Get Involved! In one of these exciting volunteer opportunities; Give your 4 hours, and Join the Collective for your chance to get amazing prizes.
Who: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
What: The Big Garden Birdwatch
Where: The cool thing about this volunteer opportunity is that you can do it from your own backgarden
Why: To protect some of the most beautiful and vulnerable species of birds
How: Find out all the info here
DJ Swerve from KISS FM stopped by our project at Grove Adventure Playground, dropping some sweet beats for our 108 volunteers.
Grove Adventure Playground is an open access site in Bristol that local children can use freely. Formerly known as Brixton Arts Ground, the playground was relaunched last year under the new title, and work has been underway since to renovate the inside arts and learning facilities, as well as the outside sports and play facilities. The staff of the site strive to make the playground a safe, welcoming, and all-inclusive facility, offering a diverse range of activities that children would otherwise not have access to. Located in the heart of Brixton, Grove Adventure Playground is a rare oasis from the hustle and bustle of town living, and a beautiful green space for children to learn and play in.
Volunteers worked hard to brighten up the adventure playground with a lick of fresh paint. Additionally, volunteers built composters so that the children who attend the adventure playground have a chance to learn about gardening and self-sustainability.
RockCorps’ project team want to say a big thank you to all the guys that came down to Grove Adventure Playground and volunteered. The site looks amazing and the staff and kids appreciate your efforts so much! See you at the Gig on Friday! Steph, Soph, Ash, Nana, Tris, James, Mark, Caz, Mike and Abdin
Project number 40 in London this year saw 104 RockCorps volunteers pole down to Lee Valley – a glorious 26 mile long regional park, stretching from Ware in Hertfordshire, down through part of Essex to the River Thames at the East India Dock Basin.
The sites off Lea Bridge Road are just some of the many fantastic and varied places to see. The regional park's unique natural features have been shaped by a mosaic of countryside areas, urban green spaces, heritage sites, country parks, nature reserves, lake and riverside trails, plus some excellent sports and recreation centres too.
We were responsible for clearing all vegetation from the 6 feet high walls of the water filter beds, coppicing marked trees and cutting back bramble and ivy. Our contribution will provide light for hard to reach areas, thus allowing further plant growth and attracting winter migrant birds.
Orange RockCorps would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came down to Lee Valley Park Marsh. The project was a huge success with some really positive feedback from the local residents. In just 4 hours you managed to clear approximately 600 bags worth of foliage which is simply amazing. We can’t wait to see you all on FRIDAY at the Royal Albert Hall at what promises to be one of the best gigs of the year!
Keen to do their own bit for the great charities Orange RockCorps supports, a crack volunteer team from Orange visited the Stepping Stones Farm in East London, turned off their mobile phones, rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in.
Stepping Stones is a community based (and entirely volunteer run) City Farm and Rural Crafts Centre in the heart of Stepney, in London’s East End. For nearly 30 years the farm has been dedicated to providing the people of London with a chance to experience a taste of rural life first hand.
The group from Orange renovated an area called The Fairy Garden, turning part of it into an area for growing mushrooms and the rest into a sensory kitchen garden. They also built some growing boxes to be used as part of the Young Growers/Community Garden project for local residents
Anna Maguire, Senior Partnerships Manager at Orange, said of the day: “We had an awesome time down out Stepping Stones - I think it was my favourite project yet! It's really important to us that everyone who comes to the gig does their 4 hours, just like everybody else, cause that’s what Orange RockCorps is all about.”
Thanks to all the Orange volunteers for doing their bit!
For more on the farm, visit: www.steppingstonesfarm.co.uk/history/
Nacro is a brilliant nationwide charity which works with ex-offenders, homeless people, and other deprived communities. The aim is to provide people with the tools and assistance they require in order to build a brighter future for themselves by offering supported accommodation, giving people a safe environment in which to ready themselves to live independently, and re-enter employment.
Sixty-six volunteers headed down to Nacro’s Young People’s Project in Putney, to build vegetable boxes, give corridors and bathrooms a lick of paint and also conjure up some colourful skyline murals.
A huge, huge, HUGE, thank you to everyone who came down and volunteered to earn your ticket! Nacro really appreciate everything we done and so will all the people who use the centre. The murals looked AMAZING, the vegetable boxes looked great, and the corridors and bathrooms in the centre looked a million times better than before.
We really hope you enjoyed yourselves and are proud of all your hard work. We'll see you at the Royal Albert Hall this Friday. Have an awesome time - you deserve it!
A whopping 104 of you rolled out bright and early on a Saturday morning to help sort out Valentines Park in Ilford.
Valentines Park is a remarkable example of 18th and 19th century country house parkland, containing many features of interest, including original formal gardens, lakes and landscaped parkland. The park, mansion and many of the garden features are Grade II listed by English Heritage and a huge renovation project has recently been completed to restore it to its former glory.
Tasks on the day included clearing out a small canal that runs through the park of dead leaves and rubbish, as well as digging out and trimming back overhanging shrubbery from the pathways. We also cut back overgrown trees and plants in order to help make the environment more pleasing for the community and for the flora, fauna and animals of the park.
A BIG thank you to all of you that came down. You worked really hard and in just four hours you managed to fill three skips, remove weeds from the fences, clear out the stream, prepare the bird feeding area and take down a tree. Thank you all so much and see you at the gig!
Fifty-five awesome volunteers turned out to make our first visit to historic cemetery Bunhill Fields a successful and fun day.
Bunhill Fields is one of the most celebrated nonconformist burial grounds England, and provides an oasis of calm in one of the busiest parts of London. The park site houses the graves of some of London's most famous historical residents including the author of Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe - and artist/poet/visionary William Blake.
The park is generally well maintained, but the railings were in desperate need of a good lick of paint as they have not been painted since the 1960s. The 55 volunteers managed to sand down over 100 metres of railings. They then added rust primer before an undercoat AND a top coat. They worked incredibly hard to get the work done, painting fences that had not been touched up for over 30 years!
Thanks to everyone who volunteered and we look forward to seeing you at the Royal Albert Hall on September 25!
Our second visit to St Paul’s Church (note: NOT the cathedral!) in one week saw another 83 volunteers turn out to help bring it back to its former glory.
Volunteers weeded and cleared the grounds of the church and laid carpet and woodchip all around the grounds. This revitalised the grounds and made them all look a lot smarter. Volunteers also bagged up green waste generated on Saturday's project. A number of committed volunteers stayed behind afterwards to help finish off what wasn't finished within the 4 hours.
Thanks so much to all who came down and volunteered 4 hours with Orange RockCorps at St Paul's Church. You guys helped bag up over 300 bags of green waste (extra special thanks to those of you who stayed behind), and moved 4 massive piles of woodchip to create a new, much neater base for the trees around the church.
We had volunteers from far flung corners of the UK such as Wales and the Midlands and some of you were up at 4am to help make such a wonderful difference to St Paul's Church. Father Weir and all of the members of the community who use the church are very grateful and the work you did will really make a difference to them.
Thanks so much again, and we can't wait to see you at the gig...it's a week today!!
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