Get involved

Welcome to our Open Spaces Forum, a one stop shop for advice and guidance to help you make the most of your local parks and green spaces through volunteering.

56% of people agree that their local green space is the heart of the community. And our volunteering community is a huge part of that.  Across a wide variety of parks and green spaces in our area, volunteers and parks teams have worked together to create so many opportunities for community to get involved. From community gardens, wildflower plant outs, coffee meets, fundraisers, wellbeing walks, forestry schools, sports – the possibilities are endless.

We have put together an Open Spaces Forum as an opportunity for volunteer and community groups to connect with each other and share knowledge and learning.

If you are a well-established friends of group who are interested in trying new things, you might find our pages on running projects and funding advice useful. Our community outreach page provides useful advice on getting the wider community involved with your projects, recruiting volunteers and using social media.

Perhaps you have been volunteering for a while now and want to start your own volunteer or community group? In that case, we have put together some getting started tips and advice to help guide you through the process.

Or maybe you’d rather dip your toe into the water and see what options are available before diving in head first. If this is you, then you can use this space to find out what volunteering opportunities are available in your local area.

You can also sign up to our newsletter to receive links to resources volunteer and community groups might find useful, updates on what’s on in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, upcoming training and events, as well as details of upcoming Open Space Forum meetings and opportunities to connect with other volunteer and community groups.

What else is useful?

We hope there is something here for everyone. If you find these pages useful, you may also be interested in our Jargon Buster. There can be differences between the way policy makers, industry experts from other sectors, and green space users talk about parks and public open spaces. What unites us all is the value we place on our parks and open spaces, having a common language and understanding of the value of parks and open spaces will strengthen our collective capacity to advocate for positive change.