Bleakholt cannot manage without volunteers and there is no area of our operation where we are not assisted by volunteers.
Many of the volunteering opportunities are obvious and we are very fortunate that we get a good number of people offering help for these opportunities.
There are also quite a wide range of volunteering opportunities that are not quite as obvious. These include working in our shops and café, helping with maintenance etc.
Please note that all our volunteers are aged eighteen and over. If young people aged sixteen or seventeen are seeking a career in animal welfare and wish to get experience they can apply through our work experience programme. Information on this scheme can be found on this website under Work Experience.
We are very grateful for volunteer help. However we are not able to accommodate people who have support needs in their day to day life. Sadly when carers, social workers and key workers enquire on behalf of their clients or service users we have to decline this input.
If you are considering helping us the following are the majority of the areas we need help with. However there are other areas that we might not even have thought of yet. A basic rule of thumb is—if you have a talent we can probably use it!
So even if your area of interest isn't listed below please do get in touch with Neil. He would be very interested to hear your proposal.
Other than Casual Dog Walkers, all our new volunteers need to attend an induction meeting that we hold once per month at Bleakholt. These meetings are always on a Sunday morning at 10.00 am. For dates of these meetings Click Here These meetings last about one hour, they cover the issues associated with volunteering at Bleakholt, they give opportunity for questions and result in volunteers being introduced to staff on the section that they are interested in.
The most usual forms of volunteering are: (Click on the active links below for more detailed information).
- Dog walking
- Other assistance on the Dog Section
- Assisting on the Cat Section
- Assisting on the Stable Section
- Assisting on the Farm Section
Other than directly working with the animals there are many other opportunities. These include:
- Helping in the café
- Helping in Bleakholt Shop (the one on site)
- Helping with the charity shops in Blackburn and Ramsbottom
- Staffing our quarterly Open Days
- Clerical support
- Maintenance related tasks
Beyond these more obvious forms of support we have specialist help from people who have specialities in areas such as IT, data management, employment law, health and safety and other specialities. If you have a skill you think would be beneficial to us please get in touch with Neil by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
If you think you would like to get involved in any of these volunteering opportunities the first step is to attend one of our monthly induction meetings. These are all held on Sunday mornings at 10.00am. You do not need to let us know you will be coming, everyone will be welcome.
Thank you for considering volunteering with us, you will enjoy your time with us and the sanctuary will benefit greatly.
Last Updated on Saturday, 14 August 2010 12:48
