319. WWOOF-USA® | Samantha Blatteis | Special Programs Manager
Samantha Blatteis
Special Programs Manager
I’m not even sure we’re gonna find someone this summer… because it would have to be someone camping in Montana? My listeners are bigger gardeners. I do have a lot of new listeners after being on the Melissa Norris Pioneering Show. I would think people might have a lot of questions. I’m the kind of person who goes through the Terms and conditions more then most.
I think people will be excited to hear that there is an actual person who calls.
We interview all the new hosts. As the host you are the one accepting people into your homes and lives
we want to make sure our minimum hosting criteria.
Go through your listing point of areas and use a bit of more explanation
Confirm that you know what our hosting criteria are and have a plan to meet them.
this is a great opportunity to
to gives some pointers and tips and best practices that we’ve learned from hosts after several years of hosting
pass it on to the new hosts from the get go
There are some easy things to do to make the WWOOFing experience great for both host and wwoofer so that’s
the goal of the goal of this call
Make sure you aware of what our standards are to make sure you are a good fit for the program.
So do you start by asking me questions.
“My first question for you is how did you first hear about WWOOF and what made you sign up to be a host?”
Well, I probably heard about it before, since I started the podcast, this would be episode 319, so I have talked to 318 people, and a lot of the people I have talked to who are farm managers, who worked at someone’s farm or own their farm now. One of the greatest interviews I did, with Jeremy and Neke and they would do 2 days here and 2 weeks there and 2 days there, and traveled all of South America plus learned from a variety of different people. The experience level was exponential by being at all these different farms.
For example I interviewed Ellen Polishuck who had her own farm and now teaches people about working with interns. Our goal is to plant as much as we can this year because there could be giant food shortages this fall and people needing food and we have a lot more space then Mike can care for himself. So if we can grow more this year with some help that would be great.
That’s what so great about the WWOOF program
People who want to be gardeners or farmers themselves someday can go get that experience and if they want to try out a bunch of different farms and set ups. One of the great tools
WWOOF offers is you can go check out from different set ups
starting out and get experience as that well hosting side your not always leave and travel
farmer or gardener
tend to your animals or crops
You can invite people to come and learn and participate with you
own experience and tips and tricks
both ways
host other farms
and
your in Montana so you probably have some cold winters. We have lots of hosts that are in colder climates who go
WWOOF themselves during their cold season, whether that’s out of the country or somewhere warmer.
host during their own growing season
I have talked to several that went to Hawaii, I talked to people who went to Hawaii and stayed in a tent and those who went to more formal living spaces and I was like what stayed in a tent? The interesting part was they were like 3 hours from the beach, they had to hitchhike to the beach or something but they could see the beach…
Past Hawaii WWOOF Interviews
- Sarah Manuel From the STREATERY
- Jenny Jack Sun Farm
- And Anna Peach who is in Hawaii, although I’m not sure she WWOOFed it but she did volunteer at the Brooklyn Grange.
so that is what this call is about
tips for setting the expectations for people visiting your profile and the
wwoofers get to read about and experience from visiting you from your profile
some type of application or interview process in place so that you are directly communicating what will happen with the dates that they are interested in
so like you were saying if someone thinks they are going to be Wwoofing in Hawaii and think they will get to the beach every day for a half day after working their morning, so it’s important to be asking those questions
definitely feel free ions
ask questions of their
what there is to do for your time off
So when wwoofers find your listing in our directory they will be able to decide before contacting your site they might think this is the best fit for what I am looking for or maybe they want to do something different and move on to another profile.
So you need a few more required fields on your profile
Wwoofer hosting criteria
as a host you are expected to provide
I read on your profile that wwoofer woofers will be bringing a camper or camping in a tent and sharing your bathroom.
It is definitely cold in Montana at nights. They would want to be able to have a stove or some heat at night. Ideally they would have a camper to hook up. But yes they would have to share our bathroom and kitchen.
extra bedroom
all of that is ok,
clearly explained
lots of communication and about what they can expect when staying on your farm.
For food did you have a plan for how you would share meals or provide for wwoofers.
It’s funny how you said that about an application or questionaire, I was thinking about creating something like that because in our situation it would have to be a very specific person that would get along, but then I also think it would only have to be one person or a small family, I think my husband would want someone who would be here for a season, not opening our place up to a lot of different people.
I mean we have 20 acres, there is a cabin on the other end of our property. I mean there are lots of gorgeous camping sites between their place and ours. There are places they could camp close to a spigot or they could have their own. It would take a specific person. I wrote down that Mike eats meat and I’m a pescatarian but I could cook vegan but then I also thought I would have to point out, Mike eats meat but we don’t eat meat every day or maybe he would eat meat once a week.
