Make Britain Beautiful
Community Event Organiser Pack
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Firstly, thank you for volunteering your time to help improve your local community.
Whether you're organising a litter-pick with two friends or fifty volunteers, every event helps make Britain a cleaner, safer and more welcoming place to live.
This pack is here to help you run a successful event.
Step 1 — Choose your location
Think about areas that would benefit from some care, for example:
- Local parks
- High streets
- Village greens
- Canal towpaths
- Housing estates
- Community centres
- Beauty spots
- Beaches
- Public footpaths
Always make sure the area is safe and publicly accessible.
Step 2 — Choose a date
- Weekend mornings often work best.
- Allow around two hours for the event.
- Avoid school finishing times and busy traffic periods where you can.
Step 3 — Contact your local council
Many councils will happily support a community litter-pick. Ask whether they can provide:
- Litter pickers
- Gloves
- Bin bags
- High-visibility vests
- Waste collection afterwards
- Advice on suitable locations
Many councils already run community clean-up programmes — you may be able to join an existing scheme.
Step 4 — Contact local organisations
Don't be afraid to ask for help. You could try:
- Your local BID (Business Improvement District)
- Residents' associations
- Your parish or town council
- Rotary Club
- Lions Club
- Scouts, Guides and Cadets
- Churches
- Schools and colleges
- Sports clubs
- Local businesses
Many organisations are delighted to support community projects — and several of them have equipment already.
Step 5 — Tell everyone
Promote your event through:
- Facebook, X and Instagram
- Community Facebook groups
- WhatsApp groups
- Parish newsletters
- Community noticeboards
And tell your local newspaper. Local papers love positive community stories. Send them the date, the time, the meeting point, why you're organising it and your contact details — they may help you recruit far more volunteers than you'd manage alone.
Afterwards, send them your best photographs, a short write-up, how many people came and roughly how many bags you collected. You might inspire another community to do the same.
Step 6 — Tell us
Register your event with us before the day and we'll do our best to help promote it. Include:
- Location
- Date and time
- Meeting point
- Your contact details
- A poster, if you have one
Register at greatbritishpac.com/get-involved/make-britain-beautiful or email britainbeautiful@greatbritishpac.com.
Volunteer safety briefing
Before you begin, gather everyone together and remind them:
- Wear suitable clothing and sturdy footwear.
- Wear gloves at all times when handling litter.
- Stay together where possible.
- Drink plenty of water.
- Children must remain with their parent or guardian.
- Never put yourself at risk. If in doubt, leave it and report it.
✅ Please do
- Pick up ordinary litter.
- Use litter pickers wherever possible.
- Recycle where practical.
- Be polite to members of the public.
- Respect wildlife.
- Leave the area cleaner than you found it.
❌ Please don’t
- Enter private property without permission.
- Paint walls, fences, benches or street furniture without the owner's permission.
- Remove plants or damage wildlife habitats.
- Enter roads with fast-moving traffic.
- Walk on railway lines.
- Enter rivers, lakes or canals.
- Climb steep embankments.
- Handle needles.
- Handle chemicals.
- Handle asbestos.
- Handle gas cylinders.
- Handle any suspicious or unidentified item.
- Attempt to move heavy fly-tipped waste.
Report hazardous items — needles, chemicals, asbestos, gas cylinders, fly-tipping — to your local council. Never handle them yourself.
Simple risk assessment
Before you start, walk the area and ask yourself:
- Is the area safe?
- Is there traffic nearby?
- Are there steep slopes?
- Are there waterways?
- Are there any obvious hazards?
- Does everyone have gloves?
- Does everyone know where to meet afterwards?
If the answer to any of these is “no”, change the location or fix the problem before you begin.
Photography
Please ask volunteers whether they are happy to appear in photographs before you take them, and again before you send them to us.
If anyone would rather not appear, don't photograph them — or let us know when you send the pictures so we can leave those out.
Photos of children should only be taken and shared with the agreement of their parent or guardian, and we will not publish photographs in which a child is identifiable.
When you send us photos you are giving us permission to use them on our website, in our emails and on social media, and we'll credit you if you'd like. Please only send photos you took yourself, or ones you have the photographer's permission to share — and tell us who took them, so we can record it properly.
After the event
- Count how many volunteers attended.
- Count roughly how many bags of litter were collected.
- Take lots of photographs.
- Thank everyone — properly, and by name if you can.
- Send us your best photos so we can celebrate what you did.
Send them to britainbeautiful@greatbritishpac.com — we’d love to feature your event.
Our mission
Make Britain Beautiful is about pride. Pride in our streets. Pride in our parks. Pride in our communities.
Together, thousands of local people making small improvements can transform the country.
Every piece of litter picked up matters. Every volunteer matters. Every community matters.
Country Before Party.
Volunteer register
Keep a simple attendance list. It tells you who came, and makes it easy to invite them to the next one.
| Name | Emergency contact (optional) | Signature | |
|---|---|---|---|
Keep this sheet safe and don’t share it beyond your event. If you send volunteer details to us, tell them first.
Volunteer acknowledgement
Print one of these for each volunteer, or use the register overleaf and keep a single copy on the day. It is a plain statement of what everyone is agreeing to — not a contract, and not a waiver of anyone's rights.
I confirm that:
- I am taking part voluntarily.
- I will follow the organiser's safety instructions.
- I will wear suitable clothing and footwear.
- I will not enter dangerous areas or private land without permission.
- I will not handle hazardous waste or suspicious items.
- I understand that I am responsible for taking reasonable care for my own safety and that of others.
- I consent to photographs of the event being used for publicity by Make Britain Beautiful and the Great British PAC, unless I tell the organiser otherwise.
Questions? britainbeautiful@greatbritishpac.com