Volunteering area: Earth

Location: Devon – United Kingdom

Short description: Embercombe is a beautiful 50 acre rewilding estate on the edge of Dartmoor. It is a place to find a deep connection with nature – wild nature around us and wild nature within us. We run various programmes, courses and events each year to help people connect to themselves, to nature, and to community. It is a place to breathe, to reconsider, to regenerate and to relearn. It is a place to find the gifts that we have to offer right now in the beauty and peace of nature. Our programmes offer a unique blend of nature connection, indigenous wisdom, coaching, mindfulness, community and bodywork – and the space and natural environment that supports the work. We invite all who visit us to participate and appreciate the inner journey as much as the outer.

We are renowned for our warm, welcoming and friendly community of volunteers, who enable us to run our programmes and events. Our residential volunteer positions require a commitment of a minimum of 6 months. Our seasonal community is regularly looking for additional volunteers in our Site, House & Kitchen, Programmes, Social Media and Admin Teams.

Main activities will include: 

• Host Volunteers: You will work together with the team to look after our guests, ensure they have everything they need, brief them on emergency protocols, be a main point of contact between our guests and our team and ensure the smooth running of our events. This role is ideally suited for someone who is comfortable engaging with new people, able to communicate clearly, who is flexible and able to problem solve while maintaining a calm demeanour. The average shift pattern is: 8am to 8pm, mostly weekends but also weekdays.
• Kitchen & House Volunteers: You will support the delivery of our varied programmes and events by preparing and caring for the spaces being used as well as feeding and serving our guests while they are with us. This role includes a mixture of housekeeping duties such as making beds, sweeping floors, cleaning showers & toilets and doing laundry as well as assisting in the kitchen by preparing breakfast, chopping vegetables, washing-up, cleaning the kitchen and dining areas and supporting the chefs to deliver meals to our guests. his role is ideally suited for those who want a small amount of interaction with our guests, but who are mostly comfortable being in the background. The work can be hard-going, so stamina, strength and agility are important, as are attention to detail and the ability to work well as part of a team. The role requires flexibility to volunteer between 20 and 36 hours a week, depending on the schedule of programmes and events happening at Embercombe.
• Site Volunteers: Do you love working with your hands? Are you experienced in carpentry, maintenance or facilities management? In this role, you will help us maintain our beloved site, with some grass cutting, strimming, firewood and kindling production, transporting things around site, helping with building maintenance and any new building projects as time permits. You will also help us maintain our buildings with repairs and improvements and help with the day-to-day running of the site. The role would suit someone who has some repairs and building experience. The average shift pattern is from 9am to 5pm four days a week (some weekdays, some weekends – depending on programmes).
• Marketing & Social Media Volunteer: The office team are in need of a creative individual with excellent social media and written communication skills. This role involves a mixture of content creation (filming, photographing, recording, drafting, editing), scheduling (Hootsuite and MailChimp) and administration. The volunteer will also support the Administration Lead with monitoring inboxes across various social media platforms, assist with technical support for online course content, draft blog posts, engage with our guests and followers to gather more content and carry out other marketing and social media tasks as needed. This role is ideally suited for someone who wants a predominantly office-based role, who is comfortable engaging with people to create new content, who is creative and has fresh ideas, and who has the relevant social media / photography / platform skills. The average shift pattern is from 9am to 5pm Tuesday to Friday.
• Programmes Administration Volunteers: This is an office-based role, for someone passionate about helping Embercombe to run its varied programme of events. The role involves responding to queries in our support inbox, answering the office phones and supporting the Programmes Lead with a range of administrative work such as pulling reports from the website, creating spreadsheets or checking payment plan requests for validity against our terms and conditions. This role is ideally suited for someone who wants an office-based role, who is comfortable speaking with people on the phone, highly organised and confident in using Microsoft Office and WordPress websites. The average shift pattern is from 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday.

Specific information/requisites:

In return for volunteering, we offer:

• Basic accommodation in an off-grid caravan / space to park your own live-in vehicle
• Use of our communal volunteer areas including kitchen, lounge, showers and laundry facilities
• Use of our beautiful, traditionally built, Linhay lounge & kitchen with vaulted ceiling and wood-burner (when not in use for programmes or venue hires)
• Meals from our plant-based, organic kitchen (during our catered programmes only)
• A modest monthly stipend to cover additional food and travel expenses
• The opportunity to live on our beautiful, wild land and to be a part of a small but passionate team
• A discounted place on a week-long Embercombe programme (for those who have volunteered a minimum of 6 months)
• A free place on a week-long Embercombe programme (for those who have volunteered for 12 months)

More information: embercombe.org