Volunteering with BSBI
BSBI offers lots of ways for you to get involved in botany, whether or not you are a BSBI member, but maybe you'd like to explore the next steps available to you as a BSBI volunteer?
Wherever you live in Britain or Ireland, however much time you have to spare and whatever your area of interest or level of botanical expertise, there are volunteering opportunities waiting for you with BSBI.
Below you'll find out more about the various opportunities on offer, whether desk-based or in the field, how to find out more and what to expect when you volunteer with us.
Volunteering from home
- Every year we pull together a support team for the New Year Plant Hunt. This opportunity is open to everyone and is a great way to dip your toe in the water and find out more about volunteering with BSBI. Email louise.marsh@bsbi.org to find out more. We need volunteers to help with data entry, to (wo-)man the virtual support desk and to answer enquiries from plant hunters on social media. Some of our previous Hunt volunteers were interviewed on BBC Countryfile! Find out more in this blogpost by Ciara and read a post by Ellen here.
- New for 2024: how about joining our Country Support Team? Details below/on right, or email us to find out more.
- Good at writing? If you've attended a BSBI field or indoor meeting, or a training course that you really enjoyed, why not write a short report for our News & Views blog? Or if you've read an interesting paper in a botanical publication, you could write a summary for us?
- Happier with images rather than words? Why not enter the BSBI's annual Photographic Competition? Or send us your best flower or outreach images for uploading to the BSBI's new Instagram account or our News page.
- Good at data entry? We may be able to offer you an opportunity to help! Read how volunteer Shane helped BSBI's Irish Officer with data entry.
- You can also get involved at local or regional level: it's always worth emailing your County Recorder or local group administrator and seeing if they could do with some help - this is a great way to dip your toe in the water! Also a great way to build up contacts, pick the brains of BSBI members, pick up plant ID tips...
Volunteering out and about
- How about offering to organise and lead a field meeting in your area? Contact Field Meetings Secretary Jon Shanklin if you have any suggestions for a great location for a meeting, especially if you can offer a training component. If you don't feel confident about leading on plant ID at your meeting, we may be able to provide an expert on the day.
- If you're based in Scotland or Ireland, are ultra-fit, like climbing mountains and tramping through bogs: have you considered joining the Rough Crew?
- Every year we run conferences and indoor events such as the British & Irish Botanical Conference - if you have an interesting botanical story to tell, we'll offer you free exhibition space or put your name forward for a speaking slot! And we could always do with more help behind the scenes to prepare name badges, upload Powerpoints or set up and dismantle the exhibits.
- Or maybe there are Bioblitzes or local outreach events happening on your home patch and you'd like to attend and help promote BSBI? If you're a BSBI member (and occasionally if you're not!), we can send you display material: read how Liz promoted BSBI in her area.
Even more opportunities for BSBI members
- BSBI has four country committees and three standing committees who oversee activity in the following areas: Training & Education; Events & Communications; and Recording & Research. We are always keen to hear from members who have expertise in one of these subject areas. There are currently vacancies on two of our standing committees - find out more about the roles and how to apply. This opportunity is members-only.
- Vacancies on our country committees don't arise all that often, but we are always keen to hear from BSBI members who want to support botany in their country. Contact either your Country Officer or the Secretary of a country committee and ask if there's anything you can help with. It isn't essential to be a BSBI member to help out at country-level but it will help!
- Fancy becoming a BSBI trustee? Here's how to apply. This opportunity is strictly members-only.
Benefits of volunteering with BSBI
- Once you start volunteering with BSBI, we can offer you more opportunities depending how much time you want to put in - and what you want to get out of your volunteering. Ellen started out volunteering with the New Year Plant Hunt and you can read here what she went on to do.
- Ciara also started out volunteering on the New Year Plant Hunt and moved on to sit on several BSBI committees and to set up BSBI's Instagram account.
What to expect - and next steps
We're very keen that you should get even more out of your volunteering experience than you put in, so be very clear from the start about what you want to offer and what you expect to get in return.
Maybe you're starting out in your botanical career and want to develop skills and improve job prospects? Or maybe you're approaching retirement and looking to develop a new interest, revive a long-dormant passion or just 'give something back'? Either way, you'll share BSBI's aims and objectives.
If you have ideas about how you'd like to help but you're not seeing anything above that matches your aspirations, please feel free to get in touch with your ideas. If, for example, you're an IT whizz kid or are great at marketing, fundraising, developing apps or producing videos, and would like to offer your services - we'd love to hear from you!
If any of the above piques your interest and you'd like to have an informal chat about volunteering, just email me (I'm BSBI Comms Officer Louise Marsh) or phone me on 07725 862 957 - I'll look forward to hearing from you!
Please note that we don't offer internships (paid or unpaid), only volunteering opportunities, and also that we can only accept volunteers based in Britain or Ireland. If you are based elsewhere, check out our International Botany page for contact details of botanical organisations across the world.
Volunteer with the Country Support Team
Join our Country Support Team!
- a basic understanding of Microsoft Office suite, particularly Excel
- proactive and detail-oriented
- an interest in plants and/or conservation.
Looking for paid work rather than a volunteering opportunity? Check out our Vacancies page for BSBI staff positions and Jobs In Botany for vacancies across the sector.
Rough Crew: top of the world!
Volunteering with BSBI partner projects
BSBI also runs projects jointly with partners, so there are volunteering opportunities here too.
- Do you know about the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS), a joint project run by BSBI, CEH, Plantlife and JNCC? In some parts of the UK there's a waiting list for squares to monitor, but in other areas there are opportunities for volunteer surveyors right now!
Interested? Click here and enter your postcode to find out the situation in your local area. You could also consider volunteering to be a trainer or a mentor. Contact NPMS Volunteer Manager Rachel on support@npms.org.uk to find out more.
- If you use social media, you may have seen the hundreds of wild flower images which flood Twitter, Instagram and Facebook every Sunday evening during Wild Flower Hour, which BSBI has supported since its inception. The volunteers behind the scenes are always looking for more people to help out with #WildFlowerHour.
Interested? Use the social media link @wildflower_hour to contact the team!