Volunteers are the life-blood of Surrey Wildlife Trust, having set up the organisation (then the Surrey Naturalists' Trust) almost 70 years ago. Now, volunteers remain at the front and centre of our work. Although you may see our practical conservation volunteers whilst visiting our reserves, or encounter our ambassador volunteers at your local community events, some volunteers are less visible but just as important: our dedicated administration supporters. 

Over at our HQ in Pirbright, we're fortunate to have the support of Pauline and Leonora who join the communities team once a week to support volunteering operations. They welcome new volunteers with the information they need to get started and get them set up on our volunteer database. This support is critical to ensure a smooth onboarding process for volunteers and has a significant impact on staff capacity and resource. Recently, we've been fortunate to have additional support from Sophia, a placement student volunteer from the University of Surrey, who has been helping the communities team with volunteering administration support and community engagement projects. Supporting a small team of three staff members, they make a huge difference and truly are our dream team!

You'll find more volunteers at our office in Pirbright within our membership team. Jane, Nicola, Joep and Fiona are valued members of the team, helping to ensure our members, supporters and volunteers are well looked-after. Jane, our 'members guru', makes phone calls to welcome new members and assists with new member recruitment. Joep is our 'CRM hero', tidying up and helping to modernise our database, as well as taking great care to make up new member packs. Fiona helps to keep meticulous membership records and makes phone calls to our long-term members, making her our 'historical outreach champion'. Last but not least, Nicola supports volunteering impact monitoring by uploading volunteer hour records to our database, as well as saving the Trust vital funds by converting members to our new Digital Surrey Nature magazine and supporting the processing of campaign payments; our 'supporters pro'!

Over at our Education Centre, Fiona and Janet provide invaluable support to our education team. Janet supports our Nower Wood Administrator with a range of tasks, ensuring all activities on site, from volunteering to school visits and events, run smoothly. Primarily, she helps to look after our CRM database and bookings list, but generously offers to support however needed. Fiona has been a huge help supporting the delivery of Adult Learning Courses. She helps to review evaluation feedback and measure the customer journey, and helps to facilitate courses when an extra pair of safe hands is needed. Earlier this year, she also put a considerable amount of work into reorganising our library at Nower Wood, now beautifully arranged and easy to use. 

We'd be lost without all these fabulous people who kindly give their time to support SWT's operations. We are so grateful to all our volunteers, whether based in our offices, on our reserves or out in the community, who are helping us achieve nature recovery.

Interested in volunteering? Get in touch with us at volunteers@surreywt.org.uk