Arthur Rose, winner of the FGS 2001 Gardener of the Year Award for Outstanding Services to the Gardens.

Volunteers Needed
The FGS encourages the interest and cooperation of all gardeners in the maintenance and preservation of the Victory Gardens. Participation is expected. The range of seasonal projects includes assisting gardeners with special needs, clearing abandoned gardens, maintaining the FGS compost, cleaning the area of debris, and helping out with our annual community event, FensFest.

The following volunteer posts are now available. If you are interested, please fill out the contact form HERE.

Current Needs:

There are a number of office-type tasks we could use help with. The tasks are described below; each can be done independently. All require a computer, internet connection and some knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel (with the possible exception of the first task, “Telephone”).

 

1. Area Directors To become an area director, contact the FGS.  Each row should have an area director - for the responsibilities see the Spring Newsletter 2010, the bylaws or contact the FGS.  In short, it involves handing out new gardens when there are vacancies and fairly enforcing the rules and regulations in your own area.  You act as the link between gardeners and the executive board, and VP of the Park.  If you are good with people, it is a great volunteer job. 

2. All Park Clean Up Days. We do 4 All Park Clean Up Days per year, all from Apr to Oct. The paper work behind the clean up involves:

  1. Sorting the member Excel spreadsheet to identify who signed up
  2.  Creating a mailing using Word mail merge using the Excel spreadsheet to send out invitations
  3. Inputting to an Excel spreadsheet who actually showed up from “at the event” sign up sheets, and:
    1. Doing a mail merge to send thanks
    2. Doing a mail merge to push those who signed up but didn’t show up to select another clean up day date

2010 Park Clean-Up Dates:
• April 24th First Clean-Up Day
• May 23rd Second Clean-Up Day
• June 26th Third Clean-Up Day
• August 22nd 4th Clean-Up Day
• September 25 Fifth Clean-Up Day
• October 24th Sixth Clean-Up Day
 

3. Inspections. We run at least several inspections per year, maybe as many as 6-8 what with follow ups and all. Like everything else, inspections create paperwork which involves:

  1. Inputting the inspection results into an Excel spreadsheet
  2. Creating a mailing using Word mail merge to report the infractions to gardeners needing to follow up

 

4. Renewals. Each year approximately 250 gardeners from the previous year renew their FGS memberships/plots and, of these, many donate cash to FGS. The required paperwork follows:

  1. Inputting information from Renewal Applications into Excel spreadsheet
  2. Sending a receipt acknowledgement plus a thank you to those donating cash

5. Planning - Fens fest and July 4th event planning.