Volunteers have always been a key part of GiGL, whether they’re working hard to help us get through the mountains of data that we receive or participating in large online projects digitising record cards. Volunteers feature as an important branch of GiGL’s network along with our partners, staff and advisors that are vital to our function as a Local Environmental Records Centre.
The Zooniverse project, for example, involved 3,102 volunteers who classified an astounding 10,702 bird record cards from the London Natural History Society (LNHS) – a feat that we reckon would have taken approximately 70 years to complete on our own. As well as massive crowdsource projects, we have also worked with a whole host of amazing individuals who have given up their time, from experts verifying species records to individuals visiting open spaces to check important features such as access points, the latter of which you can read more about here and the former you can learn more about in a series of upcoming GiGLer articles celebrating some of our fantastic verifiers.
As they are so crucial, we are completely revamping how we work with our volunteers and are diversifying our offerings to provide a much wider range of training opportunities and tasks. GiGL now have a dedicated member of staff, Community and Volunteers Officer Ben, whose role is to coordinate our brand new volunteering offering. We’ve been busy refreshing our volunteer handbooks and developing an updated application system for new volunteers. As well as the vital roles in species verification and data entry, we are aiming to provide a wide range of projects across all areas of GiGL’s work. We hope to give opportunities for new volunteers to train in GIS software and data entry and work on smaller bespoke projects
| One volunteering opportunity to keep an eye out on is for the Ancient Woodland Inventory Update (AWI), which aims to create a more accurate and robust record of ancient woodland across London. Around late July-August 2022, volunteers will be needed to help source and interpret historical maps and documents of London’s woodlands, and also support communication of the importance of both ancient woodland and this project. Keep an eye on the volunteering page for updates. |
This new edition of our volunteer offering will provide valuable skills and experience to those looking to get into the environmental sector or for people looking to do something worthwhile in their free time. Our new diverse range of opportunities will be able to cater to all abilities and interests. For all of our volunteering rolls we will be providing training, both on the day to day business and skills needed at Local Environmental Record Centres as well as any task specific training needed for the role. We hope to provide real value in return for the time given for every volunteer.
Each volunteer will be assigned a mentor while at GiGL who will help with task training and be the first point of call while with us. They will also be looked after by our Volunteer Coordinator, whose roll will be to ensure that any requirements and support needs are met to make volunteers time with GiGL as enjoyable and valuable as possible. There will also be ample chance to submit feedback to us on how volunteer’s time is going, and we will be hosting quarterly sessions to give volunteers the chance to bring new ideas to the table and give a voice to how the GiGL volunteering program is run. We aim to foster a volunteering community that is as much collaborative as it is led by GiGL.
As part of the redevelopment of our volunteer offering we are also updating our application process. We will be regularly updating our volunteering page with new volunteer profiles. Each one of these will detail the project and role as well as the basic skills required to perform the role. Included in the profile will also be a description of what the task entails and the skills we will be training you up on, as well as what you can get out of the volunteering experience. Risk assessments and provisions will also be available depending on the volunteering environment.
Whether the role is at home, in the office or on site, we will fully support each of our volunteers to make the best out of their role.