Not to be defeated...even by turnips

A group from the Finance team banded together to help out at LionMouth Rural Centre on a beautiful morning - could it be one of the 28 days of sunshine that we get between September and March. After enjoying coffee over a health and safety briefing, Nathan took the group on a tour of their land. It was fantastic to see the progression that had been made following previous challenges. The fish-pass was complete and the fence that St. John's College had started was really starting to take shape. 

Durham Business School Blitz Borders

A group from the University Business School met for a nice coffee in Maiden Castle, a great opportunity to get out of the office. And then they were dragged out into the frosty November morning, across the football pictures to the rarely ventured Old Durham Gardens. 

Riverside Clear-up

Rivers and other waterways surround us; acting as ecosystems, transport routes and quite often just a space where we can escape to. The numerous river paths frequented by dog-walkers, joggers and pram-pushing parents are testament to this. As such, it appears somewhat bizarre that we continue to use them as waste-disposal systems; seemingly loading their banks with all our unwanted items.

Many organisations have formed to help protect these much loved spaces; clearing up the area and reinvigorating the natural inhabitants. To ensure their work remains sustainable, a key role for them is education. By teaching young people about the purposes and potentials associated with our rivers, they are able to change lifestyle habits and inspire the continuation of conservation.

With assistance from the Canal-river Trust and Groundwork, staff and students came together to help clear up the riverbank near Queen’s Campus. They armed themselves with loppers and litter-pickers to attack the overgrowth and excessive rubbish.

Over the course of the morning the team collected many barrows of vegetation, ten bags of rubbish, a peculiar length of plastic and what Luke is convinced were the remains of a pirate ship. A member of the public walked passed and was shocked that all that rubbish had been collected in such a short stretch of river-way. Notable items included: a size 6 black croc; a pair of trainers; a chair back and an extraordinarily large quantity of polystyrene. 

Apple Harvest Day

Crabapples, rose hips, rowans and elderberries collected from Durham University English Department Garden

Another joint staff-student volunteering opportunity saw us team up with Fruitful Durham to harvest fruit from the University Grounds.


"Every year tonnes of freely available wild fruit goes to waste in and around Durham because as a society we have become increasingly reliant instead on purchasing fruit from supermarkets which has often been unnecessarily shipped thousands of miles. Many people no longer feel they have the knowledge or skills to use hedgerow crops, nor the time to find and collect it, and have lost an awareness of the seasonality of produce. This contributes to a massive global wastage of finite resources, supporting ultimately unsustainable lifestyles both here and in other countries and creating a lack of connection to the infinitely rich potential available within our own community. Fruitful Durham aims to offer a local solution to this problem."

Finance help at Crossroads Care Gateshead

A small group of volunteers from the Finance Department lent a helping hand to a community partner suggested by members of the department itself. 

Crossroads Care Gateshead is a well-established charity providing services across Gateshead Borough to Carers, Young Carers and people with care needs. Their aim is to improve the lives of Carers and those they support. They are based in The Old School Care Centre in the west of Gateshead with offices and an activity hall based in the old school building. They have recently acquired more land and the schoolhouse which they are developing into an accessible respite environment, activity centre and community asset.

Experience Durham build Wildlife Feeding Station

From an initial group of 3, Stacey managed to persuade a team of 10 from the Experience Durham staff to step out of the office for the afternoon and wonder over to Pre-bends bridge. Tracey from the Durham Cathedral Heritage Woodlands and Riverbanks briefly went over how to use all the tools and we made our way down to the riverbank to start collecting materials for the fences. With regular reassurance that we weren't actually going to kill the bushes and it would actually be useful, we hacked them back and took the collection back to the feeding area. Splitting up into groups we built a dead hedge to stop people cutting through to/from the river; firmed up the shelter; wired anti-squirrel feeding logs and created some food trees for the Chorister students to feed the wildlife. Hopefully the area will be thriving with small wildlife and not too many of the larger variety looking for secluded spaces!

St. John's take on LionMouth

Arriving at the centre, we were met with the news that Nathan, LionMouth activity coordinator, had gotten stuck honeymooning in the Lake District and had spent the previous night sleeping under a garage roof. The main task of creating a sheep-fence could end up a disaster with a group of people blundering about in a field. Fortunately Dave came in to help us who, although he didn't know Nathan's exact plans, knew how to put a fence up.

Plant pots, plant pots everywhere in LionMouth

With the University seemingly void of staff, we decided to hold an impromptu team challenge at LionMouth Rural Centre for anyone who was around.  The centre had recently acquired a nursery's worth of plants and needed a little bit of help jiggling things around so that they weren't weaving in and out rosemary bushes to get into the building. After a good few weeks of little-to-no rain, the skies obviously decided to tease us on our first challenge in a while.

