Volunteering at Chelsea Physic Garden
We are the oldest botanic garden in London and now is an exciting time to join Chelsea Physic Garden, in our 350 anniversary year. Discover more about our volunteering roles and find out how you can support us in our work via the button below.
For volunteering related general questions please email
Our volunteer opportunities are for people aged 18 or over. If you are a young person looking for an opportunity with Chelsea Physic Garden, please follow this link to our Youth Engagement page: www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/youth-engagement/.
Community Learning Volunteer
About the opportunity
This is a rewarding opportunity to support the Learning team increase community access to Chelsea Physic Garden. We are looking for new volunteers who want to help us help adults with support needs become more integrated in the Garden and their local community.
This is a great role if you have experience working or are looking to gain experience working with adults at risk, senior groups, or young people. This is also a fantastic opportunity to make a significant impact on people’s lives. You would be volunteering alongside experienced staff to support the smooth running of community gardening sessions and workshops, both on and off site. Our sessions are primarily with adults but occasionally we run sessions with teenagers.
What will you be doing?
You’ll help with:
- Setting up and down session spaces (including refreshments, furniture, and materials)
- Welcoming participants
- Supporting facilitators during sessions by handing out materials and supervising participants 1:1 or in small groups
- Creating a warm, friendly and safe atmosphere for the participants
How much time is involved?
- Two weekdays per month. Very rarely on weekends.
- Shift lengths are typically 3-4 hours
- You can volunteer for as many or as few as you’d like
- Callouts for shifts will be sent out up to a month in advance
We encourage a minimum of 3 months for our roles so you get the most out of the opportunity and so the Garden and our sessions are supported. We are happy to discuss individual flexibility if you need.
We’re looking for someone who:
- Likes volunteering in a team
- Enjoys helping others
- Are empathetic and compassionate
- Is friendly and non-judgemental
Will I be reimbursed for expenses?
Volunteers will receive out-of-pocket travel expenses up to the value of £15.
What you get from volunteering with Chelsea Physic Garden:
- Role-specific training
- Support and development opportunities throughout your time with us
- Discounts in our Garden shop and onsite café
- A fortnightly newsletter letting you know what’s going on in the Garden
- A series of events to say thank you
- Knowledge and understanding of how a charity and Learning team operates
Chelsea Physic Garden is an inclusive organisation. We welcome applications from everyone, including members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities, neurodiverse people, and people from all ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. You don’t need to have volunteered before or visited Chelsea Physic Garden or any heritage site/garden.
Some applicants will be progressed to attend an informal discussion via Zoom or Microsoft Teams on the afternoons of 17 and 24 April, which will include the Learning and Engagement Officer and the Learning and Engagement Coordinator.
Please note that this role will require a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and we may need to ask you about any unspent convictions as part of our duty of care.
Interested?
Please apply via the button below.
Oral History Volunteer
About the role
Chelsea Physic Garden is creating an archive of stories and information about the Garden, to help capture our living history for future generations. We’ll be interviewing people connected to the Garden including staff and volunteers. We want to save the memories of our Garden and use them to create exciting new content for our interpretation and other projects.
We’re excited to hear from people who want to get involved in the interviewing aspect of the project and the behind the scenes transcribing element. Or both!
This can be a hybrid volunteer role and you may be able to do aspects of your volunteering, such as transcribing, from home.
If you are passionate about engaging with people and interested in learning more about oral history, then this is the project for you. You don’t need any prior experience to get involved.
What will you be doing?
- Interviewing people chosen by the Garden team and recording their memories via digital recording equipment.
- Preparing recordings for archiving and transcription.
- Transcribe recordings (audio typist) to form a text document of the interviews.
- Potential for volunteers to also assist in research to support interviews.
- Potential for volunteers to assist in editing recordings to make “sound bites” for inclusion on audio guides or online content.
How much time do you need to donate?
We encourage around 3 hours per week, and this could be across Sunday to Friday from 9-5pm. The interviewing aspect of the role will take place at Chelsea Physic Garden but transcribing could be done from home. The project will be carried out from September 2022 to 2023 and we recommend taking part for a minimum of 3 months. We’re always happy to discuss different types of participation and flexibility, get in touch with us if you’d like to talk about this.
We’re looking for someone who is:
- Happy talking to people of all ages and backgrounds
- Interested in learning new skills and styles of communication.
- Open-minded and non-judgemental
- Able to get the best out of people by being patient and kind
- A good listener
- Basic computer skills and previous experience using Microsoft Office would be helpful, but we will help you to use any of the systems we will use for this project.
Interested? Apply via the link below.
