Volunteering at the Museum

If you love interacting with the public and have a love for local history, becoming a volunteer at the Museum of Chelmsford could be for you!

Volunteering with the museum is a wonderful way to give back to your community, to learn a new skill, make new friends, or even using the opportunity to enhance your work experience for your career.

We love working with our volunteers, and if you join us, we want you to feel part of our extended family. For us, volunteering means lots of things to different people. Whether this is your way of giving back to your community, learning a new skill, new experiences, or a way of getting some work experience for your career. We do not mind what your motivation is, providing you are able to offer us some of your time and enthusiasm. In return we will make sure to support and value your time with us. Above all, we want you to have some fun and make new friends!

Without our volunteers we would not be able to offer so many different activities that support our staff; you are integral to our team, and we want you to feel a commitment to what you offer the museum.

Our team of volunteers are supported by our dedicated staff as well as our amazing Volunteer Co-ordinator. We are all here to support and give you the best experience possible. Please look at our current roles listed below and see if there is something that might interest you.

Please note that we are unable to accommodate work experience for schools at this time.

Woman holding laptop and man holding box standing in row of shelving

Volunteer stories

John

"I enjoy volunteering at the museum because the volunteer programme is well managed, provides a very broad and interesting diversity of events and bespoke projects to get involved in whilst being supportive, engaging and inclusive. There is a respectful appreciation as well from museum staff in relation to all the work that I put myself forward for as a volunteer"

Margaret

"Being a volunteer at the museum gives me the very enjoyable opportunity to be involved in a range of activities offered by the museum. These include helping with creative sessions for children and interacting with visitors to the museum. I have also been able to extend my knowledge of local history and to work with supportive and friendly staff and volunteers."

Shelby

"Working as a young volunteer at the Museum of Chelmsford has been a really big learning experience, not just for history but life skills as well. Learning from the more experienced volunteers has been extremely valuable and they have taught me a lot. I love history and the Museum of Chelmsford has given me the opportunity to surround myself with so many cool stories and artifacts. Everyday is different and I enjoy walking in with the wonder of what I might discover."

Current vacancies

Volunteer Opportunity: Social History Collection (South Woodham Ferrers)

We are currently seeking volunteers to assist with our local social history collection. This will be based at our museum store in South Woodham Ferrers.

Your Voice, Our Collection is an ambitious project that aims to bring fresh energy to the museum’s industrial and social history collections housed at our museum stores. Working alongside staff and fellow volunteers, you will help uncover forgotten stories, rediscover important objects and reveal new perspectives on Chelmsford’s past.

Days: Tuesdays

Sessions: 9.30am-12.30pm or 1.30pm-4.30pm

Duration: Initially until December with opportunities to extend

Location: Museum Store, South Woodham Ferrers (Free parking on site or 15/20 mins walk from either SWF train station or the bus stops at Asda)

Please note this is not based at the Museum of Chelmsford in Oaklands Park.

The role:

Auditing the Social History object and photography collections
Photographing the objects
Scanning the photographic collections
Reviewing and assessing the objects condition
Updating records – basic inputting into existing Excel spreadsheets

Who can apply?

No previous museum experience is required. We welcome anyone applications from anyone over the aged 16 or over with a passion for history and a willingness to learn. Volunteers will receive training and hands on experience in museum work, including object handling, manual handling, condition checking and object packing.

Volunteers will need to be comfortable entering information into a basic Excel spreadsheet and/or have good manual dexterity for handling delicate museum objects. Volunteers will work in pairs, so if you feel confident with one of these tasks but not the other then don’t worry.

Contact details

For more information or for an application form (printed forms can be provided on request), please contact: Lydia Bennie, Project Volunteer Coordinator, on Lydia.bennie@chelmsford.gov.uk

Nina and John volunteer at the museum store