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Corporate Volunteering

Organisations are increasingly asking their people to bring more of themselves to work - not just their ability to carry out their role but their passion, creativity, enthusiasm and desire to make a real difference. The problem is that too many people leave most of these qualities at home, unintentionally encouraged by organisations’ narrow pursuit of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Of course, organisations need a foundation of predictable efficiency. They also need their people to bring more of their potential to learn, develop and perform. The challenge is how to do this.

At Green & Away, we may have one possible answer.

Think Differently – Relate Differently – Organise Differently –Work Differently

Green & Away is an entirely volunteer-based organisation. As a result, many of the traditional management levers for recruiting and motivating people (in particular pay and other material rewards) are not available to us. We have developed a rather different approach which we believe may have valuable lessons for other organisations.

Some of the ways in which Green and Away helps people think, relate, organise and work differently include:

• Green & Away has a different pace: Life at Green & Away has a more reflective pace – we focus as much on enjoying the process as the result. We have the time to take pleasure in what we do and in being with each other. And yet, we achieve what needs to be achieved - and more

• Living at Green & Away is simpler: Not only do we leave many of our material possessions behind when we come to Green & Away, we also leave our responsibilities and, to some extent, our roles behind. And, partially unencumbered by the usual complexities of our lives, we are free to be more authentic

• Green & Away is emergent: Just as each year the Green & Away village emerges out of the cumulative experience and inspiration of the previous years, so it provides an environment that supports and encourages more emergent and creative ways of thinking

• Green & Away is designed along eco-psychological principles: Recognising that our physical environment has a profound (but often unconscious) effect on our experience of ourselves, we design the structures and the spaces between them to create a built environment where people experience themselves more positively

• Green & Away connects: Modern life has isolated us from many natural rhythms and events. At Green & Away we are much more aware of them because they directly affect our work – dusk falling, a shower of rain, the sun shining, the breeze. By living more closely entwined with the world, we realise that we are part of the world – we can only be healthy when it is too.

• Green & Away provides a different model for living, learning and working together: The reason so many volunteers are willing to give their time and energy to Green & Away year after year is that we have a shared purpose – and because we have fun! People have said on leaving events “That was the best three days of my life”. We work together in ways that motivate and inspire.

• The quality of conversation is different at Green & Away: people have conversations at Green & Away that they never have the space, time or context for otherwise. People are able to bring more of who they are to conversations they have – and so have conversations that make a difference.

What people say

Comments from groups that have volunteered with us include:

• great fun!
• it was stretching and took us outside our comfort zone - for example in building (and then using!) composting toilets, and in shared mealtimes
• people from different teams in the organisation worked together in ways that wouldn't normally happen
• it was great having practical things to do and building something that would be used for a real purpose - rather than a raft!
• building the conference centre created all sorts of practical leadership opportunities
• it wasn't just the people who volunteered with Green & Away who benefited. We did a daily blog back to the office - and then did a presentation when we got back to the office
• it strengthened values around sustainability and community

Getting involved with Green & Away

There are two ways in which corporate groups can get involved with Green & Away:

1. By sending a group of 6 to 10 people to volunteer at Green & Away, helping with building, operating dismantling the conference centre

2. By booking the conference centre to hold your own team development event, conference or corporate gathering. (See 'hiring the G&A venue')

In either case, we can provide facilitated learning and development events which take advantage of facilities and physical and social environment at the G&A site . For example:

• Sustainable Living: using the Green & Away site and environs, a combination of reflective practices and workshops to enable participants to better understand their relationship with, impact on, and dependence on their physical, social and cultural environment (with educationalist Charlotte Lochhead).

• Sustainable Business: Green & Away embodies a number of sustainability principles – physical, individual, organizational and social. We use our direct experience of these to explore a variety of frameworks for understanding the relevance of sustainability to business success and look at how to apply sustainability principles at work (with leadership coach Mike Munro Turner).

If you’re serious about not just understanding different ways of thinking, relating, organising and working but actually doing them, then join us at Green & Away.

To find out more about bringing a group to volunteer at Green & Away, email Mike Munro Turner at mike@greenandaway.org or call him on 01684 893380 for more details.