Volunteering - YHA Ilam Hall September 2015

Reynard's Cave, a short walk from YHA Ilam Hall.

Volunteering with the YHA is, at least in my experience, an undertaking as eclectic as the hostels themselves. You can join working parties to help clean and (re)decordate, work as a volunteer gardener, find a placement at a specific hostel… the list goes on! All such opportunities are advertised at Volunteering with YHA.

Almost a decade ago, as a keen young teen, my starry-eyed optimism led me to both search via the YHA placements site and to email hostels directly, asking for the opportunity to come and volunteer with them. The first hostel I heard back from, and one that will always hold a special place in my heart, was YHA Ilam Hall.

Sidebar: A small disclaimer

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Good point, L.P. Hartley, thank you. 

This is my first post which delves into the mysterious past, and memory can be a treacherous thing. By happy happenstance, on this occasion I still have my journal from the time, which details my volunteering experience at these hostels. In general, however, my posts about hostels I visited in days of yore (by which I mean ‘over 5 years ago’), may be a mite scant on details and photos.

…

Back to my time at Ilam Hall.

The Hall itself is a grand gothic edifice, constructed between 1821-26, situated in the National Trust’s Ilam Park. The grounds are charming, and include a long driveway to prove its credentials as a country house. You can read more about the history of the building and surrounding estate here.

I remember being very impressed with the accommodation that was provided for volunteers. If you are thinking of volunteering with the YHA yourself, I strongly recommend choosing a hostel that can offer a residential placement (i.e. on-site accommodation) if possible. It definitely made me feel more at home there, and gave me the opportunity to interact with the team more often.

Speaking of the team, they were an eclectic bunch: all very welcoming, all accommodating of a youngster new to the world of hospitality, all from different walks of life. I was in good company at Ilam and beyond. Well-informed local hands, YHA veterans, students working part-time: if there are five people you meet in heaven, there are infinitely more at the YHA. I won’t be referring to any of my colleagues by name, but I do appreciate how working with each of them has shaped the person I am today.

The Volunteer Experience

In my experience, volunteering placements at YHA hostels comprise of 4 main duties:

1. Kitchen work.

This involves preparing food, serving guests either as a waiter or in the assembly-line style, and back-of-house cleaning as a potwasher.

2. Housekeeping.

This is primarily changing bedding and cleaning rooms and bathrooms.

3. Reception work.

This could involve checking guests in or out, responding to questions, and making reservations.

4. Group activities.

School parties or other large groups often need all hands on deck helping to organise or lead group activities. I personally find these the most fun, or at least the most varied.

At Ilam, I became familiar with the rituals of kitchen work over that first day, and received a crash course on the correct use of cleaning products, which (for the uninitiated) are colour-coded by area. I think I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and the breaks outside after breakfast or during lunch were welcome opportunities to get to know the rest of the team.

The rest of that week, we played host to a youth music group from Nottingham. Treated to the (necessarily) incessant strains of Carmina Burana, I often took the opportunity outside of work to escape the confines of the hostel. I am a keen cyclist, and had brought my road bike with me. That first stay, I was always out and about either on two wheels or by foot. I remember I spent the first evening on a quick ride to Mappleton and back via Thorpe. Unsurprisingly for the Peak District, the hills around there are pretty tough at times, but very rewarding, with sweeping views of hill and dale.

A snap from the route between Hartington and Ilam.

Former railway line the Tissington Trail, which runs from Ashbourne (site of my local shop during my stay, by-the-by) to Parsley Hay, is also a route best enjoyed by bike. The route itself is very accessible cycling, although the intrepid traveller can, as I did, part ways early to swoop down to hillier territory westwards. At the end of my first week, I took a winding route I would particularly recommend: up to Stanhope, then Wetton, Hartington, back to Biggin to join the trail back down via Thorpe to return to Ilam Hall.

If you’re hiking, nearby Thorpe Cloud offers a commanding view of the region, and nested in its shadow, the stepping stones over the River Dove are quite picturesque. The route by the river through Dovedale to Milldale and beyond is similarly lovely, with Reynard’s Cave a particular pathside attraction.

The view northwards from Thorpe Cloud.

Back in the realm of volunteering duties, we were joined in the second week by a school party. These are a mixed blessing. On the one hand, leading group activities is infinitely more interesting than scrubbing toilets. One game, ‘electric bridge’, involved hiding oversized jigsaw puzzle pieces around the grounds to collect and solve. Fun, right? On the other hand, W.C. Field’s aphorism ‘never work with children or animals’ has some truth behind it, and the mileage you get from working with children may vary. Now that I’m older, I have more experience and patience for it, and have enjoyed both teaching classes and working with children in extracurriculars, but I remember the exasperation at the time of searching for a puzzle piece one child had overzealously hidden in a tree.

The rest of the week passed with more walks and cycle rides, more chats with the other team members, settling into the routine of work. My first stay at Ilam had that strange quality that all intense experiences do: the dual impression of barely having arrived and of having been there forever.

Reynard's Cave, looking out over the River Dove.

I returned for a second time half a year later, and enjoyed catching up with the team while helping out with another school trip and a wedding that used the hall.

YHA Ilam Hall verdict: Excellent!

The team at Ilam Hall were all friendly, and I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the volunteering experience.

The building itself is a gothic marvel, with picturesque grounds, and walks and cycle routes on its doorstep.

For more accounts of my experiences volunteering with the YHA, visit this hub.