A person with green hair wearing black clothing and rain boots is pushing a rusty wheelbarrow filled with dark soil in a garden. The garden has young plants, trees, and a row of cut tree stumps. The sky is partly cloudy with blue sky and white clouds.

A woman and a young girl planting in a greenhouse with sheep visible outside through the glass walls.

Three smiling people standing in a greenhouse with overgrown plants and a ladder on the right.

A man with glasses and a beard, wearing a gray t-shirt, khaki pants, and rubber boots, is holding a large bunch of garlic bulbs with long green stems inside a greenhouse. He is smiling and wearing headphones around his neck.

Two people cleaning a large glass greenhouse window from the inside, with one using a sponge. The other stands outside, reaching for the window. Gardening tools and a plant with red leaves are visible.

Our community rooted work is delivered through Cynefin farm CIC - a non-profit Community Interest Company shaped by and for the people involved. It exists to widen access to land-based learning, support wellbeing, and nurture practical skills through meaningful, hands-on experiences. Through volunteering and inclusive educational programmes, we seek to cultivate connection: to place, to one another, and to the living systems that sustain us. Grounded in shared stewardship and participation, any income generated from the CIC is reinvested into community benefit, helping these opportunities remain accessible, responsive, and open to those who feel called to take part.

volunteer with us

Would you like to come and get involved and join us on our community work days?

We run open volunteering days on the first and third Thursday of the month each year from March until November. No experience necessary, everyone is welcome and always a range of things to get involved in. There are no expectations of a days slog - come along, enjoy being together (or alone! - either is fine) in the gardens, and we’ll reward you with a shared home cooked lunch.

Timings - 10am start and lunch at 1pm, first and third Thursday of the month (starting Thursday March 5th 2026)

Please get in touch and RSVP before coming.

A man working on a wooden ladder outside, with a blue sky and clouds behind him, using a power drill.

residential volunteers and interns

We sometimes also have space for short and long term residential volunteers, and especially love having people stay with us who have a genuine interest in land based living, permaculture, regenerative growing or homesteading. We can offer room and board and sharing our skills through informal training in exchange for 5 hours help per day.

Each spring we run a youth internship program and have space for two interns to join us for a period of 3 weeks. This is open to young people aged 14 and above.

If you’re interested in any of the above, please get in touch with us to check our availability for the coming year.

A woman is pruning a tall leafy plant outdoors in a sunny forested area, smiling and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, gloves, and overalls.

Two people inside a glass greenhouse filled with green plants, one wearing a hat and striped shirt, and the other in white, tending to the plants.

“Let us be the ancestors our descendants will thank”

— Winona LaDuke

With support from

Cynefin farm cic directors

Nim Robins

CO-FOUNDER, EDUCATOR, DIRECTOR
Nim Robins is a permaculture designer, educator and passionate facilitator, with her roots and fingers deep in the soil. Nim has a deep determination for cultivating change in our world and supporting, inspiring and empowering others to do the same through participatory and creative education. Alongside building up the permaculture systems at Cynefin farm, Nim provides permaculture design advice and consultations, and shares nature-based regenerative education with people of all ages.
Nim is certified with the UK Permaculture Association and regularly shares a wide variety of courses, from foundation level all the way through to full PDC’s and specialist advanced design courses, alongside also supporting and assessing those studying at diploma level with the UK Association. Nim is also a core teacher with Permaculture Children - where she focuses on shifting children's education through inspiring teachers to weave permaculture through their curriculums and learning spaces.
Nim loves to tend gardens, have adventures with her children, sleep out under vast starry skies and swim in the ocean. She’s also passionate about homesteading and self sufficiency in a whole load of different ways. But one of the things that lights her up most of all is to bring people together around a shared vision of resilience and regeneration, and to nurture deep, authentic connections to ourselves, each other and to the world around us.
Pete Lees

CO-FOUNDER, DIRECTOR
Pete is a skilled natural builder and carpenter-crafter and is responsible for all of the beautiful handmade spaces that are building up around the farm. He especially loves to work with the natural shape and form of wood and natural materials and creating spaces that bring people together, inspire connection and feelings of wellbeing, and function beautifully.
Pete is also a passionate homesteader and especially loves turning the abundance of our harvests here on the farm into ferments or preserves, which add colourful taste explosions that brighten up every meal. As a Coeliac, Pete is especially interested in preparing and mastering delicious gluten free food (including incredible gluten free sourdough bread). Together with Orlando, Pete prepares all of the food for our residential courses.
Due to these passions, Pete teaches the natural building and preservation sessions on our permaculture design courses, and is also currently preparing to run some short specialist courses here at the farm for natural builders.
Pete loves climbing, wild camping and preparing amazing food. He also loves heading out bicycle touring with his 7 year old daughter Anoushka, who matches Pete in her love of adventure.
Orando Gibson

DIRECTOR
Orlando arrived 3 years ago as a volunteer, and fortunately for us is still here with us and is an integral part of the farm family. He is a fermenter extraordinaire, garden master, tackler of any task big or small, and friend to the birds. The place would surely fall apart without him.