About Us

Hello and Welcome. High Woods Country Park is our home, the home of the Colchester Countryside Volunteer Rangers (CCVR), the Visitors Centre, High Woods Country Park, Turner Road, Colchester CO4 5JR is the full postal address. It is from here that we, the volunteers, start and end any of our task days, giving some of our free time to work, give advice and help keep the country park, and the other sites in and around Colchester in a tip top and tidy state, so it's always ready for you to enjoy.

The Health Walk volunteers

The Health Walk volunteers do just that, walk, with volunteers at the beginning, middle and end of the participants. They start and end the walk at the Visitors Centre every other Friday morning, the start time is 11am, and takes about 25 minutes (Slightly more or less, depending on which route through the park is chosen) it's up to you whether you do one circuit or two, either way, at end of the walk there's a hot cup of tea or coffee waiting for you at the finish.

Visitor Centre volunteers

The visitor Centre volunteers deal with visitor enquires, in person and on the telephone. Carry out retailing activities such as stock replenishment, till operation, merchandise display, making hot drinks and maintaining the cleanliness of the facilities for visitors.

The Weekend volunteers

The Weekend volunteers are split into 2 sections; one section spends their time in the visitors centre, giving their time cleaning, tidying, clearing, stocking and serving customers in the centre. The other section patrol around the grounds of High Woods Country Park or any of the other 16 sites that the volunteers help the full time rangers to look after.

The Monday Conservation group

The Monday Conservation group starts from here every Monday morning with the designated Countryside Team member that has been assigned to that Monday's task, then they to go out to whichever one of the sites they will be working on that day, tasks can involve anything from building new board walks, steps, bridges, fences or gates to pulling ragwort, pennywort, Japanese knotweed, coppicing and clearing the lake, ponds and streams.

The Big Garden volunteers

The Big Garden volunteers meet frequently to do some gardening, there is always a lot to do, it's like your own garden but far larger, they have a large vegetable patch, which is planted with just about every vegetable you can think of, an orchard that is laden with Essex heritage fruit trees, and their own large poly tunnel for raising seeds. Anyone is able to apply to be a volunteer, if you like gardening, but don't have your own garden, what could be better, volunteer, the one thing is, you won't be on your own. And even better, when the fruit and vegetables are ready for harvest, you get to take some home with you.

Join Us

We are always looking for more volunteers to join us in what we do; we are a friendly and diverse group of people, we are all ages, abilities, backgrounds and schooling. The one thing that we all have in common is that we like to help others and care a great deal about the countryside. Before anyone can become a volunteer, no matter which branch you are interested in, you will need to fill in an application form and attend a short training session.