Most of the work to care for, maintain and improve our local community green spaces is organised and undertaken entirely by passionate local volunteers. If you’d like to lend a hand please sign up to join in, no previous experience is necessary.
Hope you can join us!
What we’ll be doing:
Over the summer we like to run some extra Balsam Bahing sessions in Elmbridge Meadows Nature Reserve making use of the lovely summer evenings to tackle this menace, before it’s able to disperse it’s seeds.
Balsam Bashing is a really fun activity where we pull up masses of the invasive plant Himalayan Balsam which outcompetes much of out local flora, and causes damage to our river banks.
It’s really easy to pull out, and really satisfying to twist and snap to prevent future growth.
Please note unlike most of our other volunteers sessions for these events we’ll be meeting at the Elmbridge Meadows entrance between No.s 114 & 116 Elmbridge Avenue (KT5 9HB).
Booking a place:
Sessions are open for anyone to drop-in on the day.
Although booking isn’t neccesary it’s still helpful for us to know how many people to expect, to ensure we have enough tools and equipment on site, and to enable us to plan appropriate activities.
Who should volunteer:
- Volunteers of all ages are welcome, but we do ask that those under 14 are accompanied by an adult. Those aged 14-18 may volunteer alone, but with parental consent forms to be completed in advance (send us a message to get a copy of the form).
- Please don’t attend volunteer sessions if you or any members of your household have any Covid-19 symptoms, or are otherwise unwell.
What to bring:
Usually we’d lend things like work gloves, safety goggles, and provide refreshments. As an extra precaution, to reduce the possibility of virus transmission between volunteers, we’re not able to offer these things just at the moment.
- Bring your own work or gardening gloves, drinking water and eye protection glasses if appropriate.
- Wear appropriate footwear and clothing for the conditions, weather, and planned activity. This will usually be sturdy shoes or wellies (as the ground is uneven can get very muddy), and clothes you don’t mind getting grubby, ideally with trousers & long sleeves (to avoid stings, cuts and grazes from things like nettles and brambles found throughout our green spaces).
On the day:
- Please arrive in good time for the start of the volunteer session at the meeting point at the Elmbridge Meadows entrance between No.s 114 & 116 Elmbridge Avenue (KT5 9HB).
- Before starting work a member of the team will give a short welcome briefing on the activities we’ll be carrying out, using tools safely, other general Health & Safety considerations, and any additional Covid-19 specific measures still necessary.
- Although most of the adaptations which enable our sessions to take place during the Covid-19 virus outbreak are no longer strictly necessary, we fully appreciate that lots of people are still nervous (including some of us!), so we’ll be continuing to take sensible
precautions wherever we can to ensure everyone remains as safe and comfortable as possible. - Throughout the event we’ll continue to have hand sanitiser and disinfectant cleaning wipes available, we’ll still ask volunteers to maintain an appropriate social distance from each other, and we’ll aim minimise tool sharing as much as we can.
- We also continue ask everyone to be mindful that different people are still at different levels of comfort with returning to pre-covid behaviours.