Vacancies
Sometimes we have vacancies within our team of 4 resident full-time long-term core members. On occasion we also have take on a short termer (see below).
Each role calls for various skills and experience. But don’t worry if you don’t already tick every box. If you’ve got the basic capabilities plus a keen interest and willingness to learn, we don’t rule you out.
For All Applicants: The Three Keys
So, you’re thinking of applying to join the core community at Othona West Dorset?
So, you’re thinking of applying to join the core community at Othona West Dorset?
We welcome your interest. Living and working in community at Othona could bring you, among other things:
- plenty of contact with people, sometimes at a deep level
- the rootedness of a relatively simple lifestyle
- variety in our event programme and in daily activities
- teamwork with core members and many other Othona supporters
- spirituality that underlies all we do, with or without ‘God talk’
Core community members often find their time here is life changing. But before you go any further, there are three key points we’d ask you to consider carefully. They apply whatever the role you have in mind. They’re really more important than any job description.
Spirit and Intention
You are looking to belong to an intentional Christian community of a very inclusive sort. This doesn’t mean all our members are card-carrying Christians – you don’t have to be. But it does mean our shared vision includes the values of forgiveness, gratitude and relatively simple living. And we need to honour spiritual practice (meditation, prayer etc.) that opens us and our visitors to ‘the power we live by’ – whether or not we call that God. Othona draws these principles from the example of Jesus. We recognise them in many other religious traditions too.
Service and Hospitality
At Othona we need to be people who can find our nourishment in service and hospitality. A lot of our time may be given over to tasks like preparing food, taking bookings or cleaning rooms. But our main focus has to be human beings with all their gifts and glitches. If we are introverted by nature, in community we must be able to extravert too when it’s appropriate (and vice versa, for health and sanity!) And we aren’t here principally for our own personal development or therapy – even though growth and healing may come to us as a result (which is great).
Work and Life
Core community membership – for a few months or for years – is more a life than a job. The boundaries between ‘work’ and ‘life’ are less clearly defined for us than for most people. Anyone just hoping for a job in a beautiful place with convenient accommodation should look elsewhere. That won’t be motivation enough when things get tough (as they will do in community, sooner or later).
Othona is “a place to be real together” – demanding yes, but very rewarding too. For many who love it the Othona Community comes to mean ‘home’. Will it for you?
All Core Members
The following are all essential to the running of the centre and will be carried out by a combination of long and short term core members and local volunteers. They offer variety and sometimes the opportunity to use (or develop) special skills or pursue a personal interest.
The following tasks are shared between core members, often on a rota basis:
- cooking
- contributing to chapel gatherings (with support/training as appropriate)
- cleaning
- hosting (event liaison with facilitators and visitors)
- dealing with rubbish and recycling
Certain tasks are usually allotted to core members for a period of time and then sometimes swapped. They allow you to pursue an area of interest in addition to your lead role. For example:
- librarian
- art room management
- care of chapel and worship resources
The core members are at the heart of this Othona centre. They need to be committed to the work of the community, its ethos and values. Core members work actively to live these out in their everyday life, and to further them. The competences below provide good examples of what this means in practice. The programme explains what Othona is about. Our policy statements show how Othona seeks to realise these values in the way it manages people, its policies of equal opportunities and the green policies for house and grounds, and in its open Christianity.
The heart of Othona is people – core colleagues, visitors and all those who we interact with. People come because they know they will be welcomed, accepted and valued for who they are. Our role is not to be therapists or counsellors, but we do need to be interested in people and willing to listen and share. We also need to be aware of our own responses and feelings, and especially of the impact of our own behaviour on other people.
Othona core members live and work together, and are hosts to an ever-changing number of visitors. Core members have to be flexible, able to adapt to varied and changing circumstances and people.