Volunteers who love and care for our park
The Friends of Rowntree Park is made up of a group of caring and hard-working volunteers who really love Rowntree Park. To put it simply, we help maintain Rowntree Park in York and also run a range of events. We want the park to be the best it can be for the local and wider community.
In June 2019 we became a charity and raise money for our work in the park through membership, donations and seeking relevant grants. You can read about our aims as a charity below.
As a Friends group, we welcome any one in the local community to get involved. We’d love to grow a committee of people who share ideas and make things happen. Our charity is mainly powered by volunteers – we always welcome new volunteers, whether a one-off or a more regular thing, we’d love to hear from you! Our Trustees oversee what the FRP are doing and check we are inline with the charitable aims and financially sound.
Roles:
The following roles are currently funded by membership fees, profit from events we run and grants:
Charity Manager (Freelance/PT)- Abigail Gaines
Gardening Volunteer Lead (Freelance/PT) – Stu Small
Education Coordinator (Freelance/PT) – Christine Banham
Admin Support (Freelance/PT) – Rebecca Dodgson
These people also volunteer their time for various projects and events too.
Rowntree Park is managed by the City of York Council and we work in conjunction with them. They are overall responsible for the park. They carry out basic maintenance, are in charge of health and safety, locking the park and so on. We have areas of the gardens we are responsible for and we fund, the rest is maintained by the council. Due to budget cuts there is no longer a park keeper or dedicated council paid gardeners.
What do the Friends of Rowntree Park do?
The Friends of Rowntree Park aim to look after the park as much as they can and make it a great place for it’s users. The Friends work to support a range of ways to park can be used by all sections of the community.
Our volunteers garden, litter pick, help with wildlife, clear snow/leaves, run children’s and adults activities, host music and art through the summer and much more!
We also raise money to improve the park. In the last few years, we have added railings to create goose free areas, picnic benches, basketball court and helped with play park improvements.
We have lots of projects on the go! In addition for having responsibility for maintaining some areas of the park, we also run lots of projects and activities.
Aims of the charity
Charity objectives and aims:
1.Conserve, protect and improve the physical space/environment
2. Offer educational opportunities related to history, biodiversity and other aspects related to the park
3. Provide facilities/work with others on education, recreation and other leisure interests within the park
4. Promote civic responsibility, volunteering, health and wellbeing.
Gardening
Events
Music & Art
Support our work for just £10 a year
As a charity, we always welcome help fund raising. If you would like to support our charity or help us run events to raise money, get in touch!
