Volunteers Needed
We are looking for a range of volunteers to help the Friends with new activities and to replace or help people who are leading existing activities. The commitment can be anything from 1-2 hours a week helping out, up to leading an activity and shaping what we do. It is rewarding, gives the opportunity to work with a good group of people, and great fun. If you are interested in an opportunity listed below, please feel free to phone or e-mail us on the contacts given. We would love to see you!
Trustees/Committee Members
We have 2 vacancies for Friends Committee Members or Trustees (as they are called since we have become a charity). The position is a working Trustee, i.e. each Trustee has responsibility for an area of the Friends activities (depending on their interests and skills, and what needs doing); the Friends has no employees, so if the Trustees don't do it, nothing gets done! The 10 present Trustees typically spend half a day a week (sometimes a day a week) doing it; meetings can be in the evening.
If you are interested in taking on this kind of substantial role, being involved in issues concerning the Park, and contributing to the Friends objective of protecting and conserving it, this could be ideal for you. Some experience and enjoyment in organising activities is a great advantage, but this can be in any field ranging from business to journalism to bringing up a family.
If you would like to discuss it further, please contact the Friends' Chairman, Ron Crompton, on 020-8876-1123 or e-mail ron.crompton@frp.org.uk.
Walks and Courses
We are looking for more people to help with our walks and courses, in particular either leading or supporting a walk. We have about 16 walks a year, most starting at 10.00 a.m. on a Saturday from one of the gates, and lasting about 2 hours. Normally the walkers are split into groups, with each group having a leader; one or more groups cover a particular theme (birds, trees etc), but some are general.
Whilst the ideal number of walkers per walk leader is 10-20 people, we are finding that our 4 regular leaders can end up with over 30 walkers all to themselves (the individual maximum being 60 on Boxing Day 2008!). So, we need more leaders.
If you have a particular interest/expertise (e.g. trees, birds, history) or are interested in learning, you could be a great walk leader. Why not start by joining a group on one of the walks, chip in as appropriate and see if you would like to develop it further? The leader does not have to be a complete “know-all” as I'm sure you have found on the regular leaders' walks! And you can come on those Saturdays that suit you.
Alternately, we are also looking for walk supporters, who would help to keep the group of walkers together, help stragglers or help to answer questions. You could graduate from there to leading a walk if you wish.
If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact Peter Burrows-Smith to discuss it (without any obligation at all). He can be reached (daytime only) on 0208 392 9888, or at peterburrows-smith1@virginmedia.com)
Website
The Friends website (www.frp.org.uk) has been running for 4 years and receives up to 2,000 “hits” a month. Currently, it is organised by Nick Coleman, who wishes to either hand it over to someone else or get help in managing it.
The website is designed and maintained by an outside company, SAV, which does this as part of its charitable contributions. Nick himself uploads onto the website regular items from members of the Committee (e.g. future calendar of walks and courses, news items), but for any unusual changes he deals with the outside company (e.g. structural changes, changes to links, etc.).
We now want to do two things with the website:
- Refresh the site, working with SAV, to improve the information, make it easier to post content and introduce new features directly
- More actively manage the website week-to-week.
Experience of managing similar websites would be useful. Technical knowledge is not necessary – the company does all the technical bits (including lay-out), and they are very helpful. If you are interested, please contact Nick Coleman on 020-8948-5830 or nick.coleman@dsl.pipex.com.
Campaigning
The Friends was founded in 1961 to campaign against plans to allow traffic to drive through the Park at night, and we are still a campaigning organisation. The type of campaign varies considerably, but includes:
- Behind the scenes pressure on The Royal Parks (TRP) and/or DCMS. In the last 2 years we have pressured them to have a greater focus on ecology in their objectives, targets and Board composition.
- More open pressure, often in co-operation with TRP, MPs and Friends of other Royal Parks. We have used this recently to try to get the Department of Justice to introduce Fixed Penalty Notices in the royal parks.
- Public campaigns or responses to consultations, for example over Heathrow expansion and parking charges.
- Public education campaigns; one idea we have is to have a public campaign to persuade people to use the Park more considerately.
We are looking for volunteers who are interested in a) leading the campaigning activity in all its types; there could be more than one person, either working jointly or each taking responsibility for one campaign, and b) being part of the campaigning team. Prior experience in some form of campaigning would be helpful – we would like to learn from others! However, more important is enthusiasm and organisation!
If you are interested, please contact the Chairman, Ron Crompton on 020-8876-1123 or ron.crompton@frp.org.uk, or write to him at 143 Palewell Park, London SW14 8JJ.