Volunteering opportunities: event at the Meadows on Sa 28 Mar

eVOLve, a Volunteering Group, is holding an event this Saturday 28th March 11am-3pm in The Meadows in collaboration with Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links to encourage volunteering and sustainability.  

All ages are welcome!  There will be conservation projects, crafts and activities, falconry and refreshments.  

Come along, Get Involved and show your support! 

For more information visit their Facebook page.

Volunteering For Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland – You have the power to change lives.

Every week over 1,200 volunteers across Scotland help Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland (CHSS) to deliver its services and / or help us to raise the funds needed to pay for them.

Delivering over 125,000 hours of volunteering, this equates to an economic benefit of over £1,200,000 to CHSS.

Volunteering is therefore vital to our charity and a highly valued way for people to interact with our charity and those that use our services.

If you would like to assist (volunteers in the Marchmont shop particularly welcomed) please contact Laura Croft who manages the Shop.

Meadows Festival (1 and 2 June) seeks volunteer helpers

Can you help...

"The Meadows Festival on 1st/2nd June is truly a community event, planned and organised by a small team of enthusiastic volunteers. As such, they need lots of extra help over the weekend to make it happen!

You don’t need any special skills, just a willingness to muck in and enjoy yourself at the same time. Generally, volunteers do multiple things over the weekend so you’ll never get bored! If you have a particular preference they can usually work this into the rota. Some of the tasks carried out include…

• helping stall holders find their pitch on the Saturday morning
• giving out programmes and answering questions from the public
• helping to open up the tents in the morning, and close them down at night
• general stewarding
• helping with the running of the Kids Tent or Festival Stage
• setting out chairs etc for the audience
• moving things to where they are needed

They also need people on the Thursday & Friday before the Festival (and the Monday after!) to help with things like…

• setting tents up
• erecting fences, barriers etc
• putting up signs
• laying out bins
• …and 101 other things!

All equipment is provided – you will be given a Meadows Festival laminate badge to keep and a stylish hi vis jacket for the duration of your shift. They provide free refreshments for volunteers – tea, coffee, juice, biscuits etc, plus a voucher each shift, which can be exchanged for a sandwich at the Pavilion Cafe, and you can do all this whilst enjoying the fun of the Festival!

You are more than welcome to come along just for part of the weekend if you are only available then – even if it’s a couple of hours, all help is appreciated. They’re usually on site from 7am until about 8pm on the Friday/Saturday/Sunday"

Want to take a stall? Or help at the Meadows Festival on 2 and 3 June

The Meadows Festival is still taking applications for stallholders to trade at the long-running event, this year to be held on 2 & 3 June.  Interest has been high, but there are still a few spaces remaining. From arts and crafts, through vintage clothing and antiques, to books, charities, and children's items, the Festival attracts a broad range of different traders.   

If you're interested in taking a stall, head over to the stalls page and download a copy of the stalls form.  

The Festival organisers tell me they have an exciting line-up planned, but need some help to make it happen - maybe from you? Please visit the Volunteers page if you can give a couple of hours over the weekend to make the Festival run smoothly - the festival is entirely volunteer run!

Volunteers sought for The Risk Factory interactive safety centre

The Risk Factory is Scotland’s only interactive safety centre, teaching children important safety messages in a fun way. Volunteers are vital to the delivery of the programme and help make our centre a roaring success.  Volunteers are trained on every scenario and given advice on how to deliver the safety messages as efficiently as possible as if the children were in a real life situation. The training includes regular talks from experts; “shadowing” following an experienced volunteer round to see ‘volunteering in action’; and one to one training and support from our volunteer co-ordinator.


Over the last three years the centre has gone from strength to strength, creating a great environment for children to learn about dangers they may face in the real world.  Recently the volunteers completed a questionnaire and when asked what they found most rewarding about volunteering, they answered seeing the children’s reaction, enjoyment, enthusiasm and participation in each scenario. If you would like to find out more and have a few hours spare either daytime or evenings, please contact Angela Hall.