Volunteers… just want to have fun! Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant Volunteers and staff – ready to rock at Helston Museum!

‘Volunteering’ – getting something done which needs doing! My thanks for the inspiration for this presentation go particularly to museum volunteers in Cornwall who you will see pictured in many of the slides. Helston Museum combine volunteering with community engagement with volunteers running a sewing bee; ice cream soda stall; and arranging the museum for a fifties Museum at Night event Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

Community engagement becomes volunteering – do something interesting Back to Helston Museum where inspired by their social history exhinition centred on the 1950s and their costume collection – lots of people offered to help the evening along Previous events – a Victorian magic evening, a literature festival – everyone wants to know what is next Micro-volunteering for people who can give your museum a short amount of time Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

Choosing to volunteer Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

Competing for leisure time Increasing museums will compete to be the leisure activity of choice for all ages People want to be part of something This is my volunteering activity - across the world nearly 70,000 people line up in a local park or open space to run 3 miles that is timed each week. Last week 6,329 volunteers enabled these events to take place because it is fun – and they are part of the Parkrun family. Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

Microvolunteering! – young people; families; working people need it Do you have short term opportunities to whet the appetite? Mounts Bay Academy TakeOver at Penlee House and Mullion School at Helston Museum could be the next volunteers Did they have fun? Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

Be ready to enthuse! At any time members of your community could become volunteers – have projects ready. Saltash Heritage – have a large group of supporters – anyone is welcome and lead volunteers keep a list of possible projects to enable them to involve new volunteers when they walk through the door. Volunteering is fun first to them – and everyone’s skills are employed. Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant

And from around the country… plus choosing family time with volunteering Beginning volunteering at Beaulieu Motor Museum, as a researcher for the National Motor Museum Trust’s project, Caravans & Charabancs – Leisure Motoring After the First World War, this volunteer has become the expert and is enthusiastically on the road across the New Forest. English Heritage wanted to give a shout for their volunteer divers – they always look as though they are on holiday. Is it a choice between family time or volunteering? – Combine the two! Photos from Can I bring Ivy one mum’s blog about getting involved (and trying to get sometime done) with a small child in tow. Jan Horrell, Museum and Heritage Consultant