I just feel like if we found the right person it would all work out. They could use part of the fridge. Or if they want to eat, we seem to have excess of food all the time.
share those expectations ahead of time.
so they know what would be there ahead of time
share meals with our family
space and ingredients to cook their own.
That would be discussed with individual ahead of time by:
- setting expectations
- talk with an individual person
Do you like cooking? And rather eat your own meals
I can share that a lot of hosts do a combination
- share one large meal a day
- other meal
- other meals are on a wwoofers own
that’s when they have their own cooking space
encourage to think that through and include in your profile
so you are going to attract the right
Perfect what’s next?
providing lodging and meals is one of our requirements but the next one is using and sharing and organic methods
I saw that you said your husband is the gardener ask what a WWOOFer could expect to learn in the effect of sustainable growing methods if they visit your farm.
We’re not certified organic, and we even were debating the other day if he got manure that was from cows that were not specifically fed organic hay that had not sat for 3 years yet, was that organic our food grown with it? I can say were gonna do our best to use the most sustainable methods, he’s been doing more no till experiments this year, putting tarps down and not using the roto-tiller. Mike always rotates crops.
We grow cover crops and use compost we have here. I always say our chickens are for the manure, we did have a grizzly bear come in last fall so we only have one chicken now. Mike’s been gardening for over 40 years, when we started out we didn’t even have running water, we have 14 fruit trees so they would learn how to take care of fruit trees, grow vegetables, last year we wrote the Organic Oasis Guidebook.
I’m the organic eater so I can share a lot about growing herbs and cooking with them. Mike has always been a great boss as far as I have seen, we live on Christmas tree land and always people would work with him to get firewood or cut trees were super happy. It was hard work but I always knew him to be fair and a great boss. He has so much information to share, you would learn a ton about Earth friendly techniques, we try to be organic.
We don’t actually go to market, we just don’t have that much extra produce, I was hoping this year maybe we will have enough, and if he had a helper, maybe we could, but I can never figure out how we would even have enough water to grow that much. Our school this morning they said they were all gone by 9:00 and he was surprised that it was seniors who came to get food. I don’t think it’s gonna get better? IDK. We just want to grow as much as we can here this year, Mike can’t do it all by himself.
certified isn’t a requirement, a lot are not market farmers, some are just homeowners doing this as a lifestyle
wwoofers are learning those natural techniques
that’s great
along the teaching side sounds like he has a wealth of experience
often use that to get a first exposure to this lifestyle
organic farming
have not ever spent any time, and make sure that you are prepared to
- teach and instruct
- supervise the way you want them done
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World
I just got off the phone who wrote a book called the Little Gardener about working in the garden with kids and her last piece of wisdom was have a little grace. Like if you are out with your 5 year old and you run back to the house to grab your scissors and come back and the seeds are sprinkled everywhere just try to celebrate what does grow.
Mike is going to make sure things are done HIS WAY. I did do an interview withJean Martin Fortier where he talked a bit about working with interns making sure your contacts are right. And this woman here in Whitefish who has always had interns. I think if we can find the right person it could be a good fit. I always feel like the perfect interview happens just the right person in the audience. I think we all need to make sure we give all a little grace.
yes but also what you were saying about getting as much of the getting to know ahead of time, is something I do want to stress
what will happen when your profile goes live. I will point out there are just a few missing components that still need to be completed
once it goes live
you will be able to receive messages with wwoofers
have an application in place
scheduling a phone call similar to this
looking to get out of the experience
looking for from them
and making sure that’s a good fit
Not only will you get along personality wise
confirming your expectations are of each other
good fit
We have found from years of experience that the few times someone decides after two weeks and realize it is not a good fit, I think a lot of those could have been avoided is if you have those conversations
them not feel comfortable
weren’t expecting
leave early
best for you
or for them
most of those situations can be avoided with conversations
Either you or the wwoofers can end it is always your right but that usually isn’t necessary extra steps to get to know one another ahead of time
host forums that you will have access to once your form is approved where the other hosts have shared their methods for getting to know ahead of time it’s a good place to get advice from hosts who have been doing a long time
sample questionnaires I am happy to send along, I can put in an email when I send you a follow
Can I share that in the show notes or is that something you have to register to learn? And there are local options there are called day worker?
for wwoofers that come for one day
stay long term
The general expectation is the wwoofers contributes a half a day for each day they are rather. We have put the expectation the wwoofers work 4-6 hours per day of stay.
over the course
if they are staying longer
1/2 a day for 5-6 days a week
25-35 hour range a week.
anything more then that should not be expected
wwoofers want to keep helping
see their host
as long as it is not expected
contributing
host that say doesn’t have a lodging set up to invite people who are in their area who can commute who want to work for half a day they can stay for lunch or take some produce home with them
provide with some hospitality
setting up a recurring visit for someone in the area is a great way to build a connection
great for the wwoofers who don’t have time to go on a long commitment to learn that way
option for a host
host long term
wwoofers
who dont have the way to provide lodging
host people in local area?
