Garden Champions / Garden Maintenance / Handy Person

The Red Shed Project is a beautiful, dementia friendly garden, hidden away in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Our horticultural specialists provide a wide range of activities and experiences for people living with dementia and their carers. Our aim is to improve physical and mental wellbeing, alleviate loneliness and reduce isolation. We run several Garden Clubs throughout the week, enabling our participants to enjoy the benefits of gardening in a relaxed and safe environment.

“Our Volunteers are the backbone of The Red Shed Project, making a huge contribution to the success of our Charity.”

We are currently looking for 3 sets of volunteers to join our team:

• Garden Champions Volunteer
• Garden Maintenance Volunteer
• Handy Person Volunteer

Garden Champions

As a Garden Champion you will have a key role in our Garden Clubs. If you enjoy being outdoors you need not worry about your gardening skills. This role is all about communication and interaction - Supporting our workshop leaders to ensure our participants have an enjoyable experience, whilst engaging in our garden, craft, and social activities – all designed to interest and be fun for our participants.

Typical duties for this role can include:

- Assisting with setting up the session.

- Joining in with social times and activities.

- Helping participants with activities, as required.

- Providing a listening ear for carers who welcome the opportunity for

conversation.

- Tea and coffee making

- Assisting with clearing up after the session

- General gardening tasks to help maintain the garden.

General Garden Maintenance

If you have a passion for gardening, then this role could be for you! We would love some extra help and support with keeping our garden fabulous all year round – digging, planting, weeding, watering… If you can spare any time to help us out at The Red Shed, we would love to hear from you!

Handy Person

There is always so much to be done here at The Red Shed, which is why we would love a handyperson to join our team, to help with some of the tasks that we can struggle with ourselves - If you’re skilled in general repair and maintenance work and could help us around the garden for a small amount of time per week, please do get in touch for some further information.

Volunteers benefit hugely from volunteering with us...

Excellent Induction, training opportunities, and meetings with fellow volunteers are offered as well as different social gatherings including all staff, volunteers and Garden Club participants.

You will swiftly become a part of the living community that is The Red Shed and enjoy the social contacts, the peace of the garden and maybe learn or pass on new gardening or craft skills. If your own goals are to move on to a new role beyond volunteering - working or studying perhaps - then you will develop a range of skills that will help, including an understanding of how to work and communicate with a wide range of people. There will be opportunities to use initiative and demonstrate commitment and you will show that you are reliable, all skills that are valuable in wider life. Other volunteers may want to use their existing skills and experience in a new way - and perhaps experience something new.

Most of all, we believe you will enjoy your sessions!