Here at Stump Up For Trees we would love to have your help.
We don’t mind if you have an hour to spare or a whole day, if you are free during the day, in the evening, or anything in between; we have a range of volunteering opportunities to suit your abilities and time.
Help with tree planting and maintenance: In summary, we plant trees at sites across the Brecon Beacons area in the winter months, conduct tree maintenance and management over the summer months, and run a tree nursery all year round. We organise work parties (normally from around 10am-4pm depending on the activity and the time of year) in the hills: this might involve planting trees, sowing seeds, composting saplings, making stiles, clearing bracken, monitoring wildlife or surveying wild flowers - anything and everything needed to make sure our trees are planted well and get the best start in life. Generally, the roles are active and on uneven, often steep ground, but the nursery is on flat ground beside a mountain stream. The best bit, though, is getting to know a diverse range of people of all ages and backgrounds, people who want to be the change they wish to see. We often end our days with a BBQ on the hill if the weather is good or tea, cake and chat in the valley if not.
- What you need: No specialist prior knowledge required. We need as many hands as we can get. Each work party is slightly different. Full instructions are provided in advance on what you need to bring with you (generally nothing specialist is required, but gloves, a tree planting spade, a pair of secateurs or a sickle often come in handy, depending on the job). We are out in all weathers with little shelter for a good few hours at a time, so a decent set of waterproofs is a must!
- When can I do this? We offer midweek and weekend work party days throughout the year. We will confirm the exact dates closer to the time. Generally, we try to have two weekend work parties a month during the planting season, and more ad hoc outside that, depending on the jobs that need tackling.
- How do I join? If you are not already on our Discord Group, please email hello@stumpupfortrees.org with your full name and and we’ll email you with instructions on how to join. Discord is a communications app that meets our needs very well: it is easy to use. We’ll let you know our next work party date on Discord and you let us know if you can join us. Hey presto - you’re in!
What's involved?
If you want to get an idea of what a volunteer tree planting day comprises, please watch this wee film we made about a small plant on a farm near Abergavenny.
Something else?
If planting trees or scything bracken is not exactly your bag, perhaps you would like to help us out with something else – managing our start-up nursery, copywriting, IT, PR, devising our educational strategy, photography, ecological surveys or social media? Here are a few ideas:
Help with ecological surveys: We are developing sustainable and volunteer led surveys of our woodland areas. This will involve surveys of flora (plant life), lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and birds. We have begun doing the surveys with specialist ecologists and those ecologists are now training our volunteers, so we can continue to collect data about our woodlands in a way that shares ecological methods more widely amongst the STUMP community.
- What do you need: This will involve a small number of people being trained over the course of a number of full days by a specialist and then going on to coordinate surveys of new woodland creation sites (and possibly prospective sites). This would be ideally suited (but certainly not limited) to someone studying ecology who wants to work with us and our specialist partners to develop a survey project. You can be part of designing exactly what that looks like - we’re learning as we go along! We encourage students who are looking for a dissertation project to get involved.
- When can I do this? Spring and summer
- How do I join? Email hello@stumpupfortrees.org and let us know you are interested in helping with ecological surveys. We’ll take it from there.
Help with grants and funding: We are always looking out for opportunities to get additional funding for our work in general, as well as specific projects. If you have a way with words, you might want to consider helping us write the most finely crafted of applications and funding bids. This is for someone who is confident writing clearly about what STUMP is proposing, what we are trying to achieve and how we want to get there. Of course, we would hugely welcome ideas and input from anyone with charitable fundraising experience.
- What do you need? Mostly just enthusiasm and a laptop! We already have one volunteer with fundraising experience who will be able to provide help and guidance.
- When can I do this? This is a great option for someone who has an hour to help here and there but not full days, or maybe you need to fit it into evenings rather than the daytime. Or maybe you want to help STUMP but are not too keen having a bucket of rain thrown in your face on the side of a hill. We know the Welsh weather is not for everyone. Each application might take a bit of time to develop, but it is not likely to need to be done in one go.
- How do I join? Email hello@stumpupfortrees.org and let us know you are interested in helping with grants and funding. We’ll take it from there.
Help with our social media and website content: At STUMP we love the fact that our social media feeds are generated by real and enthusiastic people who genuinely just love trees. That is why we have a really good response to the things we post. Helping with our social media will involve getting stuck in with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more - letting people know about the work we are doing, how they can get involved and highlighting other good research and project work being done in relation to trees, woodland creation and afforestation generally, across the UK and further afield. Helping could also involve researching and developing news items and blogs for our website.
- What do you need: Mostly just enthusiasm and a laptop!
- When can I do this? This is another great option for one or two people who have an hour to help here and there, but not full days. Even the odd five minutes here and there can help. There would be periodic Zoom meetings, to meet other members of the STUMP team and coordinate efforts.
- How do I join? Email hello@stumpupfortrees.org and let us know you are interested in helping with social media. We’ll take it from there.
Thanks very much for reading. Do let us know if you would like to see our Volunteer Policy.
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