Tag Archives: outdoors

Volunteer Stories – Katie

Katie used to volunteer at Southmead Hospital, helping with the teas and coffees and befriending service. Unfortunately all that stopped with Covid 19. So in November Katie came and volunteered at the farm. She absolutely loves it!

Volunteering at the farm helps with her mental health – she’s made new friends and she loves being outdoors. She loves doing everything from mucking out to grooming goats. There is nothing she dislikes, even the rain. She loves the relaxing pace of working on the farm, and how friendly and welcoming everyone is.

Since starting at the farm, Katie has also joined the Walking Group on Wednesday afternoons, and the Knit and Natter group on Tuesday mornings. She is up for trying anything!

Volunteer Story – Amy

Amy started volunteering with us in 2017. She was studying Level 1 Animal Care at City of Bristol College and as part of that course she needed 150 hours work experience. After she’d completed them all she decided to continue volunteering at the farm as she enjoyed coming so much. She also went on to get a job with Bristol Pet Stop and was really inspired by her manager there to begin her own business.

This summer she started up her own animal care business – Peachy Dog Walking & Pet Services. She not only does dog walking and cat and dog sitting, but care for more exotic pets too, such as reptiles. Business has been great with enquiries all the time, and she now has a waiting list! She says currently her most unusal job is taking care of a parrot.

Eventually Amy would like to own her own kennels.

Volunteer Story Ellie

Ellie

Ellie volunteered with us for many years as a young teenager, and when she was taking her Animal Care course. She went on to volunteer and eventually work at Bristol Zoo. She then went for a job at Puxton Park in Somerset. When she was asked at her interview about her animal handling experience, Ellie described her work at Lawrence Weston Community Farm and the zoo. They gave her a practical assessment – handling a type of lizard called an Agama – and she got the job as Animal Keeper!

Ellie absolutely loves her role as Animal Keeper!

Recently Ellie collected some of our eggs to hatch at Puxton Park. When they started hatching out of their shells they looked very cute!

They grew very quickly and are already nearly big enough to join our main flock. This means that in the Spring, we will have lots of eggs for sale.

Volunteer Stories

Matt and Kim have been volunteering at the farm for a morning a week since September 2018. Matt chose to volunteer at the farm as he likes to move around a lot and have plenty of space. He also felt very welcome at the farm.

Matt really enjoys the routine he gets at the farm and doing the same jobs every week. He was brilliant at cleaning the volunteer cabin and now the cafe area as this where the volunteers can have their breaks socially distanced. He also picks up litter around the farm and in the Community Orchard. HIs favourite job is refilling the wild bird feeders – very important throughout the winter. His least favourite is the poo bin, it’s horrible but needs doing.

Matt always has great fun at the Volunteer Christmas parties, and last year won the Pass The Parcel.

Matt and Kim litter picking in the Orchard

Volunteers and Lockdown

During lockdown the farm was closed to both the public and the volunteers. It has been wonderful to welcome back all our regular volunteers and placements and see everyone again after so many months. I spoke to many of them to ask them what they had got up to during lockdown, and what they were enjoying most about being back at the farm.

Andrew spent lockdown watching TV and playing on his X-Box. He missed the farm a lot and has been very happy seeing everyone again, and working with the animals. Lee loves to be outside and got very restless during lockdown. Now he’s back at the farm he is enjoying having a routine again and working outdoors. Andrea spent most of his time playing with his cat and watching films. He was very bored, but says it’s great to be back and socialising with everyone. It’s great to be working with people again. Pete mostly watched TV and did a bit of gardening. He is enjoying being back and getting some outdoor exercise. He is also really loving seeing the animals, but he is especially enjoying eating our biscuits again!

Michelle didn’t do a lot during lockdown, although she did go for a walk everyday around the back of the farm, which she enjoyed. She was very pleased to see the animals again, and do her favourite job which is collecting the eggs from the chickens and ducks. She much prefers to be volunteering at the farm than being at home doing nothing. Rowan says she survived home schooling by going for family walks and came to really appreciate her local footpaths. However, she is still glad to be back and doing something different outdoors and with the animals and see everyone again too.

We have also started having Corporate Volunteering days again. Recently Wessex Water came and repaired the fencing by the forest garden. These days are essential for farm maintenance.

The overwhelming response of all our volunteers was how much they enjoyed seeing their friends and animals, and to be working outdoors. For our part it has been fantastic to see the farm come to back to life and see everyone again. If you would like to volunteer, or think your workplace would like to take part in a corporate volunteering day, then please contact Ian on ian@lwfarm.org.uk or 01179381128

Volunteer Stories

Rowan has been volunteering at the farm for 2 years. She had some free time and wanted to volunteer, but it was important to her to do something physical, healthy and outside. She used to visit with her children when they were younger, and so thought that the farm would be ideal.

Rowan thinks the best part about volunteering here is is meeting new people and being outside in the fresh air.

The worst bit was during a cold spell in the winter and her trousers froze!

