Volunteer scheme

Price: £280

Age: 15-17

Timings: 4 weeks, 9am - 4:30pm, 150 hours, during summer holidays

More information on the 2025 Volunteer Scheme will become available in February 2025.

2025 volunteer scheme availability dates (you must be able to commit to 4 full weeks).

Week 2 Monday 7 - Friday 11 July 2025 (5 days)
Week 3 Monday 14 - Friday 18 July 2025 (5 days)
Week 4 Monday 21 - Friday 25 July 2025 (5 days)
Week 5 Monday 28 July - Friday 1 August 2025 (5 days)
Week 6 Monday 4 - Friday 8 August 2025 (5 days)
Week 7 Monday 11 - Friday 15 August 2025 (5 days)
Week 8 Monday 18 - Friday 22 August 2025 (5 days)
Week 9 Tuesday 26 - Friday 29 August 2025 (4 days)

Join us this Summer on our volunteer scheme.

Learn about working in watersports!
Gain new skills!
Make new friends!
Do some volunteering or work experience!
Fill up your summer holiday with something fun and rewarding!
And maybe start your journey to becoming an instructor?

No experience necessary to apply for the Wimbledon Park Watersports Centre Volunteer Scheme. All you need is a willingness to get stuck in, a desire to work with children and a commitment to joining us at the centre for 4 weeks of your summer holiday.

Over 4 weeks, you’ll work through a syllabus of training that will teach you leadership and coaching skills and ultimately how to plan and run sessions on the water. You’ll be supported with weekly feedback reviews designed to give you clear indications of your performance and achievable goals to strive for.

Once you complete your 4 weeks of volunteering, we support you to achieve your aims beyond the scheme, including helping you progress towards qualifying as watersports instructors, if that’s a pathway you want to take!

All of this while staying active in a busy watersports centre out in the sunshine learning practical watersports skills too!

The Volunteer Scheme is incredibly rewarding but does require a 4-week commitment and involves a lot of physical exercise and can be tiring.

Some volunteers use the scheme to satisfy their work experience requirements or as part of their DofE volunteering commitments (if their advisor allows).

Since restarting the scheme in 2021, we’ve had an unprecedented 32 of our 55 participants qualify as instructors in at least 1 of our watersports disciplines and many have already been employed at Wimbledon Park Watersports Centre!

Application window

The volunteer scheme application window is typically from around mid-May to early June.

You will have to submit an application form online. As part of the application you will need to know your availability for the summer, provide 2 references (non-family members and over 18) and provide a photo (face only).

Volunteering as work experience

If accepted onto the volunteer scheme, if your school allows, you will be able to use your time at the centre as work experience.

You will have to submit a work experience form.

Duke of Edinburgh Awards (DofE) volunteering

Because the volunteer scheme is only over the 2-month summer holiday period, it doesn’t typically meet the minimum duration requirements for volunteering at any level of DofE.

However, due to the intensity and the number of hours involved (150 hours), some DofE advisors have allowed volunteers in the past to use their time on the volunteer scheme towards the volunteering section. This is not a decision that the centre can make, and we cannot guarantee an advisor will allow it.

Please check with your DofE advisors.

Further information

Planning your Visit and Further Information.

Terms and conditions

Please read the terms and conditions carefully before booking.

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