Farm Roles
These are the roles that the farm work breaks down into. Depending on the skills mix in the group
one of these roles could be shared between 2 people or one person could carry out 2 or more of the
roles. This is an indicative list only – it might be that the roles could be broken down slightly
differently in any given group.
Please indicate in your application form which of the roles you feel you would be suited to and
highlight any particular skills/qualities/experience that you think you might bring to the role. Having
said that please do not arrive expecting to be given a particular role since that will depend on the
group mix and business needs at the time that you visit. You will experience a little bit of everything
during your stay and master the basics before you move onto a more specialised role.
In all roles you will be fully trained and exposed to all aspects of the dog farm and will get a chance
to have some fun and try out new tasks and learn new skills during your stay.
1) Au pair for Eliel – ideally with French or German speaking. Being willing to do this will
definitely help you to score a place! This job can combine well with some computer based
tasks and with general housework/cooking/sewing etc. It does mean that you will be
predominately based on the Hetta farm, although you will get a chance to see Valimaa too.
2) Dog Medical Overseer (We will look for a few people at the same time who are able to do
this role and see who will actually be best for it when here.) Generally this job goes to longer
term volunteers since it takes some time to be fully trained and to really know the dogs well.
Mostly there is one overseer in Hetta and one in Valimaa, but we have had one person cover
both farms at times in the past. If you are very interested in meds but the role has been
assigned to someone else for the period of your stay there is always the opportunity to be
there assistant.
You will be in charge of the weekly dog check and thrice weekly heat check as well as making
sure that the daily medical charts are up to date and completed properly. Note this does not
necessarily mean that you must complete all of these tasks yourself, but that you are
responsible for making sure that they get done.
You will probably do the weekly dog check yourself (with an assistant) since it is better if
these are performed by the same person each week to have a consistent opinion on the
weights and on-going meds issues for the dogs. The dog check takes around half a day to
complete and the filling in of charts etc. takes between a half and full day (depending on
your competence/time of year).
This job includes a lot of computing and filling in excel sheets, as well as making yourself
familiar with the previous content of those sheets. You will be able to do it even if your
excel skill are weak when you arrive as long as you are willing to put the time and effort into
improving.
3) Admin role – communicating with clients enquiring about safaris, communicating with
tour companies giving client numbers at the 11th hour, updating planning spread-sheets,
keeping up to date with the various dog health and safety recording sheets which fall
between the training manager’s and medical manager’s roles, keeping up to date with what
kit has been issued to guides and the various stock checking forms, keeping the souvenir
shop inventory up to date and managed etc. Ideally strong computer and excel skills for this
one but someone who is willing to learn and has a knack for computers will pick up the
necessary skills quickly. Note that this role requires a lot of knowledge about many areas of
the farm and for that reason will often go to a longer term/returning guide.
4) This role could ideally also tie into a marketing role, but otherwise it can be
separate. That would include web research for companies like responsible tourism which
we don’t yet link to. Also, preparing and distributing some of the marketing materials (fliers,
adverts etc.) (needs to be able to use illustrator, publisher, in-design etc.), around town,
producing new souvenir items if there have been artists in house etc.
5) Building and Maintenance role. This will include fixing lines, repairing sleighs, fixing fences
and kennels, making new kennels and cages and working on whatever construction projects
we have on (in summer). It should ideally also include the sewing repair role. Mechanical
skills, particularly in winter would be a bonus. Plumbing, Electrical and other skilled areas
also potentially useful here.
6) Sewing Maintenance role: Essentially being good at hand- and machine-sewing things
which need fixing / designing etc. e.g. repairing broken harnesses and dog blankets, making
sleigh bags, dog booties, ball protectors etc., fixing the kotas etc.
7) People who are happy not to have a designated role and simply fill all the gaps and work
on ensuring that all of the basic things (feeding pups five times a day, completing the
everyday and once per week tasks like checking fence and kennel standards etc.) are
completed to an adequate standard
8) Linguists who speak French, Dutch (or Flemish), German, English, Finnish to a high
standard
9) People to run the individual dog training in summer - ideally with training experience and
the admin/management skills to keep on top of the training, record keeping and ensuring it
was getting done consistently across the dogs.
10) Guide house management. Keeping on top of cleaning rota, shopping lists, making sure
food goes to Valimaa, snow work, laundry, work kit/play kit being stored correctly, car
getting plugged in/cleaned etc...This role would be in addition to another role and although
there is not much work it can be challenging depending on the group.
11) Tech support - ideally good working knowledge of windows and mac. Knows how to use
Google to troubleshoot, installing programmes etc. This could potentially fit in with admin
role
12) Your specialisation e.g. artist: Particularly in summer there is scope for you to specialise
in your own area of expertise. For example we have had a skilled artist visit and she
produced a lot of souvenirs and signage around the farm. Please note that this doesn’t
mean you get free rein to do your own thing but rather that in discussion with Anna you
would decide on useful projects that your skills could be put to use on.
A general comment that people who want to do meds overseer, make teams, admin, Valimaa
manager, training manager, building/repairs, would ideally have pretty good excel skills and at a
minimum be willing to learn excel. There is plenty of opportunity to do that once you arrive and
showing a willingness and aptitude to get to grips with excel will make you a much more convincing
candidate for those roles.
All of the farms records are kept in excel so most jobs involve learning to use spread sheets to some
degree. Please don’t let that put you off if you are not experienced with computers but please do
come with an open attitude to their utility and your ability to master them!
When we are running Valimaa, we also need:
A) Valimaa manager: Someone who has to be able to pay attention to the details and will keep the
standards at the same high level in that farm as at the Hetta farm. This person has to be able to
manage to task. I.e. they will not have a free reign – it is all about enforcing same standards and
systems rather than being a free-range management role since, with so many new people coming in
across the two farms, everything is managed fairly prescriptively. They would have to be able to
work remotely and take direction over the phone / Skype and manage a sometimes difficult work
force. They don’t necessarily need to be able to run the safaris but they should either be able to do
this role, or the admin role or the medical role out there since otherwise, they won’t have a good
grip of what is going on. The key aspect of this role is that someone has to be mature enough to
have their loyalty towards Anna and be good at communicating, project managing and
overseeing a group of people who would allow the laws of entropy to rule if not for their presence.
Note that it can be very difficult to step into this role within a group of peers and that you need to
know a lot about the farm before you can step into this role and for that reason the Valimaa
manager is often a returning or longer-term volunteer.
B) Folk who are capable of moving between farms – thereby helping to maintain standards across
each. They need to have good attention to detail and an ability to learn the characteristics and
names of > 200 dogs
C) Folk who are happy to be specialists on one farm and know the systems inside out, supporting all
of the other folk in their roles and therefore getting a good overview of each aspect of the farm