Adult Education Volunteer, Winterbourne House and Garden

Winterbourne House and Garden’s adult education offering is growing and the team are committed to making sure that they offer the very best experience to learners. Experience the joy of joining Winterbourne’s ever growing Volunteer Team by join the Learning Officer and assisting with all of the behind the scenes work involved with running our courses and workshops.

What’s involved?       

• Assist with printing and collating documents for courses and workshops and assist with set up
• You’ll help the Learning Officer keep on top of filing and correspondence
• Have an oversite of registers and stewarding

This role will suit you if you are any of the below…           

• Outgoing and friendly
• Computer literate, having good working knowledge of Microsoft Office, especially excel and word
• Someone with an eye for detail, who can make sense of paperwork and is happy to work on their own initiative, often on their own.
• Available once a week

By getting involved you could…        

• Make a real difference to the administrative efficiency of the Learning team
• Help ensure courses and workshop programme runs smoothly
• Join an enthusiastic and varied team, and make some new friends

Contact: Enquiries@winterbourne.org.uk

Visitor Experience Volunteer, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery

Visitor Experience Volunteers provide a warm and friendly welcome to visitors at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery (SM&AG). They offer directions around the museum building, share their knowledge of the collections and exhibitions and help to ensure everyone who visits SM&AG has a wonderful experience.

SM&AG is open Monday to Sunday (March – October) and volunteering takes place in two shifts 9.45am – 1.30pm and 1.15pm – 5.00pm.

If you are friendly, would like to work as part of a team and would enjoy helping people to have a lovely visit to the museum then this could be the volunteer role for you.

You will receive ongoing support from Shropshire Museums Volunteering Officer and other staff and volunteers during your volunteering, access to training and resources as required and an induction to welcome you to the team and get you ready to start volunteering.

Front of House Volunteer, Museum of Cannock Chase

Role Purpose: 

• To provide a warm and friendly welcome to visitors, answer questions, engage with and supervise visitors in the galleries and help maintain museum security during opening hours
• To provide support to Front of House and other staff, and assist with events, activities, administration and/or the Museum’s Education service

Reporting to: Visitor Services Officer

Key Duties: 

• Welcoming visitors to the Museum and responding to queries in a helpful manner
• Inhabiting the Museum galleries to facilitate access for visitors to areas which would otherwise be closed
• Supporting and encouraging visitors to engage appropriately with Museum artefacts
• Supervising visitors with regard to health and safety and maintaining Museum procedures
• Assisting with the evacuation of visitors in an emergency
• Helping to ensure the overall tidiness of the galleries, Reception area and Coffee Shop

Other duties, dependant on your experience and volunteering preferences, might include:

• Supporting Front of House staff at Reception and in the Coffee Shop
• Supporting the Museum’s Education service through assisting with formal or informal learning activities
• Supporting events and activities
• Assisting with office administration (i.e. logging timesheets or visitor feedback)
• Carrying out simple maintenance/gardening tasks

Skills and experience required: 

• Polite, friendly and helpful manner; enjoy meeting people
• Good observation and conversation skills and have an eye for detail
• An interest in local history is desirable but no specific knowledge is expected
• Punctuality, reliability and good interpersonal skill
• You will be volunteering under the guidance of the Visitor Services Officer, but much of the time you will be working unsupervised
• This role may involve computer work

Time commitment: Variable, to be discussed with Visitor Services Officer. Typically a weekly commitment of a half to a full day would be desirable

Training and support: 

• The following training will be provided:
• Introductory chat about the role and the Museum
• General induction to the Museum
• Training in role-specific tasks (i.e. object handling, Reception processes; Coffee Shop processes)
• Training on the Museum’s IT systems if appropriate

Benefits of volunteering:

• Meet new people and develop your skills and experience
• Gain experience in a museum environment
• Volunteer within a friendly team
• Enhance your knowledge of local history and the Museum collections

Recruitment Process: Application form and informal chat, followed by an induction.  References may be requested depending on role.

Contact them: Email museumofcannockchase@ihlmail.org, call 01543 877666 or collect a Volunteer Application Form from the Museum during open hours.

Front of House Volunteer, Stourbridge Glass Museum

Meet and greet the visitors, handling till machine for ticket sales and museum shop items.  Front of House volunteers will be the first point when visitors arrive at the museum.

Museum open Tuesday – Sunday from April to October, between 10:30 – 16:30.  Morning shift is between 10:30 – 13:30, afternoon shift is between 13:30 – 16:30.

Volunteer Tour Guide, Stourbridge Glass Museum

Tour Guide: The museum offers several types of guided tours.

1. Leading small number of people to introduce museum collections upon visitors request, normally last 20-45 minutes. This will be a free tour to the visitors.
2. Leading a booked group visit to the museum, normally lasts approx. 45 minutes.

This will be arranged prior to the group’s visit to the museum.  If required, guided tour will be included with the fee.

