Volunteer Leadership Training for Community Growers

Community volunteers need to feel at home, complete interesting tasks, contribute to the direction of the garden and have their wellbeing needs met.

As a community garden leader based in Falkirk or the Forth Valley you need to know how to include people and co-create a great volunteering experiences. To sustain community growing spaces and keep everyone safe, you'll need to understand how to put in place the right boundaries, policies and procedures for your space.

This training is an overview of best-practice volunteering approaches, with plenty of examples from across the uk-wide Social Farms & Gardens membership.

Together we’ll explore:

• Ways to attract community volunteers and support people to feel at home in the garden space.
• Ideas for activities that volunteers value.
• Methods to develop volunteers, the garden and the organisation, covering garden design, good volunteer meetings, confidence-building and more.
• Policies and procedures that support staff and volunteers, with a focus on volunteering agreements and what is not the role of a community garden leader.
• How you might manage different scenarios and approach potentially tense situations in a relaxed manner.

This training aims to show how a wide range of people can be supported to volunteer in a community garden, including people with anxiety and depression, older and younger people, longstanding residents and people new to the area, and people from a range of financial backgrounds.

The trainer is Social Farms & Gardens Learning & Development Manager Amber Alferoff, A very frequent visitor to Scotland, Amber has led training for seven years, and hopes examples from Scotland, London and Europe will lead to an inspiring enjoyable day.

This full-day, in-person training is fully funded for representatives of community growing spaces in Falkirk and the Forth Valley who are interested in increasing their number of volunteering opportunities and impoving quality of their volunteers experiences.

Participants may be both indoors and outdoors at different times during the day. Please dress appropriately to the weather. A hot plant-based lunch will be served and refreshments provided throughout the day.

Additional Information
This venue has accessible facilities - please contact us if you'd like any support with transport or accessibility.

Getting there
Polmont Train Station is a 15 min walk away
The X38 bus stops near by on Main Street
Bicycle storage on the day can be arranged in advance by contacting us
Some parking is availble on site

What to bring: Please dress appopriatley for the weather - both indoor and outdoor spaces may be cold.

Places are strictly limited so please book early to avoid disappointment

This event contributes to FEL's Community Growing Leadership Certificate Programme for Falkirk based Communities