Mike Hammer, social media
News from my ‘office’ is that we had a posh film made for us by Nathalie Baker; film-maker and WWOOFer. Filmed entirely at hosts New House Farm on a miserable foggy day, Nathalie managed to capture the sun shining from within the WWOOFers featured in the film; going about their WWOOFing tasks with big smiles on their faces. You can see it on our home page at the moment. I am so grateful to Nathalie and to Bob, Gill and Leo at New House Farm. Nathalie is a professional film-maker but if any members of WWOOF UK would like to send a video they’ve made or photos they’ve taken, they will be received with much gratitude; you can send them to socialmedia@wwoof.org.uk
Taryn Field, host contact
As we are approaching the summer season, I have a couple of reminders for hosts:
- If you receive an enquiry from a teacher or someone from an agency/school trying to arrange WWOOF stays for their students, please make sure that all the ‘students’ are registered WWOOF UK members. Someone organising stays on behalf of students is flouting WWOOF’s privacy policy, as well as only buying one membership on behalf on many, with those students not being able to agree to our code of conduct or read our ethos and mission statement.
- If you feel your are getting too many enquiries to deal with or perhaps you are going away on holiday, you may want to consider adding a standard auto reply (you’ll find this in the Settings section of your email client, e.g. Thunderbird or Outlook) to let WWOOFers know that you will be replying to them as soon as you can. Here’s a useful example: **Thank you for your email and your expression of interest in WWOOFing here. Example Farm endeavours to respond to your enquiry within 3-5 days, Thank you for your patience, Jo Bloggs **
‘A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.’ Doug Larson
Holly Cross, organisational administrator
New data protection regulations have come into force across the EU, and we have been working hard to make sure WWOOF is sticking to the law and being transparent with all our members past, present and future when it comes to personal data. You may notice that there have been be a few small changes on our website and there may be an email or two in your inbox about data protection, privacy and consent – we really appreciate your patience and participation in this – it’s all in the name of keeping your details secure and ensuring you know what we’re doing with them (which isn’t much more than you might expect, really!).
