Patch Manager Worthing

Most people wait years for a council allotment. At Roots they turn up and start growing. You would be the person who makes that happen at Patching Meadows in Worthing.

We think this is the best job at Roots. You are outdoors for nearly all of it, on a site full of people who are genuinely pleased to be there, and how the place feels is largely down to you. Some days that is mowing and watering. Some days it is showing a nervous new member which way up a seed potato goes. Some days it is talking the yoga teacher, the beekeeper or the person who bakes into putting something on for everyone.

Two days a week, 16 hours, paid at the real Living Wage as a minimum. That is the Living Wage Foundation rate of £13.45 an hour, not the government minimum of £12.71. Above that floor your pay rises as the site fills. The bottom of the range is where a site starts. The top is what it pays once every patch is taken.

A week on site

• Teaching people to grow. Most members arrive having never grown anything and quietly expecting to fail, and your job is to make sure they do not
• Getting new members started on their patch, then going back to see how they are getting on
• Running the things that make a growing year feel like one. Sowing days, seed swaps, and working out what to do with a glut of courgettes nobody can eat
• Finding the people locally who would add something to the site. Growers, beekeepers, ecologists, teachers, artists, whoever is nearby and interested
• Looking after our flagship patches and the ones we donate to local schools, so there is always something worth showing someone
• Keeping the site looking loved. Mowing, pruning, watering, edging
• Showing people round who are thinking of joining
• Cleaning the toilets. Somebody has to, and on a good site it is nobody's job and everybody's

There is some work at a computer, but not much, and we would rather you were outside.

What we are after

• You grow, and have done for a few seasons. You do not need to be an expert, but you should know what a bad year feels like
• You can teach it without making anyone feel stupid
• You like people. You are the only Roots face most members ever meet, and a site takes its mood from whoever runs it
• You will get stuck in. A mower, a strimmer, and a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre
• A driving licence and a car, because you will be shifting kit and materials
• Close enough to Worthing to be on site properly

You do not need horticultural qualifications. Our Patch Managers have come to us from teaching, nursing, hospitality, photography and running their own small businesses. What they have in common is that they grow, and people like being around them.