Garden Events Volunteer Role

March - September 2025

We are looking for 3 volunteers to join our team at Hackney Herbal. This is for a specific volunteering role that involves working alongside our team during our free community events held at Trowbridge Gardens. These events are free to attend and open for everyone to join. We normally sell herbal tea, cakes and plants as part of the events and have some free workshops or activities for people to take part in. Some previous events have involved seed swaps, cyanotype (sun prints), herbal tea blending, seed sowing and making string from nettles. 

This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to gain experience of working in the community gardening / social enterprise / herbal sector and gain skills relating to delivering community events. We normally have at least one event eg. an open day each month with our bigger events taking place around summer solstice (June) and autumn equinox (September). 

Our first event of the year will be on this Saturday, February 1st, so if you would like to get a feel for our events before applying, do pop by! If you can’t make it on that date, but would like to see the garden, another good opportunity would be our new volunteers induction on Feb 15th.


About Hackney Herbal

Hackney Herbal is a social enterprise promoting wellbeing through herbs. We specialise in creative activities that connect and inspire people about the extensive uses of herbs.

We are based at a garden in Hackney Wick where we support local people and volunteers to learn about horticulture, herbs and natural crafts and where we grow herbs. We run regular community courses, weekly nature-based sessions, volunteering and social activities that support people to develop new skills, make friends and improve their physical and mental health. Our key outcomes follow the themes of health, education and community resilience. 

A core focus of our work since the beginning has been ensuring our work is accessible and freely available to people in our local community. As a social enterprise we use all the profits generated from ticketed workshops, privately booked herbal events and herbal tea sales to fund free nature based activities connecting people and herbs in Hackney. 

Look us up here: www.hackneyherbal.com / Instagram @hackneyherbal


Role Details

  • The volunteer role will run from March - September 2025

  • This is an unpaid volunteer role but we are able to cover travel expenses you incur whilst carrying out the role

  • Events take place on Saturdays or Sundays. Most of them are on Saturday afternoons 

  • Event times vary from 2-4 hours with most being about 3 hours long, and there is generally 1 hour of setting up and about 1 hour of packing down before and after the event. This varies depending on the event. 

  • The events take place outdoors and unless there is extreme/dangerous weather go ahead in all conditions

  • The role will be based at our garden in Hackney Wick. The address is Trowbridge Gardens, 1 Trowbridge Road, E9 5LD. Both gardens are on one level/step-free and are attached to an accessible building with an accessible toilet.

  • This role is open to adults aged 18 and above

Key responsibilities

  • Assisting HH staff on the day with the prepping and delivery of our garden events which involve tasks like:

    • Setting up the space, putting up signage, getting workshop areas ready

    • Assisting with the plant sale

    • Serving tea and cake 

    • Generally welcoming people into the space 

    • Helping out with activities - these vary across events eg. seed swap, craft workshop, seed sowing and making herbal remedies

    • Packing away after the event has finished


Key benefits of the role

  • Experience working with a fun and creative nature-based social enterprise

  • Opportunity to develop skills and experience relating to organising and running community events

  • Free access to some of our paid/ticketed workshop 

  • Opportunity to get involved in other events and activities that Hackney Herbal runs

  • Access to free training and opportunities that are offered to our organisation by others

Requirements & Commitment

We are looking for someone who is:

  • A social person who loves being around others and enjoys getting stuck in 

  • Eager to learn new things as well as develop skills and confidence relating to organising and running community events

  • Passionate about being part of a fun and creative community enterprise

  • Happy to get on with tasks on their own as well as working together with others as part of a team

  • Able to commit to supporting one event a month. We are flexible on this though as we appreciate you will have other weekend commitments and things already booked in.

  • Ideally based in Hackney or close to the garden. As a place-based organisation we would love someone local to us to take up this role

We don’t have confirmed dates for all the events yet, but they are always on either a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The first event you’d be a part of is the Spring Equinox Celebration and Seed Swap on March 15th.


How to apply

Please fill in and submit the form below by 12 noon on Monday, February 17th.

If you have any problems with applying, need any further assistance, or prefer to apply by post or in a different format, please just ask us. Send an email to Camila on camila@hackneyherbal.com It’s much easier for us to get back to you on email but you can also call us on 020 8986 3389. We are often out and about so leave us a message on the answer phone with your details and we will call you back. We are happy to help you!

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an informal phone interview on the week starting on Feb 24th.