Do you have some spare time? Would you like to help Incredible Surplus ∘ Rescue ∘ Reduce ∘ Reuse ∘ Refurbish ∘ Repair ∘ Repurpose ∘ Recycle ∘ Redistribute? There are lots of ways you can help our organisation – some obvious, some not so obvious! Read on for more information!
The area of work where we have the greatest capacity for new volunteers is on our grow sites – helping with all manner of gardening and composting tasks on our many allotments. Click the button below to find out more about our grow sites and how you can register as a Grow Site volunteer.
Because it’s outside, there’s more flexibility with numbers than is possible with indoor venues. Come and join us, get a bit of fresh air and exercise and help to provide nutritious food for the local community. By growing and distributing good food locally, we’re improving people’s access to healthy food, while saving food miles and CO2 emissions from food transportation!
If growing isn’t your thing, we do have vacancies from time to time at our venues. Our volunteers collect, sort, and redistribute food and other items daily. This is the obvious face of Incredible Surplus, and what usually people say they want to get involved in. But what you might not appreciate are all the other essential tasks that go into making a huge project like Incredible Surplus function!
We need people to sort and transport waste for recycling and composting. We need people to clean our venues. We need people to monitor fridge and freezer temperatures and check food expiry dates so we’re compliant with Environmental Health legislation. We need people to maintain buildings and fix things that break. We need people to answer emails and keep up with admin. We need people with graphics and computing skills to design leaflets and posters. We need people to update and maintain social media feeds. We need people to litter pick around our sites to keep them clean and tidy so we are good neighbours.
How to volunteer
Genuinely, the best way to get involved as a volunteer is to show up at one of our venues that you’d like to help at, say hi and offer your services! It’s that simple. You can find what’s open and when on our calendar and on the locations pages.
You’d be amazed at how many people contact us via the website/email/social media saying they’d like to volunteer and then never actually turn up anywhere, and we never hear from them again! But if you would like to register your interest as a volunteer and have one of our project leads contact you to discuss, you can fill in this form:
I don’t have much spare time on a weekly basis, are there any other ways I can help?
Yes absolutely! You can still support Incredible Surplus by shopping with us, sharing and responding to our social media posts, and by telling others about us. If you have specific skills we probably do need infrequently, let us know – for example, if you’re a painter and decorator, a vehicle mechanic, or a graphic designer, we don’t need those skills every week, but if you’re happy for us to keep your details on file and call on you to help out from time to time, please let us know! Occasionally we need all hands on deck for a big move or deep clean, so keep an eye out on social media for shout outs for one-off assistance.
Do you support Corporate/Employee Volunteering?
Yes, absolutely! If you’re a business, and want to arrange for some of your workforce to help out at one of our venues for a day or even a week etc, as part of your commitment to the local community, and as a valuable teambuilding exercise, we’re very happy to facilitate that. In the past, we’ve had corporate volunteers help with decorating, deep cleaning, gardening, catering and more! Just email us the details to incrediblesurplus@gmail.com or use our contact form and our volunteer co-ordinator Ann will be in touch.
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