Senior Officer - Corporate & Community Engagement & Training

The Tree Council is the national charity that brings everyone to work together for the love of trees. Now in our 50^th year, we and our partners are helping tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies and adding social value through planting and caring for trees and hedgerows with communities across the UK.

In August 2024, The Tree Council was appointed to deliver National Highways’ ambitious new programme to establish 3 million trees across England over the next five planting seasons, with the first phase to 31 March 2025. SP Energy Networks have also confirmed a four-year partnership to plant with communities in central and Southern Scotland. These two new programmes complement our ongoing, multi-award-winning programme with Network Rail, which has already established more than 350,000 trees in 180 communities since 2020.

We’re looking for a Senior Officer – Corporate & Community Engagement & Training, with minimum three years’ experience, including managing volunteer days in the field. Someone who can support across all three programmes this coming season. You must be able to demonstrate a passion for connecting people and the environment and be an advocate for the ecological, social and economic importance of trees and hedgerows.  

You must possess excellent people skills and be inspired by the idea of working in a small, ambitious team, in a fast-paced environment.

This new role involves working with the Head of Major Planting Programmes to develop and deliver circa 20 mainly corporate volunteer days across the UK. Some days will be for employees from our key partners (National Highways, Network Rail, SP Energy Networks, some with other Tree Council corporate partners and some with schools/community groups and The Tree Council’s volunteer Tree Wardens. Many of the dates and venues have already been agreed for the upcoming planting season. Some venues have welcomed us before, others will demand considerable detailed effort to plan and deliver safe, informative and enjoyable days.

Planting will focus mainly on trees outside of woodlands, including hedges and orchards. Skills to be shared with volunteers will include pruning, grafting, willow-related and other activities designed to improve wildlife habitats. You will be responsible for liaison with a number of locations, ensuring best practice and timely project delivery, and recording and reporting on project budgets. You will be prepared to travel on site visits and to work some weekends and evenings.

The role also includes developing and delivering online and face-to-face training sessions, plus creating generic online planting guidance, tree aftercare and other training materials. This will require the post holder to adapt delivery to audience (for example, some volunteers will have no understanding of trees, hedgerows etc., while others will be working in vegetation management for large infrastructure organisations).  

As the volunteer days progress, the role will include working with the planting programme Communications Manager to generate social media content.

We expect the post holder to spend a good proportion of the working week undertaking desk-based planning, administration and liaison with planting sites, with the remaining time spent on site visits/assessments and delivering days in the field.

JOB PURPOSE:       

Support the National Planting Team todeliver this exciting new multi-partner programme, working with our corporate supporters, volunteer Tree Council Tree Wardens, schools and community groups.

Build strong, positive relationships with planting sites and partners to deliver top quality, safe and enjoyable volunteer days

There is lots more detail in the uploaded job description.

If you would like to be considered for interview, please email a CV and covering letter (2 sides A4 max.) via the button below.