Volunteer Case Studies

As a teaching museum, providing opportunities for students and recent graduates to gain experience, develop skills and devise, develop and deliver their own projects goes to the core of what we do. Here are some of our most recent volunteer stories.

Ruth managed our Memories of War pilot project and now manages the HLF funded full Memories of War project. In so doing she has gained experience in managing a team of volunteers and a budget, planning and coordinating events and conducting interviews, editing footage and producing, from that footage, an educational resource for schools. Egham Museum was also able to fund Ruth’s, and three other volunteers’, Oral History training at the British Library, a fantastic opportunity to receive a grounding in the key skills and processes of interviewing from experts in the field. Ruth has become an integral part of the Egham Museum team and the Memories of War project she is managing has been hugely popular. Students have really enjoyed the creative opportunities and responsibility it offers them and the elderly residents we have interviewed have felt valued. This in itself is of benefit to the museum, speaking as it does to the wider public benefit of museums. In addition though the project is also helping to create a new oral history archive, acknowledging the importance of stories and memories in preserving a community’s past and defining its identity.

Bill is an aspiring documentary maker and screen writer. A graduate of the MA in Documentary Practice, Bill has become a key member of our team. Bill works alongside Ruth as the Memories of War project filming and editing consultant, guiding and mentoring other volunteers. He is also the museum’s principal videographer for the Magna Carta in Egham project, filming our interviews with parliamentarians, Justices of the Supreme Court, academics and staff from Amnesty International. Bill’s creativity and skills behind the camera have been instrumental in giving a professional flare to both projects, producing material that we can use in our exhibitions and in our educational resources.

Anna, a geography student, is co-curating our Egham at War exhibition. In addition to having had the opportunity to speak with experts at the Museum of London, Anna has worked closely with our curatorial team in identifying the themes we want to cover in our exhibition, selecting objects, considering exhibition layout and design and producing exhibition content. Anna has been a tremendous asset to the museum, bringing a fresh perspective to our exhibition and is one of our most diligent volunteers. She also made the process of selecting objects for our exhibition the subject of her dissertation and will be giving a paper about her work with the museum at our first academic conference in May 2014, alongside speakers from the Museums Association, the British Museum and the British Library.

Imogen joined us while undertaking an MA in Public History. Expressing an interest in documentary making, we set Imogen the challenge of making six micro-documentaries based on objects we plan to exhibit in our Egham at War exhibition. In so doing, Imogen gained experience in researching content for documentaries, filming and editing and her 3 to 5 minute videos will now add a real dynamism to our exhibition, with visitors being able to scan in QR codes alongside the objects on display and watch Imogen’s micro- documentaries on their smartphones. Like Anna, Imogen also chose to write her dissertation on the subject of her project with us.

Naomi was a member of our Friday morning collections audit team. Every Friday we would get a box down from our stores, examine its contents, address any conservation issues that emerged, photograph the item for a future digital index and repackage. We used this process as a teaching tool, discussing as we went issues relating to conservation, collections management and deaccessioning. We would often debate why certain objects were in the collection, what stories they could tell and how we might use them in the future. This practical experience of handling collections has now helped Naomi gain a prestigious internship with the British Museum.

Joe is an English Department student. Interested also in politics, Joe responded to a call for volunteers to work on our Magna Carta Constitutional Conventions project, a project that involves partners ranging from the Supreme Court and Amnesty International to Royal Holloway and the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law. Joe is currently our man at the NCCL, working with their team based in the Royal Courts of Justice on debate resources to be used at our first convention in April by pupils and students from across the UK.

In addition to the British Library training mentioned above, we have also been able to fund workshops on producing educational resources, documentary making, dementia awareness (for those working on projects in a care home setting) and exhibition planning and design, all with industry experts. Furthermore, every volunteer has received mentoring and support from our team. Every volunteer is treated as an individual and the placement tailored to suit their skills, requirements and aspirations.

If you would like to volunteer at Egham Museum please email curator@eghammuseum.org for more details.