Volunteering at the Museum

Are you able to help the Museum?

We are a charity organisation open to the general public and always in need of funds and help to keep us viable. There are a number of ways in which you could help the museum from Volunteering at the Museum or simply by being a Member of the Museum.

Volunteering at the Museum

The museum has one paid employee, everyone else is a volunteer so …….

If you have retired and miss the camaraderie of a workplace environment, but not the stress, then volunteering with us might be just the thing for you.
If you are looking for work but need that extra something on your CV then volunteering here might be useful to you, and you to us.
If you have a few hours at some point during the week, or the weekend, and want to give us a hand this may well also be the place for you.
If you can only find time on a Sunday, then we definitely have a place for you.

In order to help, and to be covered by our insurance you need to be a member of the museum, but that does entitle you to copious amounts of free tea/coffee or squash whilst you are here and also to attend a couple of social events per year.

Firstly – Three Key Volunteers Required at the MUSEUM

At the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum, we are looking to expand on our facilities, operation and the ability to display the many artefacts that we hold (some still in storage). To do this, we need to both raise monies to pay for the costs of expansion and also recruit more Volunteers to fill the roles that are visitor facing

In order to accomplish the above, we need three key Volunteers to take up roles at the Museum. These three positions are listed below.

Archivist

Working with the Chairman, the Management Committee and alongside existing volunteer teams at the museum, the person will manage the busy Archives Section. Details of the role are given below but it is worthy of note, that the working times are flexible and the work is varied. There is the possibility to work from home on a good deal of the documentation and archival aspects needed in this role.

The Archivist will be responsible for assembling, cataloguing, preserving and managing the valuable collections of historical information at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum. In order to complete this role, the archivist is responsible for:

Checking all items that the public donates to the museum and deciding which are appropriate or relevant
Helping to evaluate, select, retrieve and arrange materials
Answering enquiries, providing material for publicity events such as talks and exhibitions and assisting in producing teaching materials
Making the archives accessible to selected visitors and museum volunteers
Storing and preserving perishable documents and other artefacts, not on display
Help in negotiating the acquisition of new collections
Mentor and supervise other archive volunteers
Arranging the sale of unwanted and approved artefacts

Fundraiser

Working with the Chair, Committee and Team Leaders, the Volunteer Fundraiser will coordinate and lead fundraising activities on behalf of the Museum. This is an important role in seeking funds. A great deal of our income comes from donations, and these donations are only enough to cover our running costs and repairs, and it does not allow us to push forward with this expansion which will hopefully bring in more visitors.

The successful person will have the ability to work on their own initiative and have good communication skills. Experience of past fundraising would be an advantage but not essential. The person is most likely to work from home but attend the Museum for meetings.

Recruiter

As the Museum moves into 2019, we are looking to expand on our events diary and encourage more visitors to come and experience what is, a well-established part of the Heritage of East Anglia. TripAdvisor has awarded the Museum a Certificate of Excellence, and we need to ensure that we recruit more visitor facing volunteers to help us maintain those standards. The person we are seeking will be the lead member of the team finding and organising those Volunteers.

The person does not necessarily have to attend Flixton on any of these event days but would be involved in the advertising for Volunteers and helping meet and greet potential Volunteers to help them decide what it is they would like to do at the Museum. The person would also be involved in managing the organising of the volunteer rosters to ensure that we have sufficient people to staff our Stewarding requirements, our Link Room, our Aircraft cockpits, our NAAFI Café, our Bric-a-Brac area and to help in our Shop.

Then – More help within the Established Volunteer Teams:

If you would like a less demanding role, then Volunteering to work in one of the several teams that we have may be for you. The teams are as follows, and we currently have vacancies in all of the teams for willing hands:

Stewards

Or Docents as our American friends refer to them. This team engage our visitors and help them to better understand the exhibits. We especially need more volunteers for this on Sundays, especially event days.

Hopefully, this team will also assist on school/Scout visit days. If you enjoy talking to people, know a bit about our exhibits (or are prepared to learn) then this team has several vacancies.

In addition, we currently have three unmanned collections: Royal Observer Corps, Bomber Command and the 446th Bomb Group. Someone to “own” these collections would be very useful. You would need to have knowledge of the area or be prepared to learn so that you could chat with visitors about the exhibits.

Ground Force

This team is invaluable in keeping the grassed areas mowed, tidy and surroundings up to scratch. Includes, fence mending, tree/bush lopping, maintaining the Adair Walk and the memorial garden on the Bungay airfield, path clearing/repairs, etc.

They work with the weather so have to be flexible on which days to attend. There are currently vacancies within this team.

Carpenters

Make items to order especially display cabinets, visitor seating and outdoor furniture, repairs and maintenance of buildings, various items for sale (e.g. our very popular toy walkplanes, bird/bug boxes).

The chippies also do the maintenance around the site. Currently, we have space for more on this team.

Engineers

The engineers are the ones who restore our major artefacts. Previous experience in a workshop environment is necessary.

Due to the relatively small amount of work in this area we currently only have one vacancy in this team.

Hands On / Education

Otherwise known as the Link team. This team build and restore items which visitors can climb into, try out and generally have fun with. They also look after our radio displays.

During school visits, and on special event days, this is the team that give rides in our two working Link Trainers and two Microsoft Flight Simulators. Knowing one end of a screwdriver from the other is useful, but not essential. We currently have vacancies within this team.

Electricians

As the title suggests this team look after our electrics. If someone has the relevant qualifications, we could use another member in this team.

Cleaning

With so much space, most of it within hangars, everything gets dusty. Spiders are so much better at building cobwebs than humans are at removing them. We currently have several vacancies within this team.

Painters

This team’s main task is the repainting of the aircraft in the collection. For this, there is a need for a certain amount of agility as some of the work is quite high.

The team also paint buildings, cabinets, floors, or to put it another way just about everything. If you’re good with a brush then we have a couple of vacancies within this team.

Archive / Interpretation

This team is responsible for ensuring that every artefact within the museum (and we have several tens of thousands of them) is catalogued and recorded. The artefacts also need interpretation and labelling, obviously, with so many artefacts we constantly need to update old labels.

The team also researches items in order to provide more information on them. We have several vacancies within this team.

Retail Assistants

This is the team that look after the shop, the bric-a-brac stall and NAAFI (cafe). This team tends to work in small groups to ensure that all three outlets are staffed whenever the museum is open.

We have several vacancies within this team and another set of hands here is always welcome.

Special Events

Our special events require different types of people, people with some flexibility in their skills and abilities; car parking, catering, front-of-house, washing up, helping in the shop, or simply just being around to answer questions.

This team works mainly on Sundays when we have special events (refer to the website for details Events at NASAM).

This would ideally suit people who still work, but also want to get involved. We have several vacancies and we are always looking for volunteers for this team.

Membership of the Museum:

Membership

If you are not able to consider any of the above, especially if you live beyond a convenient travelling distance or simply would like to support the museum and hear about its progress, then ordinary membership is for you. The modest annual membership fee gets you the museum newsletter three times a year, and you would be welcome to attend the social events.

Company Membership

Being a Limited Company, regular volunteers can be recommended by team leaders for Company Membership. This entitles the holder, if willing, to be nominated to hold office for a minimum three-year term on the management committee and become a Trustee, and therefore to participate in decision-making on the governance of the museum and plans for its future