Report on Volunteering Activities

Here you'll find reports from our students working on volunteering projects as part of the Service and Leadership Award.   The two reports below are from the very mucky Fordhall Farm!

Trisha Healey reports back from Fordhall Farm

The weekend was amazing! I found out about the weekend from a volunteering meeting I went to in the Student Success Zone, which was held by Gemma Churton. She showed me a leaflet about the weekend and as soon as I saw it I just thought 'I have to do this!' 

I didn't want to go to the farm on my own so I mentioned the weekend to other students and around 25 of us went. I can safely say we all had a brilliant time. I arrived at the farm on Friday evening and was greeted by a sea of friendly faces who helped students put up tents. I was lucky and managed to grab a more comfortable place to sleep in - a yurt. Once I saw the yurt I was amazed as it had bunk beds inside.

The first night was spent gathered round a warm campfire inside a barn eating fish and chips. It was lovely and there were students from the University of Liverpool, so it was nice to meet new people. The farm seemed pretty small at night but once daylight hit in the morning I realized I was wrong.  The first thing I noticed was the compost toilet which was actually very clean; I was impressed - I expected it to be a lot worse. Then I saw the pigs which were lovely.  

Once we had breakfast which was lovely banana porridge (I'm not normally a fan of porridge but this was amazing!) we were put into groups each with a leader and given a job to do. Jobs ranged from cleaning out a river and ditch to mucking out pigs (which everyone actually seemed to want to do!). I was in a grgoup that had to muck out a cattle pen then clean out the pigs. It was very hard work but really enjoyable. The farm provided us with fruit for a snack and lovely home-made biscuits.

For lunch we were given home-made cottage pie which was so nice I can almost taste it now! One student even licked the bowl (I won't mention who!). In the afternoon, we continued opur jobs until dark. We then returned to the barn to talk about what we had done. Everyone had a smile on their face which was really nice as it had been a day full of hard work. 

That evening, we were given home-made lamb and beef burgers along with sausages; again it went down a treat. The evening was filled with laughter and people playing guitars (No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley was my favourite song that night). 

I hope to return to Fordhall Farm and do more voluntary work. All in all, this was an amazing experience and I met so many other students, it was just great!

The Get Mucky Weekend at Fordhall Farm

By Joanna Beatty, Mary Howarth and Rebecca Dagnall

Does spending a weekend shovelling pig muck and building fences sound like fun?? No......in fact, it was amazing!!!!!! 

Fordhall Farm in North Shropshire was saved from development in June 2006 when over 8000 people purchased non-profit making £50 shares in the Fordhall Community Land Initiative. It is now owned by its shareholders, with the land and house being leased to farmers Ben and Charlotte Hollins and the Fordhall Community Land Initiative using the land for community benefits such as events, volunteering and educational visits. Thanks to Hope students David Mongston and Trisha Healey, we were able to get involved in the Get Mucky weekend, helping out around the farm. It was an interesting but all round great experience.

On Friday evening, we arrived at the farm in the dark, ready to put up our tents...in the dark....in November....in the freezing cold. But this did not dampen our spirits. With a bit of team work we all succeeded and were rewarded with fish and chips once the chippie realised we were ordering for that night, not the next. We spent the evening round the camp fire getting to know one another and before the night was out we'd all had out first meeting with the compost toilet. This is an experience in itself. There are no luxuries here such as lights and sinks and flushes, just a lovely hole and sawdust.

Saturday was when the work began. At 10am we were randomly assigned to teams and given a job to carry out. This is when the hard graft began. Some did fence work, whilst others were mucking out and others digging ditches. It was hard work but everyone bonded really well. There were many volunteers there, the majority being from Hope, but we were also accompanied by Liverpool and LJMU, as well as other volunteers not at university.

Sunday was spent doing much the same. However, we ended time at the farm with a guided tour where Charlotte told us all about the farm. It was really interesting hearing about how the farm has progressed and has come to be used in the way it is now. We were even able to make links to the courses we are studying at university through the discussion of things like outdoor teaching.

All in all we had an awesome time and will definitely be revisiting again in February and for many years to come hopefully. It was such a rewarding and enjoyable experience and one which we would thoroughly recommend to all, no matter what your farm experience is.

                                               The team in the clean cattle pen

Fence building 

                                                                                      The ditch diggers