Conservation: The Volunteering Experience
Part One

Narrator: In July 2009 we were invited by the Churches Conservation Trust to produce a film recording the experiences of five volunteers at a Cathedral Camp based in Privet. During the week we made new friends, took in breathtaking landscapes, visited several beautiful churches; but what we came to realise was only the work of the Trust and its volunteers make it possible to appreciate these historic buildings. The trusts involvement in cc marked a strong partnership with Community Service Volunteers one of several collaborations which were apparent during our stay. The volunteers needed for conservation work were provided by CSV the parent charity of cathedral camps. And their work at the Privet Camp was centred on the conservation of churches belonging to the trust.

Rebecca Wilkinson: They get so much of their jobs that would have taken months for them to do if it was only four of the paid staff doing them, they can actually get them all completed in one week because they have a selection of volunteers on hand to work.
Working with the churches conservation trust we get to work in new areas with smaller buildings, and hopefully more exciting work such as the Archaeology and conservation work they’ve done here. We hope to see them back next year and have our volunteers in their churches.

Carole Milner: I think in terms of the Trust it’s good for them to have the involvement of younger people; and for people to see that young people are interested in doing this kind of thing. From our point of view, from Cathedral Camps point of view, young people are the heart of what we do. That’s what we’re about. Giving them a sense of what these wonderful buildings are about, both historically, spiritually, culturally and giving them a sense of what it means to take care of buildings like this as well. They’ll start to work on brasses or perhaps have contact with wall paintings or the stain glass; and little by little they’ll learn how to look after wood, stone, glass. A lot of them go on to do things that are linked in some way with conservation, be it buildings or artefacts or archaeology or whatever. It just wakes their interest a bit and they go on to do great things.

Narrator: Partnerships were also forged with the Southampton Archaeological Unit and the young archaeologist club thanks to the help of Andy Russell and Anna Welch, who helped provide geophysics equipment and tuition at the site of Ashley Castle.

Dr Andy Russell: There are wonderful churches all over Hampshire so hopefully this is something we can exploit as a resource. We’ve done hill forts and we’ve done abbeys. But we haven’t really visited a church. We founded the club 15 years ago next May, and we thought it was a good thing children had the opportunity to do things.

Anna Welch: It’s a very interesting age group. Usually when you get to 16 there isn’t really a lot for you to do except for the occasional excavation. So if we can make more links like this, where you can get people of that age group interested in heritage, because 16-25 is the age group people are absolutely desperate to get into museums.

Narrator: This is Petersfield Museum where the volunteers were invited to spend the morning looking at the various exhibitions on display. The volunteers also had a chance to have a Guided tour around the art gallery. Here they were able to create their own exhibition based on the Cathedral Camp experience, to be displayed at the art gallery in September.

Victoria Guest: This is the first time we’ve ever actually linked up with the church on a project that involves young people so it’s been quite nice that we can use both the church and museums resources.

Narrator: The collaboration with the church and the museums in Petersfield established another firm local link for the trust and for future cathedral camps. But considering the growing strengths of the trust, what are its limitations? We interviewed several key figures find out.

Conservation: The Volunteering Experience
Part Two

Jane Weeks: We get funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and from Church Commissioners, in both cases they will have their budget reduced for next year and we are looking at what we can do to mitigate against that, but of course we also try to raise money from sponsorship and fundraisers, and there just isn’t that much money out there for any body. It’s a difficult time at the moment, but we’re just going to make sure we get through it

Dr Frances Hurd: One church tower being restored in Suffolk recently ½ million pounds just to stabilise that one church tower. And we’ve got over 340 different churches

Brian Clark: And we try to prioritise the most urgent. There’s never enough but I think we manage to keep them weather tight and hopefully well presented. .

Peter Lankester: So things have evolved and we are looking at fundraising and using buildings where probably we didn’t use them before, to find new uses, to promote the Trust so that we get more donations and more legacies, and more use out of the buildings as well

Brian Clark: We always need new skills coming through. We do want to engage people in their teens and twenties to train. We do know we couldn’t survive without the volunteers that it has already, and therefore by extension we can only be more efficient and effective with more volunteer support.

Peter Lankester: And hopefully you get a lot out of it as well, the friendship of other people, you’ve certainly seen that this week the way that they bond together, they all muck in together, they all cook, they clean up and they have a great time, as well as learning some skills and learning about our heritage.

Frances Hurd: I think people think that churches just happen, I don’t think people understand just how much work it takes just to keep one of these building standing. There’s an awful lot of maintenance and conservation work that’s invisible to people walking by, but otherwise that church starts to decay. And then we lose a fantastic part of our heritage

Peter Lankester: We really have to look after these buildings, they are our lifeblood, they’re our history our heritage. And they’ve been there for 100, nearly a thousand years some of them, and they really deserve to be looked after and cared for, not only for the current generation but for the future as well.

Narrator: And what did the volunteers gain from their stay? Camp leaders Sara and Gareth discuss the benefits of their volunteer work for the Trust and their futures.

Sara: I’m a building surveyor, that’s what I’m doing at university. And I want to go into conservation at the end, so that’s probably why I’m here. Before coming to Cathedral Camps I hadn’t thought about conservation, but coming and working for a week on churches and cathedrals makes a real difference.

Gareth: I got more involved through the social aspect of it and really enjoy meeting different people and spending time with them. It’s a great week wherever I go. Great one for CV’s and interviews. It’s a fantastic thing to talk about. They’re there to be used, possibly not as a church as originally intended but it’s fantastic that they are still being used hundreds of years since they’ve been built.

Sara: Something has got to happen with them and the Churches Conservation Trust seem to be pushing forward new ways to use them, and that’s got to be good.

Gareth: Its bit different on this camp with this like geophysics; not a normal Cathedral Camps thing, but it is absolutely brilliant.

Sara: All the volunteers on this camp all seem to want to go into archaeology as a career. They’re 17 and this is their first experience of doing something practical. They’re going to go university and have a better experience and knowledge than other people

Narrator: Did you have an existing interest in Arch or conservation?

Grace: I want to do Archaeology and Anthropology at University.

Ellie: Me too; I wanted to get a taste of what it would be like.

Alasdair: I’m thinking about doing something along the same lines.

Emma: conservation yes, but not really archaeology; but after this week it seems more interesting.

Fran: I chose this one because I thought the archaeology aspect would make it more interesting.

Narrator: Has the hands on experience been useful?

Grace: It’s very hard to get any kind of fieldwork in archaeology if you’re under 18, so this is a great opportunity.

Narrator: what do you think of the programme so far?

Emma: It’s been quite varied and interesting; it’s not been the same thing every day.

Narrator: Would you consider returning as a volunteer or a leader?

Volunteers: Yes, it’s been great fun.

Narrator: In our week at Cathedral Camps we saw new friendships in bloom, life breathed into churches hundreds of year old and in the Trust we saw an organisation always in need of your support, but is that’s building for a brighter future.