Volunteering has improved Rowan’s physical and mental wellbeing a lot. She says that it is really nice to have a connection to a place and the people in it. She also values the opportunity to have learnt not to be frightened of animals and learn where food comes from. Rowan and her family also really enjoyed looking after the cockerel on the right of the picture. He was the only chick that hatched from a batch of eggs the farm was hatching. So Rowan took him home and reared him with her boys. When he was older he was introduced to our general flock of hens. Now he is a handsom strapping cockerel.

Rowan’s boys are members of the 26th Bristol Scouts and Beavers who have taken part in lots of fundraising for the farm by doing activities such as cake sales. They raised the money to buy one of our current breeding sows and got to name her – Spotty.

Rowan’s boys love coming down in the holidays, and they say the best bit is helping out, mucking out and of course, the chickens!

Volunteer Stories

Dave

Bristol born and bred, Dave has lived most of his life in Lawrence Weston half a mile from the farm. He started volunteering at the farm some four years ago after losing his job at Bristol Zoo, because he wanted to keep active. He’d been told about the farm at the local Jobshare office so he walked round, introduced himself and joined the Gardening Club, which meets every Friday. His first job, he recalls, was helping build the greenhouse where a lot of our potting work goes on.

Since then Dave has proved to be a willing and enthusiastic participant. The activities of the gardening Club change according to the passing seasons and Dave doesn’t mind what job he’s asked to do. In fact he says he has no time for people who want to pick and choose. His father used to grow vegetables in the back garden and Dave liked helping him. He says he likes growing veg and loves working in the greenhouse planting seeds, potting on and tending the plants. But Dave is an all-rounder; he enjoys the animals, working in the woodland clearing weeds and brambles, coppicing, pruning, fencing and weaving hurdles, planting trees and splitting logs.

He has also completed two courses at the farm; Woodland Skills and Herbs For Health. Most of all perhaps, Dave enjoys the camaraderie of the Gardening Club. He has become a valued and popular member always ready for a laugh and joke. He says he would miss working at the farm if for any reason he had to stop and I dare say the farm would miss him just as much.

3 people standing in wood — Dave, George and James working hard in the Woodland, carrying out essential woodland maintenance

Volunteer Stories

Emma discovered the farm after Googling ‘farms to volunteer at’. She initially came along to the Woodland Skills course and then stayed on as a regular volunteer.

Emma and her husband would like to set up a regenerative agricultural enterprise, such as pastured poultry, which is where a mobile laying flock follows livestock on a rotation around the land. This builds up soil and absorbs a lot of carbon from the atmosphere – both actions are vital to fight climate change and soil loss.

However, first she wanted to get lots of hands on practical experience of livestock and farming. She loves the variety of animals that she gets to work with, and says that there’s so much you’d never know without first hand experience – such as there’s a right and wrong way to slope a nest box roof! (If it slopes the wrong way, chicken poo will go in the nest box).

Emma really enjoys being outside and with people who are interested in farming. Her favourite aspect of volunteering is the variety of jobs and animals, and the camaraderie with the other volunteers. She really values how much time Ian spends with the volunteers and the knowledge he shares with them. She dislikes – nothing!

In the future Emma would also like to learn about bee keeping.

Volunteer Stories

Chelsea and Moya

Chelsea and Moya have been volunteering with us since last autumn. They are studying Animal Care Level 2 at SGS College, and come to the farm as their work experience.

They both think that the best thing about volunteering is that they get hands on exprerince with the animals, not just reading about it or watching videos. They feel that it has helped them with their course.

Their favourite jobs are anything to do with the baby animals, and were very pleased to have been here when two of the baby goats were born.

The least favourite part is when it rains.

What’s been happening this Spring?

Lots of fun, creativity and learning on the Farm!

We’ve run several very successful workshops and courses on the farm this spring, as well as some lovely free family activites during the Easter Holidays.

The Woodland Skills course took place on Mondays earlier in the year. This has been great fun and the participants have been learning lots of interesting and traditional skills, including basket making, firelighting and shelter building. They also carried out important work maintaining and improving the woodland.

Kerry ran a peg loom weaving workshop where people learnt to weave a simple wool rug using raw fleece from our own Jacob sheep. These little rugs can be very useful, providing a warm, waterproof seat anywhere – so ideal to take on walks and camping.

The Spring Tonics and Superfoods workshop was blessed with fantastic sunny weather. Participants were taken on a short walk around the farm, looking at everyday plants that are full of nutrients and healing, learning about their history and modern uses. Many of these plants were then tried as teas. They then made a herbal vinegar to take home.

In the Easter Holidays we had our Family Fun Day, with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. There were lots of great activities in the Water Vole Woodland, including mud prints, nest building and clay bird making.

[Show thumbnails]

The Get Growing afternoon was extremely popular, with lots of people planting seeds and decorating pots. The legendary Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Saturday was as busy as ever with people hunting for clues all around the farm.

All in all a very busy spring! In the coming months we can look forward to Spoon Making, Fire Lighting, Leaf Printing, Herbal First Aid, and new sessions of Talking Tables, Introduction to Volunteering and Herbs for Health. Our Gardening Club, Walking Group and Farm Tots run all year round. Please see our website or Facebook page for more details.