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Working with Volunteers
Breaking the mould!
In this article, Ian Brooker of Dartmoor National Park presents his personal experience in the setting-up of a volunteer group, aimed at:
Plenty of volunteers?
From the start of my involvement with Countryside Management,
I have always worked with, and encouraged the involvement of volunteers. However,
their input needs to be carefully tailored to the aims of your organisation
and should be appropriate to the task at hand. This ethos has been the basis
of our Volunteer policy including our Voluntary Warden Service, which is run
along very different lines to other National Parks, but works for Dartmoor.
"I have always worked with, and encouraged
the involvement of volunteers"
I can remember being informed during my first few weeks with Dartmoor National Park Authority, that I would have plenty of volunteers coming at me from all directions, eager to help with all manner of conservation tasks. By the end of my first year only one group had come my way - a group of Army cadets and to be honest, they were pretty hopeless! They had been told that they would have to give the Park some help in order to payback for their own enjoyment during the rest of their week-long stay. Hardly a recipe for success!
By the end of my first year I had made various contacts and identified other groups’ requirements for voluntary help. The village of Sticklepath boasted a working museum that needed practical voluntary help and the town of Okehampton had an adult learning centre trying to give their clients experience in ‘the real world’. So the two combined to become the focus for the new volunteer group. The museum had space to site a tool shed which was funded jointly by the museum and the Park Authority. A meeting was set up with representatives from different organisations and within weeks a group called StOC (Sticklepath and Okehampton Conservation group) had been formed and affiliated to the BTCV, for insurance and funding purposes. The group has never made a formal charge for work it carries out and instead relies on donations and various grants.
The Ranger’s Role
The group started small, achieved several tasks over the
first few months and then launched itself with a public meeting, which gained
further volunteers. Good publicity helped enormously to improve the profile
and gain still more volunteers. From the outset my role as the Area Ranger was
not to take on a committee position but to help by guiding the group and, for
the first couple of years, providing tasks for them to do.
Before long, other community groups were looking to StOC to act as a catalyst for their own projects. For example, a local Church organisation required a new pathway but didn’t have the knowledge or tools to do the work. Once StOC got involved, other members of the local community joined in and a variety of skills and contacts were soon pooled and the task achieved.
In addition, my presence at most of the tasks also helped raise the profile of the National Park locally and stimulated conversation regarding wider issues. Often, these discussions continued at the local hostelry in Sticklepath, and the group has now adopted the pub as their ‘Chapel’! I hasten to add that this is not where you will find me every Friday afternoon, but the occasional visit proves very fruitful and is easily justified in PR terms.
Breaking down barriers
The group is open to anyone and has also performed an important social role,
something that is not always recognised. Adults with learning disabilities form
a major part of the group and have benefited from mixing with others, gaining
self-confidence in the process. It has also been interesting to watch this interaction
and see barriers being broken down. A group of this type also benefits from
a consistent approach to tasks, building very useful skills and with a shed
full of tools for getting jobs done. However, to avoid any complacency it has
been necessary to re-assess certain aspects of the work, e.g. tool care and
safe use, risk assessments and the role of the task co-ordinators.
The group has just celebrated its 14th birthday, with some original members still active, and has also recently completed an important, year-long project. The accompanying pictures show members completing a 200m long boardwalk, built in sections, transported to the site and fixed into position. Path usage has significantly increased as a result and local walkers are very appreciative of the groups’ efforts.
Personal reflections
I’m sure that many of you working in Countryside Management have similar
stories to tell, but what makes this situation different is that we have broken
away from the National Park mould of having only one single group of Park volunteers.
As well as the StOC group, two other groups exist within the National Park,
based on local communities and run as independent groups with their own committees
etc. These originated through local people wanting to be involved in practical
volunteer work within their own village or town. They first approached StOC
for advice and were then helped to get started with the support and guidance
from the relevant Area Ranger. A further group is gradually evolving in the
south of the moor with a local society actively becoming involved in managing
their own land. They have also recently approached their Area Ranger for further
tasks. Thus we will soon have the option to involve volunteers in any part of
the moor and will be able to direct new volunteers to the group closest to where
they live.
I have never been in favour of having a volunteer coordinator employed by the Park, nor having a Dartmoor-wide volunteer force that is bussed here, there and everywhere to be dropped in on communities to achieve a task. Firstly, it is not a very sustainable way of using volunteers if they are spending a long time travelling to a task. Secondly, by using local people in familiar territory, they can appreciate the value of their contribution as they and the community benefit directly.
I’m sure that many of you will be thinking of some disadvantages to this approach, but for me, the only significant one is the lack of ‘kudos’ that the Authority has to face by not having an associated, “named” volunteer force. Some people who volunteer their services can also be disappointed that they cannot join something that has a named association with Dartmoor. In addition, two of the groups have tasks that are now outside the Park as well as within it. However, I feel that this is actually an advantage as it helps to break down the barrier that still tends to exist between the Park and its neighbouring communities.
Ian Brooker
Senior Ranger DNPA