Do you get people who live in cities who are just like backyard gardeners?
we don’t have that many
some
we also have hosts that are urban farms, where they have a larger area
lodging could be with different volunteers in the city. We have hosts in every single shape and size set up out there
Are you seeing a bigger interest with the quarantine? And how does that work if someone comes to stay at your place do they have to quarantine in place. We are opening up in two weeks, but they shut it down because so many people wanted to come stay at airbnbs to stay out the quarantine in Beautiful Montana and the Governor was like nope!
we are encouraging people to follow stay in place
stop the spread
at the same time a lot of our hosts are essential food, a lot of them wwoofers on their farms
hard to tell
travel is definitely down
at the same time there are hosts that need to safely host wwoofers who can self quarantine for a couple of weeks and they can providing food for their community
We are definitely seeing a really high interest in gardening and farming through our social media especially as people want to be in an open area and essential skills
may not be for all people to hop in their cars now
We are continuing to encourage people to shelter if they can and they are in a safe place
host wwoofers
not trying to tell people how to run their farm we are just a platform that helps people make these connections and helping people get their profiles finished like you.
memberships only averrable to registered members
full profiles
signed up with the program
membership is $40 for a single or $60/couple
families with minors can be under the account of their legal gardening
social profiles
usually your membership lasts for a full year
membership for a year and half for the same price so as travel restrictions
still go wwoofing
to sign up to go up go wwoofing it’s $40-60.
to be a host we do ask for a sliding scale contribution from $20/50
accident insurance policy which we provide whcih really benefits the host
while a wwoofers is staying with you, any accident that could potentially happen they would be reimbursed for medical expenses if something happened in relation to the wwoof experience
offer hosts to ask if their wwoofers have insurance etc. so there is no delay in getting them any medical help they need.
Oh that’s good to know! So what’s next? Anything else missing?
You mentioned you weren’t sure about the length of time
opportunity section which is where you describe how long you are looking for wwoofers to stay
We encourage you to select as many of the filters as apply to your farm
- a couple of months
- longterm
- flexible
Is what I would recommend for you based on what you have told me just now. You can also have the opportunity to put current projects
set schedule
clearly
we’re all about providing more info for wwoofers so you are setting the exception
I have a question? Would I expect to hear from 2 people or like 25 people? Do you have any statistics for that, I saw there were probably at least a dozen or 2 dozen in just the state of Montana.
that all depends
it can be random and hard
pandemic
Depends on how active you are in keeping your profile attractive and up to date
determine
message a farm
photos and reviews
while you are a new host you don’t have reviews yet
attractive as possible
other thing we highly recommend is you regularly make in to updates
every time you log in and click save, and that will change your updated date. I see this host has updated their profile, I can see they are active and logging in.
updating your availably, our hosts are listed in order of status followed by your last date
immediate availability
section
those hosts are listed first
hosts that are recently
more visibility the more inquires you are going to get
update as much as you like
more views
Other thing you can post in forums! Especially right now it’s easier if hosts and wwoofers to go to the forum to make those connection if they are saying I‘m available for these types
that’s available as well
as an office
- we have newsletters
- we have our website
- social media accounts
help hosts promote any current projects that are in need for wwoofers
request that
Usually there is a small waiting list
But we promote you as it’s helpful for you
those are all
Messaging wwoofers
ever not getting the number of inquiries you like, but you can also message wwoofers themselves
wwoofers directory page
town
county
state
by feature
Let’s say you have something going on like
straw bale building
with that experience or who are interested in that specifically in that state or where they are hoping to go.
Or you can sit back and wait for them to come to you but
There are great filters! There were so many interesting things I was surprised like cheese making, and sheep-herding and permaculture techniques and all sorts of things? I wanted to ask you do people put 420 friendly? And could that create a negative tone?
We encourage you to put things like any kind of rules or guidelines
hosts with a drug policy
substances
Especially for hosts that don’t want that, let’s say they have young family or they are trying to live a substance free lifestyle
then the wwoofer who is addicted to cigarettes will know not to apply to your farm because they will know that is not a comfortable place for them to go
Conversely we have hosts that say moderate drinking is something that we want to participate in at the end of the day, but not during work hours.
We do have hosts that say we are 420 friendly etc but
We encourage you to put more info then less
I would think that would be a filter anymore I feel like everyone is just talking about growing hemp for CBD
filters selected
search full profiles for any keyword that they want
I just searched CBD and 23 hosts that have that in their profile propped up
Do you want to go through them the filters?
