Tower and Town, October 2022 (view the full edition)Join In - Practical VolunteeringARK has an amazing team of volunteers, but we are always ready to welcome more. One of the joys of being an ARK volunteer is no experience is necessary and you can volunteer as regularly as you wish and only for the tasks that appeal to you. In Marlborough there are often practical tasks to join in at Stonebridge Wild River Reserve and just out of town we are working on controlling Himalayan balsam on the Og. Locations and activities vary according to what projects we are delivering, volunteering is a fantastic way to see lots of different stretches of river, including the private reaches. We often work closely with fisheries and other landowners large and small. After all we share a common goal of wanting to see a healthy river corridor, so working together and sharing skills and expertise is vital. The majority of our volunteers love getting into waders and experiencing the river from a whole new perspective, however if you want to stay on land, there are often practical tasks that include a mix of in river and land-based roles or sometimes the activities are totally land-based, such as hedge or tree planting or faggot making. Faggots are large neat tied bundles of coppiced hazel, which are used in the river for some of our habitat improvement works. A regular Volunteer Programme is emailed out and advanced booking is essential to allow good organisation of each task. Some are all day and others just half a day. There are volunteering opportunities throughout the year, mostly during the week but some weekend dates too. We have a wide age range, from teenage D of E volunteers through to retired members of the community in their 80s. ARK provides all equipment, waders and plenty of refreshments. As well as practical river restoration, which is not about tidying the river (new volunteers are often surprised that we are sometimes actively pinning in large sections of tree not hauling it out), you might be part of a river litter pick, planting up a newly created wetland, building a rain garden, tackling invasive plant species or planting native ones. If you would like to be added to our volunteer database, please email anna@riverkennet.org  Anna Forbes |