Volunteering Roles

Updated 03 March 2024

There are many ways to volunteer with the Society

The key aim of the Society is to ‘Keep the Canal Alive and Vibrant’ so as to maintain and protect our canal for future generations, and we cannot do this without the support of our volunteers both ‘out on the canal’ and ‘behind the scenes’

We have a whole variety of volunteering opportunities in organising and leading the society, some of which involve specialist skills.  It’s very rewarding working in teams with other like minded volunteers and the roles are all flexible and can range from a few hours a week working from home to being involved in projects, committees and organising events, admin support, etc.

We ask volunteers to become members of the Society as it enables them to receive regular updates along with membership providing insurance cover for volunteer activities. Find out about becoming a member.

Below are just some of the roles where you could help. However there are lots of other opportunities where you could be involved.  If you would like to know more or you want to apply to become a volunteer then click on one of the buttons below and we will contact you.


Key Roles Where We Particularly Need Help:

Social Media + Twitter

Our active Social Media Team has grown over the last few years but we need more help in extending our ‘reach’ out to the Community and other associated groups. This is most important to help get the message out to help protect the Canal. So if you have an interest or experience in Social Media notably Facebook or Twitter then please contact us to find out more. We have a great team and would love to get you involved.

Document Controller

With both the growth of our charity, and the legislation requiring formal data management, we are looking for a volunteer to help overview and control our documentation. Clearly this person should have some experience in this field and ideally have an appreciation of Google Suite, the IT database used by the Society. It is an interesting opportunity for someone as this is a new role and in conjunction with the Chair of the Society and the IT Trustee we would agree the initial priorities including GDPR and managing the records on some of our key projects. The role could then be developed over time where we would be
keen to get an applicant’s own views on ongoing priorities. Recognising that it is a volunteer role we would be suggesting a time commitment of around 3 hours a week.

Project Management

We are looking for people to join our Project Team to help lead the planning and implementation of our various projects. Ideally you would have some project management experience and be able to work with others across the Society. Current projects include our new electric boat at Woking along with making electric points available to boats. Alongside this there are smaller projects which individuals can lead within the team. It is a very interesting and rewarding part of our work and vitally important to help protect the canal. If you are interested in finding out more please contact us.

IT and Website Support

The Society is looking for a volunteer to join a team that runs our IT infrastructure including the website.
With 1000 members and 270 volunteers the Society helps protect the canal for both now and the future.

The Society is very active and this is an exciting opportunity for someone to get involved. You will work as part of a small team of volunteers helping to keep the IT infrastructure (Google G-suite) updated and secure and support edits and updates to the society’s website which utilises WordPress. Indeed the role is not only helping the Society manage the day to day IT issues but with an opportunity to get involved in helping deliver and develop the Society’s IT strategy.

Ideally applicants would have some experience in Website management along with IT system security and knowledge of Google tools. The time commitment is around 3 hours a week. If you are interested in finding out more please contact us.

Fundraising: Helping encourage donations and legacies to the Society.

The Society is looking for someone to join our fundraising team to help increase the monies received from donations and legacies. With the increased awareness by the community of the value of importance of the canal, there is a real need (and opportunity) for us to obtain donations to help support and protect the canal. We have various initiatives underway and the role would be to help the team put these into practice, along with bringing your own ideas to our future plans.

Leaving a bequest is also a wonderful way to leave a gift for both the present and future generations. This is a longer term initiative and over the last few years we have received over £200,000 of legacies, ranging from a few thousand pounds to more substantial amounts. These monies have been used towards various projects including the new moorings at Farnborough, our planned new Kitty electric boat and funding tools for general maintenance along the towpath.

With the community aware that this wonderful canal amenity needs to be supported there is an opportunity to encourage donations and legacies to fund various projects. Would you be interested in joining the team to help plan and support this work? If you are interested in finding out more about these roles please contact us.

Marketing Coordinator

We have a fantastic team promoting the canal via social media, press, etc. and to support this we need someone with marketing or organisational skills to help the coordination of our various initiatives.