What I wanted to go over specifically with you, is what will happen when it does go live. I had that mentioned
If a wwoofer wants to message you, you get an email to the address you have on file and you can reply by replying from your email or from your messages section of your profile
stored and saved in your online account
specific type of message you can get which is a visit request which is stored in a different section that has specific dates attached
update your availability calendar that lets them know the exact dates they want to come visit you and they will submit them along with a message when they inquire with you on your farm
do something to help you know about them and their requirements for wwoofing to determine if their going to be a good fit.
You will be prompted to accept or decline their request based on the application or interview process
if you do decide to invite someone, we do encourage you to log in and accept the visit request.
Once the request has been accepted
Once you accept their visit request
connected to their reviews
end date
your reviews for one another
allows you to attract future wwoofers when they visit your farm and it also helps your wwoofer get future references and placements
it does allow you to review one another.
One reason I am pointing it out on this call is you can do everything you can do from your email on your phone. But to actually accept or decline you do need to go into the website.
Can you do that on a phone?
You can log in on a smart phone or tablet, its not the best but it will be a little tricky
A lot of this reminds me of Airbnb. It is a bit scary and you are like what am I doing staying with strange people it’s crazy but it worked out great for me both in LA and in Missoula!
exactly
we encourage new hosts that don’t have
lots of photos
comfortable messaging you
super helpful to attract future inquires
communicating well is another great way to make wwoofers
home and life
getting to know them is a priority
who
just to clarify You always you have full control over who you invite
when
if it is not working out
most of those situation could be avoided by having those converstaions ahead of time.
Are there any questions specificaly, I just wish eveyrone would just ask this one question. Or is that basically what we have been talking about.
the reason why I stress the conversations, it’s not something all hosts experience
not something I knew to do as a wwoofers
helpful to know as a host to prompt those conversations
For example I went wwoofing with clear goal to learn how to make goat cheese
so I could learn how to milk them and
I accepted their, but when I got to the farm, that’s not something she wanted help with, she was very protective of her goats, and she did not want this brand new novice working with them and she put me in this new project.
It was not what I was expecting, and I realized I should have asked will I get to milk goats.
not a great situation
not getting the experience I was expecting
will I get to milk goats?
example of why those communications are important
what’s happening on your property
a lot of wwoofers are excited to try anything
contribute to
have all the experiences
We encourage wwoofers to be:
- open minded
- learn and take instruction
But there are going to be wwoofers who are in it for a very specific reason
that maybe it’s not the best fit
what you said about
wwoofers who want to try new things
Maybe it’s experiences I have had, I worked as a volunteer at the WILPF office, or at HeadStart, it’s important to match people to their strengths, I have been in places that have made me feel like, you’re just a volunteer so I can waste your time, instead of the point of view should be you’re volunteering and they should be over appreciated, and make them feel like it was your specific skill that made the project successful and your contribution that helped it all.
safely in the right way
more time from the host
if they were to do it by themselves
learning from each other
up front intensive training period
as they learn and become confident in their skills that’s when they can start contributing to your farm
different skill sets
wwoofers with all different
once they are trained and understand the rhythm and flow of your farm. Then they can really start to contribute
great way to approach hosting
understanding both of that that it will take time and investment on the host part and takes flexibility to help assign wwoofers that meet their interest
so it benefits everyone!
Awesome!
I can follow up with you in email with the specific things that need completed, from what I can see it’s mainly the
- cover photo
- one section
- about a wwoofers stay
- current projects
- hourly expectations
I can point those out to you. I recommend adding a few more photos, of the farm or you, the space, ideas wwoofers can do on their spare time. Helpful for them to get a well rounded view.
- farm
- neighboring sites
- activities to do on free time
- hikes
- outdoor activities
- helpful to get a full well
Awesome! I’ve been taking most of pictures. I was going to post a link to our instagram which has the most pictures of our place our instagram feed. I was gonna look at what other people have going and what we might want to do. I’ve been thinking already about what the application would look like.
Thank you so much! I know listeners will love this and it is so ice of you to share all this!
once if you want it to be in the directory once you get it approved
access to the forums
start conversations
get you approved
it will unlock all of those bonus membership benefits
full access to full website
Definitely check out other host listings
local host contact which is another wwoof host doing it for years who has volunteered to help you and I will send you their profile as well.
contact any member through the profile
that’s always averrable
encourage hosts connecting
talking to one another
when were’ not in quarantine and visiting each others farms and it’s also super helpful for woofers to do
Thanks so much!
You what I am going to ask is are you a rockstar millennial born between 1980 and 1995?
IDNK you were going to ask that but I am a classic millenial.
once you start hosting
I did graduate during 2008 farming
era of Michael pollen
Allanis Morisette
inspired a lot of us to get onto farms and go into wwoofing
Omnivores Dilema
I went wwoofing in 2009
there was an office in San Francisco, which we had for several years, we did just give it up mostly last year, because our team was growing
- now have a staff member in MN
- few in the bay area
- one is central coast of CA
We are all remotely now but it used to be