Team Challenge at Old Durham Gardens...

After the recent snow, volunteers were slightly apprehensive about the job of planting apple trees down at Old Durham Gardens. However the weather was beautiful and athough it was a little chilly, the team soon got warm digging holes. With some help from the Friends of Old Durham Gardens dead trees were soon uprooted, with new ones being planted. The afternoon was rounded off with some tea and biscuits in the pavilion, and everyone is looking forward to going back to the site in the spring to see the blossom in full bloom.

Who we are...Meet the team

Although small, the staff volunteering team are always very busy managing and organising volunteering opportunities. 

Each member of the team has a different background and therefore became interested in staff volunteering in a different way. 

The diversity of the team provides a wide range of skills and insight, allowing the management of volunteering opportunities to be as innovative as possible. 

The team:

Dr Andrew Cattermole - Assistant Director (Staff Volunteering & Outreach) 

Andrew has worked at the University since 2003 and is currently Assistant Director (Staff Volunteering & Outreach).   Andrew has a previous background in logistics management in the private sector, prior to returning to higher education as a mature student to gain a BSc (Hons) in Countryside Management and a PhD in Rural Development, both from Newcastle University.  Prior to joining Durham University Andrew worked in a range of regeneration roles and as an independent consultant. 

Vicky Ridley - Experience Durham Project Manager

Vicky joined Experience Durham and the Staff Volunteering & Outreach team in November 2011. She has extensive experience of life at Durham University, having completed a BSc (Hons) Natural Sciences degree and an MSc by Research at the University. Following graduation she worked for Student Community Action, managing and coordinating volunteering opportunities for Durham students in the local area. She has spent time abroad working and volunteering in far-flung places of the world and spent 16 months working in the Alumni Relations team at Durham University. Vicky supports all aspects of the Staff Volunteering and Outreach teams works and is responsible for promoting the wider activities taking place within Experience Durham.

Rebecca Byrne - Volunteering Co-ordinator 

Rebecca is on a sabbactical post and works for the SVO team as well as Team Durham marketing and is responsible for Team Challenge coordination.

A fresh look at Staff Volunteering...

Over the next few weeks, the blog will be looking at staff volunteering from number of different angles. The blog will be taking a behind the scenes look at who we are, what we do, how we carry out our work, where we carry out our work, and of course why staff volunteering is so important. In a series of posts, we hope to therefore make clear the aims, objectives, practicalities and history of our work.

A reminder of what we do...

The Staff Volunteering and Outreach team supports staff members who wish to participate in the Durham University Employer Supported Volunteering scheme. All staff can participate in the project and can apply to volunteer in work time for up to 5-days per year. Volunteering opportunities take the form of Team Challenges, one-off volunteering events and long-term volunteering placements. The scheme therefore makes it easier for staff to engage in one-off projects, as well as sustain a long-term interest, or commitment to, a community project.

The SVO team works with a growing number of departments across the University to facilitate student  (as well as staff) placements as part of degree programmes. Through these projects, groups of students work together to tackle a real business problem faced by a community or third sector organisation and offer practical solutions to these issues. Some of the most successful projects have so far seen groups of Computer Science students work with a large number or local organisations, and students studying at Durham Business School delivering marketing and business plans for community groups in the North East.

Look out for the latest Team Challenge volunteering opportunities...

Alington House Grounds

In the garden at the back of Alington House in the centre of Durham, they are hoping to create a food garden which will eventually provide food for their café. However they need a bit of a helping hand! At the end of February we are looking for volunteers to help put up a fence at the bottom of the garden and clear some of the land to create vegetable beds. If you would like to help out please sign up. Visit the Team Challenge volunteering vacancies page on our website to register. 

When: Thursday 28^th February, 10am-3pm

Where: Alington House, N Bailey, Durham

County Durham Community Foundation

County Durham Community Foundation is a charitable grant-making organisation established to benefit County Durham and Darlington. Annually they award £2m in grants and part of the process is ensuring that the grants awarded are used appropriately.

To ensure this the Foundation carry out monitoring visits to grant recipients. As this is a large task they are looking volunteers to help them undertake these visits. Staff are split into groups of 2 or 3 and go off to carry out the visits (1 car per group will be required and drivers need to ensure that they have business insurance on their motor policy). Once visits are complete the groups then reassemble back at Langley Moor for a debrief and a chance to finish writing up the notes of the day. The paperwork is minimal – it’s more about feeding back as a group and allowing the Foundation to know that the grant recipients are not having any problems. If you would like to participate please sign up. Visit the Team Challenge volunteering vacancies page on our website to register.

When: Wednesday 13^th March, From 9.30am