Engagement Officer and the wider Gardens Trust team

• Opportunities to volunteer in other areas of The Gardens Trust’s work

• Free access to our wide programme of online talks, events and training.