Are you a young museum volunteer aged 16-25 years old in the West Midlands?
Could you help us promote museum volunteering?
Are you an aspiring film maker or vlogger?
West Midlands Museum Development (WMMD) is looking for a small group of diverse young volunteers to help us promote the benefits of volunteering and encourage other young people to get involved. The volunteers will be featured in one of a series of films, as part of the WMMD Volunteers Celebration and Recruitment Campaign.
Whether you have volunteered to support a one-off event or short-term project at a museum, remotely volunteered online, have been volunteering every week for years or are a young Trustee we’d love to hear from you.
What does it involve?
‘A Day in the Life’
Three volunteer vloggers aged 16-25 take us through a day of what it means to them to be a museum volunteer.
This short montage film will challenge stereotypes by allowing you to showcase just what it looks like to be in your shoes for a day. Entirely made up of user generated content, this film is all about your voice.
You will tell the viewer why you started to volunteer and answer questions younger recruits might have: Why do it? What use is it to me in my education or my career? What fears did you have? Who helped you? What’s the community like?
Happenstance Films will be editing your recordings together into the final film. They will guide you in what and how to record and discuss best practice with you to ensure the content is fun, engaging and entertaining.
Your recordings will be used to create a video montage and may also be included in the Volunteer Recruitment Marketing Toolkit and associated templates.
The films, toolkit and templates will be shared and used in the following ways;
- Social media platforms including (but not limited to) Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok
- Websites (WMMD website and third party websites)
- Press and public relations materials (print and digital)
- Printed materials (posters, leaflets, etc)
How do I get involved?
If you are interested in taking part please email michelle.davies@ironbridge.org.uk before 5pm, Monday 16 August to arrange a call and find out more.
We are looking for three volunteers who will promote the diversity of volunteering experiences in regional Accredited museums across the West Midlands. Please be aware that spaces are limited and volunteers will be shortlisted to reflect a variety of experiences.
Arts Council England Diversity Data indicates that Disabled, D/deaf and/or neurodivergent people, those from Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse backgrounds are under-represented in the museum sector, so we particularly encourage people from those backgrounds, identities and experiences to get in touch if they’d like to take part.
More about the campaign
Although we won’t be hosting our regional volunteers awards ceremony again this year, we would still like to say Thank You to the thousands of museum volunteers in the region; the volunteers that have been working behind the scenes and at home, the Trustees that have applied for funding and monitored finances, the volunteers that have kept everyone in the loop and checked in on friends and colleagues during closure, and those that are eagerly waiting to return to venues.
The recent WMMD volunteering survey has demonstrated that many museums have seen a significant reduction in their volunteer numbers, with many long term volunteers choosing to permanently step down, concerns about safety over the coming months, new commitments; all reducing capacity and activity in many venues.
WMMD has commissioned Happenstance Films and Social For Good to develop a marketing campaign to celebrate and thank museum volunteers in the West Midlands. The campaign will showcase and promote the diverse opportunities and museums we work with and aims to encourage more people to volunteer in West Midlands museums.
The campaign will launch in autumn 2021 and consist of a series of short films that signpost viewers to opportunities on the WMMD Volunteers Portal. The films will be released alongside a Volunteer Recruitment Marketing Toolkit, which will include templates and guidance for using the films and resources to construct a bespoke recruitment campaign. Individual museums will be able to use the toolkit to promote their opportunities directly to their local communities and social media followers.
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