This is a really interesting and fun role working in particular with our marketing trustee and our various communication channels. There is also the opportunity to bring your own ideas to how we promote and protect the canal. It is very flexible and we can tailor the work to suit your own situation. Please contact us to find out more.

Help build links with local Businesses

We are increasingly working with local businesses both in terms of corporate volunteering and sponsorship and support of the canal. Businesses are increasingly keen to support local charities but they are often very busy, so it is for us to contact them and find out how they want to get involved!

If you are from a corporate or local business background, or have a marketing bent, and would like to join the team to help expand our links with the business community, then please contact us to find out more. It’s very rewarding and can play to your skills.

Other Roles

Cream Teas on the John Pinkerton Trip boat

This is a fun role as we are looking for someone to help run the Cream Teas on our 50 passenger Trip Boat based at Odiham. These trips run around once a month and you would be working as part of the team with the crew also helping. To find our more please contact us.

Help in supporting our Volunteers

Perhaps we are a victim of our own success as we now have over 260 volunteers! However it would be helpful now to have some extra support in helping recruit further volunteers and on an ongoing basis to help with the communicating and supporting existing volunteers. Accordingly if you have experience in working in HR or recruiting people and would like to get involved then please contact us to find out more.

Publicity and Marketing

We have several roles available as part of our work to raise the profile of the Canal. Some of the areas where we need support include:

  • Support for Press Officer: we need someone help coordinate our links with the local press and other outlets. Needless to say, it would help if you have some marketing and organisational experience.
  • General marketing support with the Campaign team. Contact us to find out more.
  • Sales Volunteer of books and items on the website/events: currently we sell around £5000 of books and other items and we need someone to help continue to promote them along with posting them out. It’s a fun and interesting role.

Help lead our Environmental Team

Protecting and enjoying the Environment is important and with having an Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) status we are keen to build an environmental team to help profile the environmental issues associated with the canal. If you have an interest in this and want to find out more then please contact us.

Events Team

We currently have a small team and would welcome additional help to plan and organise events. In addition to several major events, the society attends various local shows and sets up stands at strategic locations along the Canal to attract new members to join us in our work.

If you have a background in events and / or are good at organising people and equipment to make things happen, then we would like to hear from you.

Help our Membership Team to Plan and Recruit New Members

Can you help us recruit new members? We want to get more of the local community involved and are looking for extra people to join our membership team.

The role is flexible, with a commitment of say 3 to 4 hours work a week is an exciting opportunity to work as part of a team to develop and follow through campaigns and initiatives to improve what we offer members.

Additionally, to support membership we are looking for some technical help in managing the membership database and linking into to the website. Again flexible with around 3 hours time commitment a week.

Liaising with Local Councils

To help protect the canal the Society needs to increase its profile and involvement with local councils and communities along the canal and we need your help. If you have had experience in influencing and dealing with local councils, or are keen to get involved, then please contact us.

General Admin and Support

In addition to the above roles (which themselves are very flexible) there is the opportunity for various general admin and support roles across the society.

This could be for just a couple of hours work, or more if you wanted. The roles could be updating records, managing spreadsheets, contacting people to renew membership, etc, etc. In most cases these would also be working from home although you will always have contact with others in the team via video conferencing, telephone and meetings as appropriate.

Trustees

There is the opportunity for new trustees to join the board to help lead the Canal Society. We already have a range of skills on the Board but we are always keen to build links with future potential trustees to open to help lead the Society. Indeed we currently would appreciate further trustee support on Marketing and helping to raise our profile.

This is a very interesting and rewarding role where you would be critical in helping lead the Society forward, and so doing, helping protect this wonderful amenity. Time commitment is flexible but as a guideline with a time around 4 hours a week. Quite simply if you want to find our more please contact us to have an informal discussion and where we can provide a broad role spec.

Please click here to apply and we can discuss the opportunities and your skills.