Down District Volunteer Centre

Volunteering Action Days

What is a Volunteering Action Day?

A Volunteering Action Day is a one-off challenge set for a team of volunteers to complete within a certain period of time, eg a half-day or a day. Volunteering Action Days are team tasks - requiring volunteers to work together, and so they are often good for team building or a good way of meeting new people. As Action Days are time-limited, they are also a great way of trying out volunteering and finding out what you like doing! Action Days are often physical challenges, eg planting trees, cleaning a beach or maybe painting murals or walls. 

However they can also be indoor activities, eg bag packs for charity or letter packing for big charity mail-outs. They are hugely rewarding for everyone involved - they're great fun and allow volunteers to try out new things, and are a great help to the organisation which benefits from getting a lot of work completed in one day!

 
Halloween outing - A group went out to Murlough; National Trust nature reserve near Dundrum, during the Halloween holidays.  We were hoping for a satisfying day of cutting down gorse bushes and then burning them, toasting marshmallows as the flames went furiously through the wood.  We had a great few hours cutting down the gorse - it has to be controlled to allow other plants, habitat for some endangered species, to grow - but, when it came to burning the gorse it was wetter than we were, lots of smoke, very little flames and lots of uncooked marshmallows!  

There are lots of opportunities to take part in similar conservation activities, joining a group for an action day, or volunteering on a regular basis with the National Trust.  The National Trust offer a variety of roles for volunteers. 

Cutting back the gorse.

for more information contact Janine or Pamela at the Volunteer Centre

 Want to know a bit more????  Then read on for more action days which have taken place.

  

Action Day Volunteering at Mourne Heritage Trust

Over the last few months volunteers have been taking part in one day volunteering sessions at Mourne Heritage Trust’s tree nursery based in the Silent Valley, outside Newcastle. 
Volunteers have been planting seed potatoes, strawberries, hazel seedlings, preparing land for planting and more. 
The group gets the chance to work as part of a team, sharing the workload, trying out new tasks and having a bit of fun.
There is always a variety of work to try, from wheeling up barrow loads of sand to sitting quietly separating strawberry plants.  Alan from Mourne Heritage Trust stays on hand to help with any difficulties.
For more details contact Pamela, Janine or Paula at the Volunteer Centre—028 44619122.

Action day at Assisi Animal Sanctuary—or on the moon? 

A  group of volunteers took some time out over the Easter holidays to help out the dogs at the sanctuary just outside Newtownards.  The group painted a wall to keep everything looking good for workers and animals.  Some of the young volunteers then did a bit of dog walking giving some of the long term residents a little exercise—which was much appreciated.

Over the last year action day volunteers have been going up to the Assisi Animal Sanctuary to  help with painting and tidying up; the staff and volunteers at the Sanctuary are always busy with the most important part - looking after the animals and raising funds to keep going - so any help is warmly welcomed.  Our groups have painted two sets of kennels, an outside wall and helped to tidy an outhouse.

 

Action day at Downpatrick and Co. Down Railway.

In June 2007 volunteers at the Downpatrick Railway offered others the chance to get a taste of some of the volunteering opportunities available at the railway - even driving the locomotive!

 

 

 

 

From small acorns tall forests grow....
The joint forces of Newcastle, Ballynahinch and Downpatrick Voluntary Youth Forums took some time out over the Easter break to help move and plant oak sapplings and prepare beds for more planting.  The Mourne Heritage Tree Nursery based in the Silent Valley collects seeds from native trees and then carefully nurses them (about 5000 we were told) into bigger trees which can be planted out and start putting a few more trees back into the landscape.  The group were able to get quite a bit done, maybe not 5000 but lots of trees were planted on and thousands of weeds carefully plucked out of the seed beds.

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