Harriet Davies, Full Time Volunteer Warden: North Cornwall, Polzeath to Tintagel

Pengirt Cove, near Polzeath in north Cornwall, plays host to a colony of over 100 rare Greater Horseshoe bats.

Each year the property team organises a range of events for families including building bat and bird boxes, beach cleaning and an annual ‘Bats and BBQ’ evening. During the ‘Bats and BBQ’ event families get to enjoy a sausage bap, and a talk on bats followed by a short walk to the cliff tops as dusk approaches. There people are treated to a display of sight and sound (heard via heterodyne bat detectors) as the creatures emerge from the darkness of the mine.  

Harriet shared the following thoughts with us from her experience of welcoming and working with families:

• If you’re approaching families having an interesting object to hand e.g. a bat detector provides an instant talking point.
  
• Families like activities that they can do together so allowing them to get ‘hands on’ provides a ready ice breaker for a conversation.  
  
• Parents often don’t have much specialist knowledge about our work which means you don’t need to have different conversations with the parents and the children. The trick is finding the middle ground so that the parents don’t feel that you’re talking down to them but neither do the kids get bored.
  
• Don’t assume teenagers aren’t interested in our work i.e. don’t ignore them within a family group. Equally though remember not to talk to them like young children.   

Harriet particularly enjoys working with families because children are so openly enthusiastic about the activity they are taking part in, or a new fact they’ve just learned. This year's Bats and BBQ events take place on 6 and 13 August.

© National Trust

Sandra Davies and Yvonne Young, Family Events Learning Volunteers: Tyntesfield

While Tyntesfield might be best known for its Victorian Gothic Revival House the property also has extensive parkland where a wide range of activities take place.

The family events team run a range of activities from Victorian games on the lawn to ‘Meet the hedgehogs’ and a whole host of arts and crafts events.  

Sandra and Yvonne have both supported a wide range of family events and Yvonne also acts as a room interpreter. Here they share with us how they approach families…

Sandra

Really enjoys working with families because it enables her to relive her own happy childhood memories. A particularly memorable day was when she taught a six year old to skip who had never seen a skipping rope before.

• Approach families with a big smile and an opening question that focuses on what’s going on that day around the property e.g. ‘Did you know you can have a go at Victorian Games today?’
  
• As with all visitors change your approach from family to family. Read people’s body language and listen carefully to responses so that you can modify your approach to take into account the particular needs and wants of any one family.
  
• Consider making the children your main initial focus. Once you have got them involved in an activity or interested in an item you can then turn your attention to the parents. Sandra has found that once the parents understand the activity they’ll get involved too – in that sense families don’t require huge amounts of input as they are a self supporting unit.

Yvonne

I’m not an expert in any of the activities the families are taking part in – whether that’s planting potatoes or making a pencil. This means it’s easy not to get caught up in ‘telling’ families what they ought to be doing and this in turn creates an atmosphere where everyone can learn and discover together.

• It’s important as well to recognise that an activity is often just as new for the parents as it is for the children – this means everyone can get involved and you don’t need to change your approach between parents and children.
  
• While children may spend a lot of time ‘attached’ to a computer or using some other form of modern technology Yvonne has found that when they are given the chance to play, get their hands dirty, try new things they are just as keen to do these sorts of things as she was as a child. Today’s children really aren’t that different to how you might have been as a child.
  
• Families visit our properties for a day out and want to enjoy the experience (what ever that means for them). Yvonne works hard to express to families that she is there to help them have a good day – if they want facts about the house that’s what she’ll provide but if they want to try a hands on activity she’ll let them know how they can do that.
  
• If you enjoy your volunteering and have fun when doing it this will come across to families. This helps them to feel relaxed and have fun too.

Rosie Yeldham, informal community based volunteer: Outwood, Surrey

The Outwood property team have taken two approaches to working with local families that has seen the property team going out into the community rather than families needing to come to ‘us’. They have been particularly well supported by a local resident, Rosie, who has been informally volunteering her time to support the property team make links into the village community.

The vegetable project is run as a joint project between the property and Outwood Horticultural Society as part of the Food Glorious Food campaign. 62 local families have had a go at growing their own veg using seeds, plants, tubs and manure provided by the Trust.

Rosie, who is chair of the local youth group, helped boost the numbers getting involved in this project by inviting the property warden along to talk to the young people about the project and they in turn got their families involved. There will be a special novice category at the Outwood Village Show to recognise the achievements of the families.

The property is also looking to establish a brand new orchard that they are involving local families in developing. To date two tree guard building events have been run and a third day, somewhere in the region of Christmas, will see the local community helping to plant new trees.

A veteran fruit tree specialist will also be coming into the village to identify veteran trees growing around the village. The whole project will culminate in a Wassail evening in the early spring, 2010. This will be a family event timed in the early evening before children's bedtime. Rosie has spent a lot of time talking to families in the village so that they understand the benefits of the new orchard for the community and so want to get involved in supporting this work.

When we spoke to Rosie she commented that while her children used to visit National Trust properties now they’ve become teenagers they don’t see the Trust as somewhere where they can have fun.

Rosie wouldn’t want our properties to become theme parks but did wonder whether we could do more to encourage young people to use our countryside sites by having e.g. more places to ride bikes, BMX trails and other adventure activities.