Challenge:ELBA’s Inaugural Parks and Open Spaces Forum
The employees of East London’s parks and green spaces are usually out and about but on Wednesday 15th March, the Challenge:ELBA team had them around the table for a new Parks and Open Spaces Forum. The event, facilitated by Challenge:ELBA Programme Manager Emily Franklin and hosted by Victoria Park, aimed to highlight best practice when working with corporate volunteers and look at the challenges facing parks and open spaces and how ELBA can help overcome these issues. The forum was attended by organisations from across the east London boroughs including Mile End Park in Tower Hamlets, London Fields in Hackney, and West Ham Park in Newham.
After kicking off the day with a round of “human bingo” (where it was a struggle to find someone who had no fillings) the forum then got down to business discussing the positive impact that volunteers have had on the park spaces. One of the projects discussed was a woodland walk Pete from Mile End Park emphasised “this couldn’t have been done without volunteers.” Not only has it created a new and interesting space for users of the park, it has also reduced anti-social behaviour by cutting back growth and opening up areas.
As well as practical team challenges, some of the parks have had corporate volunteers help with community events such as a festive tea dance where volunteers set up the venue, served drinks and refreshments, and got involved with activities. It was fed back to the forum that “the event was a real success and the volunteers were fantastic.” This sparked a discussion about other ways volunteers can get involved with the parks and lead to ideas for future events in which volunteers could participate.
When it came to the challenges faced when working with volunteers there were common themes that arose. The main issue was what was described as the “lunchtime lull,” where volunteers returning from lunch sometimes have lower productivity. Each organisation had different techniques for dealing with this and sharing these gave people some new ideas on how to get the best out of corporate volunteers.
As it was such a glorious day, we couldn’t keep the members of the forum inside for too long. So, after a question and answers session, attendees were treated to a tour by Keiran Whelan, Community Outreach Officer at Victoria Park. The tour looked at different projects and areas that volunteers had worked on and the impact they had made. This included clearing the reeds in the East Lake, planting seasonal flower beds, and maintenance of the running track. Each project caters to different types of teams and has its own challenges so it was interesting and useful to hear the different ways of overcoming these.
Kieran expressed the value of such specific training, ‘ELBA’s 2017 parks forum proved to be a fantastic networking opportunity to share ideas, practices and projects with other organisations. It gave us a fresh insight into how other organisations run volunteer days and lots of ideas about changes we can make to improve our own volunteer days including keeping volunteers motivated and focused. The forum was concise and well presented with plenty of opportunity for questions and free discussion.’
Overall, the forum was a huge success and a great opportunity to share best practices. Stella Fox, Support Officer at West Ham Park said the most useful aspect of the forum was “listening to everyone and talking about how we use volunteers and the challenges which both volunteers and parks face.” Sharing their best practices and experiences lead to new ideas being generated and effective ways to utilise volunteers.
Following the success of the forum, the Challenge:ELBA team will also run their annual Community Partner training which covers sharing best practice alongside the ELBA processes, for a varied spectrum of community organisations in April. This also focuses on training for people who haven’t worked with business volunteers before to increase their confidence and maximise the potential of working with corporate groups.
If you are community partner interested in attending – please contact Ashley Rice, Challenge:ELBA Project Coordinator on ashley.rice@elba-1.org.uk.
