As you are aware, to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III, there will be celebratory and community events taking place over the Coronation Weekend between Saturday 6th and Monday 8th of May 2023. In the thriving communities of Wiltshire, the cities, towns, parishes, and hamlets we know that many events and activities are already being planned, from local prom nights, community big lunches, and opportunities for people to volunteer at these events and for the ‘The Big Help Out’ on Monday 8th May.

The Coronation weekend is a wonderful opportunity for Wiltshire’s communities to come together to celebrate and we have created ‘The King’s Coronation- Wiltshire’ campaign on the ‘Wiltshire Together’ community platform to be a central hub for all things community-related regarding the coronation. https://wiltshiretogether.org.uk/campaign/kings-coronation

Wiltshire Together is already a successful, thriving community platform, owned and managed by the community, to share activities, events, and volunteering opportunities, which makes it the perfect place for the King’s Coronation events. The page brings together ideas, activities, planned events, and of course, volunteering opportunities as part of the ‘Big Help Out’ theme for the coronation. Whether your local community is planning a street party or community picnic in your town or village, and are looking for volunteers, this is the page for them.

Is your VCSE organisation thinking about doing something for the Coronation, but you don’t know where to start? Do you have something planned, but would like some help to promote it and are looking for volunteers? Are you thinking of doing something or offering taster volunteer opportunities for the ‘The Big Help Out’ to help with longer-term recruitment and retainment of volunteers, then this campaign page can help you. By posting your activities, events, and volunteering opportunities, we can collectively see what is being organised across Wiltshire. This gives the opportunity for collaboration, sharing of ideas and the opportunity for you to be involved in other projects around the Big Help Out. The campaign page has advice on how to organise a community event, and links to other sites for logistical support with licensing or permissions via Wiltshire Council. There are also lunch packs (whilst stocks last) from the Eden Project for The Big Community Lunch.

The Challenge for Wiltshire!

We have set a target to list 200+ local activities, events and volunteering opportunities to raise awareness of volunteering in Wiltshire, and as a lasting legacy of the Coronation Please add your own Coronation activities, events and volunteering opportunities to Wiltshire Together https://wiltshiretogether.org.uk/ and help us reach our target.

Maybe you already have volunteering opportunities on Wiltshire Together which could become volunteer tasters as part of the ‘Big Help Out’. These separate volunteer opportunities can then be linked to the campaign page. This may help with your longer-term volunteer recruitment.

Finally, register your event nationally on the Eden Project map. (See guidance on the campaign page). It would be great to see how all of Wiltshire’s many fantastic events and lunches compare to the national picture!

If you have never used Wiltshire Together before, it’s free and easy to use and will benefit your community, not just for this campaign, but for future activities, events, and volunteering opportunities. If you need any support, please see our ‘support campaign’ tab on the campaign page, which lists clear instructions on how to register and lots of dates of our regular workshops to help you get started.

Thank you, we know you will already be some wonderful events for your towns and parishes and now the page is live and ready to use, we look forward to seeing the breadth of your community events and volunteering opportunities on the page.