Job Description

The Heart of England Forest is the premier woodland creation charity in England. We have already created the largest new native broadleaf woodland in England and continue on our mission to grow a 30,000-acre contiguous forest. Not only is our forest expanding, so too is our team, and we have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Volunteer Manager to play a crucial role in developing volunteering across the charity.

To enable the charity to grow and meet all its charitable objectives, there is a need to develop and diversify our current programmes, grow our volunteer numbers and improve our overall volunteer experience.

Our ideal candidate will be friendly and an approachable source of support that is able to build excellent and effective working relationships with a wide range of internal and external people. You will understand what motivates volunteers and care about supporting and improving their volunteering journey. 

You will ensure that volunteering not only plays a vital part in growing England’s new largest native broadleaf forest, but that volunteering becomes a valuable and integral ‘heart’ of the charity going forwards.  This role combines leading on practical volunteer sessions along with desk-based planning and administration of volunteer programmes, policy and communications.  This position offers real scope to make an impact by shaping, improving, diversifying and growing volunteering across the charity. 

The role requires an enhanced DBS check.

Please visit our website to download a job description / person specification and an application form. Please note that CVs will not be accepted in lieu of a completed application form.

Closing date: Sunday 20th January 2019

Interview date: Thursday 31st January 2019

ABOUT THE HEART OF ENGLAND FOREST

Planting tomorrow’s great native woodland

The Heart of England Forest is an exciting and ambitious charity.  We want to help reverse centuries of woodland decline and plant one of the largest forests in England. Our goal is to create a huge, unbroken woodland – a refuge from the modern world where people can rediscover nature and wildlife can flourish. It’s an ambitious vision, which we’re determined to make happen, one tree at a time.

The Heart of England Forest is not only a perfectly positioned lung for the Midlands, but a breath of fresh air for the nation. With over a million new native trees planted so far, this project is restoring our native woodland – providing a safe and permanent habitat for wildlife as well as an escape for people from the urban environments surrounding it.

The forest stretches up the Warwickshire / Worcestershire border, from the present-day borders of Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden to the edge of the Vale of Evesham – the north Cotswolds to south Birmingham. It’s an area dense in cities, towns and industry. Which is why we’re creating a place to walk under shady canopies and through airy glades, away from the bustle of city life.

The UK has less than a third of the native tree cover of many other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy. Planting tomorrow’s great native woodland has already started.  With 6,000 acres of land, the forest currently consists of 600 acres of mature woodland and over 3,750 acres of new planting. We have planted an incredible 1.75 million trees so far, that’s over 12% of the way towards our goal of a 30,000-acre forest. But with patience and your support, who knows how far it will grow!