Volunteer Officer (Rangers)

The Organisation

The Royal Parks (TRP) is a charity created in March 2017. We manage over 5,000 acres of diverse parkland, rare habitats, and historic buildings and monuments in eight Royal Parks across London. These are Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, The Green Park, St James’s Park, The Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park, Richmond Park, and Bushy Park.

We also manage other important public spaces, including Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens. Our eight Royal Parks and other iconic green spaces are among the most visited attractions in the UK, with tens of millions of visits every year.

We are currently looking for a Volunteer Officer to join us on 6-fixed term contract on a full-time basis.

This role does include working 2 weekends a month and evening work.

The Benefits

• Salary £33,666-£35,000 depending on experience
• 26 days’ annual leave, pro rata, plus public holidays
• Employer pension scheme
• Private healthcare cash plan and health insurance
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee assistance programme – available to all staff and family members

This is a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic individual with experience of working with, and managing, volunteers and a love of the great outdoors to join our passionate organisation.

You will have the chance to work in some of the most beautiful and historic green spaces that London has to offer while playing a vital role in the delivery of our hugely successful Volunteer Ranger Service.

So, if you would like to showcase fascinating wildlife and heritage across London’s parkland while working with an inclusive and supportive team, apply today!

The Role

As a Volunteer Officer, you will be responsible for the delivery of the Volunteer Ranger Service in Richmond and Bushy Park. Supporting the current volunteer rangers and training and managing new volunteers, where appropriate. You’ll seek to develop training opportunities and resources.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Volunteer Officer to join the Volunteering Team at The Royal Parks. This role will focus on delivering the Volunteer Ranger Service in both Richmond and Bushy the Richmond Park Volunteer Bus service. The service was started as a trial with a purpose to engage, inspire and inform members of the public about the history, heritage and wildlife of the parks, and is now seen as a growing success. This role is varied and will see the successful applicant working primarily Richmond and Bushy Park, but with regular travel to all of the parks. Your role will be to manage, the current volunteers, induct and train new volunteers where appropriate, and work to grow and develop different opportunities that the service presents. This role will also work with other volunteer groups across the parks helping to deliver conservation groups, corporates and develop new and existing initiatives. The volunteer officer will support the wider volunteer team and coordinators where needed.

This role involves a lot of in park time, working with and supporting volunteers on the ground, coupled with some office time. This role also requires a large amount of weekend and flexible working, with usually a minimum of two weekends a month in the Parks supporting the Rangers on the ground. The ideal applicant will be friendly, open, and enjoy spending time outdoors and have experience working with and managing volunteers, ideally in an engagement, visitor service or conservation setting.

Additionally, you will:

• Help to maintain all tools, equipment and PPE
• Support the promotion of the Volunteer Ranger Service and wider Volunteering activities
• Ensure all expenditure is approved in advance by the Volunteer Manager and budgets are updated accordingly

About You

To be considered as a Volunteer Officer, you will need:

• Proven experience of working with, managing, leading and training volunteers, especially relating to visitor engagement and conservation
• Experience of developing and delivering successful volunteer projects and programmes and working with partners
• Excellent people skills including team working, negotiating, problem solving and the ability to be calm and decisive in challenging situations
• To be highly organised with the ability to prioritise a heavy workload, manage tasks simultaneously and perform effectively under pressure
• Awareness and advocate of equality, inclusion and diversity, health and safety, safeguarding
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience of managing budgets and of delivering, reporting and evaluating projects would be beneficial to your application, as would experience of competing demands and delivering a visitor service in a park setting. IT proficiency would also be advantageous, as would excellent presentation skills. Practical conservation, habitat or horticulture management skills, including tool use and management, are also desirable.

Other organisations may call this role Volunteer Services Co-ordinator, Volunteer Co-ordinator, or Volunteer Development Co-ordinator.

The Royal Parks is strongly committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and is an equal opportunities employer. We value diversity and encourage applications from candidates from all backgrounds. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. Please visit our website to find out more on our approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

So, if you’re interested in this unique opportunity as a Volunteer Officer, please apply via the button shown.