We have loads of opportunities for everyone to help out. We encourage all members to volunteer; at least once per year in the shop, and once per year to join a working party.

Or, if you prefer to work alone, have a word in the shop on a Sunday with one of the committee members – we have jobs that can be done and fitted in around your work schedule or other commitments: e.g. caring for the boundary hedges, basic weeding, or other things.

Join the WhatsApp Bradley Fold Action Group to get messages about specific jobs that need to be done, or times for the volunteer group meetings, etc. Come into the shop on a Sunday and leave a message with a committee member to be added.

We also have a Facebook page, where details of the next volunteer group meeting are published.

• Sign up to volunteer using our form here: Volunteer Sign-Up Form
• Or you can contact us directly

Requesting help

If you are a plot holder and need some assistance with a heavy task that you cannot do alone (e.g. construction of a fruit cage, or moving a compost bin, etc), then come into the shop on a Sunday and complete an assistance request form, or you can use the on line form.

Opportunities for volunteering

Help out in the shop, 11 – 12 Sundays (except Dec & Jan).

There’s a rota in the shop; come in and sign up against a date that you are free.

You can take the cash, weigh and bag-up goods, or help get things out of the container. It’s great fun, not physically strenuous, and you get to meet lots of your fellow gardeners.

Monthly Volunteer Group, First Sunday of each month, 12 noon – 1pm

Join our regular monthly members’ volunteer group to do basic tasks making our allotment site a pleasant place for all of us. Meet at the shop (see the noticeboard inside the shop).

Jobs are seasonal and include easy tasks such as weeding around the shop and entrance area, balsam-bashing around the site, hedge clipping, caring for the community fruit trees; and heavier tasks such as digging the community fruit areas, cleaning the water baths under the taps, and lots more.

Produce Days

Donate produce on one of our Produce Days or just when you have surplus. This will be taken by a volunteer to a local food bank or community kitchen.

Produce Distribution

Driving produce to local food banks or community kitchens – needed in the summer.

Full instructions and addresses are given. Everyone is very grateful, it’s an uplifting experience to do this.

School Visits

Assist on one of our regular help-out sessions for our local Lancasterian School.

We have some members who will go and tend the school gardens in the holiday time, and we need members to be on site when the school children and their teacher come for a visit – not to care for the kids, but to be on site as a source of local knowledge.

Supervise External Volunteers

Assist when teams of external volunteers come on site. We have teams of lovely people from local companies who regularly give their time to help us out – they spend a whole day with us often doing heavy jobs on the Community Areas that our own members might find challenging.

We do need allotment members to be present, to answer questions, direct the groups and be a source of local knowledge. You don’t have to be fit, just enjoy interacting with friendly young people.

Members’ events

Help to run one of our members’ events – we always need people at the BBQ, the Christmas Party, and any other events we hold to set up, organise, clear up etc.

External Volunteers

Bradley Fold is proud to work with some of our local companies and organisations to host groups of employees who give up a day or more of their working year to come and help us.

If you work for a company who offer Corporate Social Responsibility Days or other volunteer support days, please contact the Committee Volunteer and Partnership Coordinator and we will be very pleased to talk to you about arranging days for volunteer groups.

We are very grateful to the following local companies and organisations, who have sent groups down to work with us over the past 18 months:

• Turner & Townsend
• Siemens
• The Growth Company
• The Environment Agency
• Manchester City Council

We offer an organised and fun working day, starting about 9.30am, and ending about 3.30pm, with breaks for refreshments and lunch. We have parking on site, toilets are in Didsbury Sports Ground across the road.

Our volunteer groups have helped in many ways. Here are just a few of the projects they have undertaken:

• Construction of raised beds and a compost bin on the Community Access plot
• Helping less able members continue gardening when a full plot gets too much
• Caring for the community orchards; mowing, pruning and harvesting fruit from the fruit trees which is given to local food banks and community kitchens
• Harvesting greenhouse crops in the site polytunnel which are donated to local food banks and community kitchens
• Constructing a ‘dead hedge’ around the Community Orchard which forms a natural barrier around the area and provides a refuge for wildlife such as beneficial insects, birds and small mammals
• Clearing pests such as Himalayan Balsam from communal areas, helping to keep weeds down and increase biodiversity in a natural way
• Assisting plot holders perform heavy tasks such as constructing a fruit cage