Museums Worcestershire and Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings have created an online volunteering portal, which is currently being used by 14 cultural institutions to advertise voluntary roles across Worcestershire.
The portal was created following Animating Worcestershire’s Museums - a project designed to help participating venues communicate their collections and stories in more engaging ways. As a result staff and volunteers were given the chance to develop their knowledge of the period costumes worn for historical re-enactments and displays.
The project was run by the Marches Network and the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, and funded by Arts Council England.
Gemma Dhami, the volunteering and partnerships manager at Museums Worcestershire, said: “We wanted to recruit more volunteers as part of this project and actually we felt that creating a volunteer portal was a good way for us to be able to share volunteers and promote what we did as a group. If you are one museum recruiting volunteers it is hard to get the coverage.”
Launched last week, the website www.worcsvolunteering.org highlights volunteering opportunities at Museums Worcestershire’s sites and Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, as well as cultural institutions across the county, from the Transport Museum in Wythall to Route to the Hills in Malvern.
All museums are responsible for uploading their own volunteer vacancies and people interested in becoming volunteers are informed about relevant opportunities by registering on the website. Opportunities range from photography, conducting tours and gardening.
There are also plans to add an extra page to the website to highlight the benefits volunteers are offered at the different museums. These include discounts on the cost of admission or discounts in the museum shop and café. A similar system is used by the Yorkshire Museum Development and the North West Development teams.
“People will see that if they volunteer at any of the museums they will get a volunteer pass, which will mean they can get different benefits at different museums,” explains Dhami.
The portal was created following Animating Worcestershire’s Museums - a project designed to help participating venues communicate their collections and stories in more engaging ways. As a result staff and volunteers were given the chance to develop their knowledge of the period costumes worn for historical re-enactments and displays.
The project was run by the Marches Network and the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, and funded by Arts Council England.
Gemma Dhami, the volunteering and partnerships manager at Museums Worcestershire, said: “We wanted to recruit more volunteers as part of this project and actually we felt that creating a volunteer portal was a good way for us to be able to share volunteers and promote what we did as a group. If you are one museum recruiting volunteers it is hard to get the coverage.”
Launched last week, the website www.worcsvolunteering.org highlights volunteering opportunities at Museums Worcestershire’s sites and Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, as well as cultural institutions across the county, from the Transport Museum in Wythall to Route to the Hills in Malvern.
All museums are responsible for uploading their own volunteer vacancies and people interested in becoming volunteers are informed about relevant opportunities by registering on the website. Opportunities range from photography, conducting tours and gardening.
There are also plans to add an extra page to the website to highlight the benefits volunteers are offered at the different museums. These include discounts on the cost of admission or discounts in the museum shop and café. A similar system is used by the Yorkshire Museum Development and the North West Development teams.
“People will see that if they volunteer at any of the museums they will get a volunteer pass, which will mean they can get different benefits at different museums,” explains Dhami.