3. Leading a group approx. 15 people to the tunnel tours, each tours lasts approx. 30-40minutes. Tunnel tours are monthly events and they are very popular through out summer opening. Tickets are sold out very quickly.
4. Leading a group approx. 15 people to the themed canal walking tours. Each tours lasts approx.. 90minutes. This is another popular paid event at the museum.

Tour Guide Volunteers are given regular trainings by the museum staff that are UK qualified Blue Badge tourist guide.

Front of House Volunteers, Wythall Transport Museum

Wythall Transport Museum is looking to recruit more volunteers to cover many visitor facing roles.  They have opportunities to work in the café, shop, admission kiosk and are also keen to talk to potential visitor and educational guides. They have a lot of visiting families and are always looking to expand on children’s activities.

 They also need volunteers to help with the miniature train that gives rides to children.

 The museum is open on Saturdays, Sundays, and bank holidays, plus Wednesdays during school holidays.  You can volunteer as little or as often as you like.

Dialect and Heritage Project – Events Assistant, Avoncroft Museum

Are you interested in helping with public engagement and activities relating to dialect and social history?

Avoncroft Museum is one of five partner museums working with the University of Leeds on the Dialect and Heritage Project to explore and record the richness of dialect around England and how it may have changed over the last 70 years.

What the role will entail: Assisting the Dialect and Heritage Project Engagement Officer in running ‘Dialect Roadshow’ events, at Avoncroft Museum and/or local fairs and shows around the West Midlands region. Volunteers will help the Engagement Officer with setting up a gazebo and various activities relating to dialect in the region and they will help to engage visitors through informal conversation and activities relating to dialect and the words we use. Several of these events may take place at weekends.

Who will this role suit? The Events Assistant volunteering role would suit volunteers who:

• Are confident, friendly and have good verbal communication skills in English
• Enjoy meeting and talking to new people of all backgrounds
• Are reliable and can commit to supporting the Engagement Officer with at least 2 events this summer/autumn
• Are willing to develop new skills and commit to training for the role
• (desirable) Have a full driving licence and access to own transport preferred but not essential

Skills, training and support:

Role-specific training may include: an introduction to dialect, locally and nationally; how to engage people with dialect and heritage; how to use engagement materials and activities to encourage people to contribute their dialect at events; how to contribute dialect to the research online; health and safety.

Volunteers will be able to claim travel and subsistence expenses.

Museum Volunteers, Claymills Victorian Pumping Station

Claymills Pumping Engine Trust operates a unique working steam museum – Claymills Victorian Pumping Station – and, as such, cares for a wide range of operational steam machinery and ancillary equipment from 1885 onwards used in the pumping station, and also an extensive archive including original documentation and other records, including photographs. Claymills Victorian Pumping Station is an Accredited Museum and aims to care for and conserve its collections to professional standards. Claymills is entirely volunteer-led and has no employees.

Claymills is always seeking volunteers to support the museum – everything from engineering to catering, from front-of-house to tour guides, from administration to gardening, from catering to cleaning. If you have a skill, Claymills can probably use it!

Front of House Volunteers, Pen Museum

The role of the Front of House Volunteer is to support the museum’s front of house activities with oversight by the Museum Manager. Front of House Volunteers welcome visitors to the museum, complete operational tasks associated with the opening of the museum to the public and contribute to the smooth and safe running of the museum in line with all current risk assessments, and safety guidance.

The Pen Museum promotes and preserves the important legacy of Birmingham’s pen trade, which, at its height employed an estimated 8,000 workers, of which 70% were women. The mass production of affordable pens helped improve literacy worldwide and wherever a pen was used it had most likely been manufactured in Birmingham.

If you are interested in volunteering for the Pen Museum please contact the Pen Museum to arrange an informal chat with the Museum Manager and discuss available roles.

Member of the Volunteer Curatorial Team, Leominster Museum

Member of the Volunteer Curatorial Team, Leominster Museum

PURPOSE OF VOLUNTARY ROLE

To assist, as part of the volunteer team, with the care of the collection of objects in Leominster Museum

MAIN ACTIVITIES/TASKS TO BE SHARED

• Responsibility (in line with applicable policies etc) for:
  • the care, recording, display and storage of all items in the Museum’s collection
  • bringing up to date any incomplete, out-of-date or non-compliant records
  • decisions on acceptance of new material offered to the museum
  • disposal of degraded or irrelevant items in the collection
  • making recommendations to trustees about appropriate changes to policies and procedures
• Responding to outside enquiries, including carrying out any quick and simple research necessary to provide an answer.
• Reporting to trustee meetings
• Working with other members of the volunteer team on:
  • a continuing programme of improvements to the display and interpretation of the Museum’s collection, and on temporary exhibitions
  • the preparation of new temporary exhibitions
  • the preparation of funding applications, reports etc

SKILLS/INTERESTS NEEDED

• Experience (voluntary or otherwise) in the museum sector would be useful
• Good computer skills, and an understanding of the importance of record keeping in museums
• A willingness to attend external training courses from time to time, with necessary expenses paid
• A willingness to work constructively with other team members on joint projects and planning

TIME COMMITMENT

This can be arranged at the volunteer’s convenience and to fit in with the other members of the team.