Portsmouth Museums Engagement Facilitator

Join the volunteer museum engagement team to develop and deliver fun, interactive events and activities for Portsmouth residents. Engage people with the museum collections in new and exciting ways. Help us to champion accessibility with inclusive activities such as relaxed autism friendly openings, audio description tours, object handling stations, and a dementia café. Share your creative ideas for events/festivals/workshops across our sites and help make them a reality!

The team requires a range of strengths and attributes from a broad spectrum of people to make our engagement programme reflective of the people of Portsmouth. We therefore welcome people of all ages (18+) and backgrounds to consider joining the team. We recognise that team members will have different levels of commitment and will be more comfortable with some activities over others. The Engagement Officer will be happy to discuss this with interested applicants and manage expectations.

Purpose of the role: To assist the museum Engagement Officer with planning, delivering, and helping with a range of events and activities across the Portsmouth Museum Service as part of an Engagement Team.

Tasks involved:

•  Assisting with planning for events and engagement programme- sharing ideas and developing the programme.
  
•  If of interest- help provide content to advertise the events on social media
• Assisting with the events by aiding set up, take down, meeting and greeting visitors
• Assisting the workshop leader during workshops. Or being the leader of a workshop for craft activities
• Assisting with refreshments for visitors, if appropriate
• Assisting participants in learning some of the techniques being taught or in undertaking the activities
• Recording visitor details for the museum service mailing list on off-site projects
• Handing out and receiving visitor feedback forms and managing any other evaluation methods
• Giving directions and information about the event(s) and venue
• To have a good knowledge of the event or project taking place and to be able to communicate this to participants
• Stewarding for events and exhibitions
• To direct any difficult or challenging queries to either the workshop leader or a member of museum service staff
• Helping to ensure the health and safety of participants including understanding evacuation procedures and how to summon first aid
• Occasionally travelling to other areas of Portsmouth to bring the museum to other parts of the community

What will you gain in return?

• A good understanding of working with the public in an informal educational setting
• Experience of public facing roles within a busy heritage environment
• Training from staff
• To develop skills in events organisation, engagement, storytelling and interpretation of art and history

Location: There will be monthly team meetings, at Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery catch ups and/or emails however the location of the events/activities themselves may vary across our sites and around the city. Museum locations include; Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery (Location of team planning meetings and majority of events, Cumberland House Natural History Museum, Charles Dickens' Birthplace, D-Day Story, Eastney Beam Engine House, Southsea Castle.

Full training will be provided 

Skills

• To enjoy working with the public, especially families and children
• An ability to work effectively in a pleasant manner with a wide range of visitors and staff
• Good clear communication, good time keeping and reliability
• Flexibility to work on different projects and events, often at weekends and during school holidays
• An enthusiasm for promoting and representing museums and archives
• Ability to deal with pressure calmly and politely
• A good standard of personal presentation and appearance