Volunteering
The project employed 83 volunteers who were recruited remotely and contributed an incredible 5360 hours to the project. Volunteers are able to book slots any day of the week on an online booking system so we are able to daily brief them and manage workflow.
In order to train all 83 volunteers effectively, we conducted x5 online open training sessions via Zoom. We advertised the volunteer training sessions and programme via our internal mailer and volunteer network, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with a total reach of 36k followers and 6k mailing list. In order to provide volunteer support, we started a volunteer Whatsapp Group with 7 days a week support, which currently has over 40 member still actively asking questions about keywording metadata, and helping each other to answer questions or fill in blanks on youth culture history. This is a community led forum that we will continue to run beyond the project.
Through five online streamed training sessions volunteers learnt vital conservation skills in keywording and metadata in order to carry out specialist work updating, recataloguing and making previously inaccessible collections within our archive public.
For volunteers who were unable to make the training sessions we were able to provide them with pre-recorded video footage and training documents in order for them to learn how to work with our public submissions
In order to train all 83 volunteers effectively, we conducted x5 online open training sessions via Zoom. We advertised the volunteer training sessions and programme via our internal mailer and volunteer network, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with a total reach of 36k followers and 6k mailing list. In order to provide volunteer support, we started a volunteer Whatsapp Group with 7 days a week support, which currently has over 40 member still actively asking questions about keywording metadata, and helping each other to answer questions or fill in blanks on youth culture history. This is a community led forum that we will continue to run beyond the project.
Through five online streamed training sessions volunteers learnt vital conservation skills in keywording and metadata in order to carry out specialist work updating, recataloguing and making previously inaccessible collections within our archive public.
For volunteers who were unable to make the training sessions we were able to provide them with pre-recorded video footage and training documents in order for them to learn how to work with our public submissions
.We found in comparison to working with volunteers in person, remote management of the volunteer workforce was much more effective, and this became apparent in the amount of volunteer hours contributed to the project. A remote booking system allowed volunteers to work weekends and outside of office hours, which appealed to many who were working at home during the day and could only contribute evenings and weekends - something we would have had difficulty accomodating before the project.
As a result of the project we now have a very active remote volunteer network who continue to work with us beyong the scope of the project, including international volunteers working from Europe or the US.
Quote from Volunteer
'It’s been really fun, the subject matter is so engaging it doesn’t feel much at all like work.
It’s been nice because I’ve always wanted to work in museums, so getting some experience despite the current climate has been really encouraging.' - Noah Brown
As a result of the project we now have a very active remote volunteer network who continue to work with us beyong the scope of the project, including international volunteers working from Europe or the US.
Quote from Volunteer
'It’s been really fun, the subject matter is so engaging it doesn’t feel much at all like work.
It’s been nice because I’ve always wanted to work in museums, so getting some experience despite the current climate has been really encouraging.' - Noah Brown
