Museums Partnership Reading (The MERL & Reading Museum)

Youth Panel Member

Volunteer Role Description

Locations: Either The Museum of English Rural Life or Reading Museum

Current project: 

Jane Austen 250 - May/ June /July 2025

Join the town, nation and world wide celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Reading schooled writer Jane Austen with a special MPR Youth Panel series of hands on creative workshops. All materials supplied

Thursday 15th May (4.30 - 6 pm)
Blackwork embroidery with Charlotte Hollis at Reading Museum  
https://blackworkembroidery.org/
Get stitching like the Austen womenfolk and decorate your own tote bag with simple stitch emojis, letters or flowers.
Staff contact: Anna.

Thursday 19th June (4.30 - 6 pm)
Natural Ink Making with Nicky Culetto at Reading Museum
Explore the history of ink making and discover the wide variety of useful materials and resources found in nature - including the oak gall. Experiment with Jane Austen's own recipe to make the ink with which she penned her famous novels, and play with a range of dip pens, quills, and brushes.
Staff contact: Anna.

Thursday 17th July (4.30 - 6 pm)
Reading reading & writing with Anna Jones at Reading Museum
https://janeaustens.house/teenage-writings/
Jane Austen's House resources Teenage Writings are short, funny, a bit wild and madly inventive. Read, write, learn and play, all inspired by Jane Austen as you've never seen her before...
Staff contact: Anna.

The Youth Panel will suit you if you:

• Enjoy a challenge or creative opportunity
• Are an enthusiastic and effective communicator
• Are committed to being a change-maker within Reading’s culture and heritage sector by helping to ensure our museums and programmes are relevant to younger visitors 

What you will gain in return  

• gain behind-the-scenes museum experience working with museum and creative industry professionals
• learn transferable skills 
• participate in a fantastic project for your CV, UCAS or job application 
• meet new people 
• practice team work skills

How much time will it take up? 

Meetings take place on the third Thursday of the month (except August) from 4:30 to 6pm and usually take place in person. You do not have to attend all meetings.

We know not everyone will be available every session, but please come along when you can. You will be informed in advance where the Youth Panel are meeting. 

To apply

Please complete your volunteer registration form on our volunteering platform . 

*Please ensure you tick ‘Youth Panel’ in your ‘Interests’ section under My profile, when registering.  

If you are using a mobile or tablet, once you click ‘Fill in an Application’, look out for the suggestion ‘It looks like you are on a mobile device. For a better experience on smart phones, go to Mobile Application Form’ and click on the link it suggests. 

When you are happy with your application, please don’t forget to click SUBMIT – otherwise we will never receive your form!  

Matching to the role

We will check applications on a monthly basis and we send you details about the location of the meeting and the current project.

Further Information about the Museums Partnership Reading Youth Panel

We love to hear regularly from our younger supporters to make sure that we are offering exhibitions and experiences that are of interest across the generations.

Our Youth Panel, for young people aged 14 – 18, offers collective work experience opportunities across The MERL and Reading Museum as part of Museums Partnership Reading’s youth programme. We meet monthly to work on a variety of exciting projects which are great for developing a range of transferable skills. Our panel members influence current projects and programming and are change-makers within Reading’s culture and heritage sector. 

Inspired by the conversations we have had with Youth Panel members during the Youth Manifesto project, we listened to feedback about the need for the museums to offer age-appropriate activities and something different for teenage audiences and offered an increased number of workshops as part of our public and learning programmes.

Recent and Past Youth Panel Projects include: 

• Understories - Working with Dr Jen Clarke of Robert Gordon University, workshops explored materials selected from The MERL’s archive and library, to celebrate the hidden lives /invisible benefits of trees. There was a focus on often-overlooked elements—the understories of trees - and forest ecosystems, and give voice to stories hidden in the archives and beneath the canopy
• Filmmaking project co-creating short form videos with a resident professional filmmaker to encourage environmental responsibility, inspired by our collections and archives
• 'Reading Festival is Rubbish' - exploring objects recovered from the 2021 festival to create a pop-up display and/or interactive experience in the museum. Panel members worked alongside learning and collections colleagues to consider the different approaches that can be taken in the interpretation and display of museum collections, and how they can use these approaches to convey messages and stories about the objects collected from the festival 
• The ‘Digital Dig’ with the Royal Horticultural Society
• Participating in the Youth Manifesto Project, exploring how the museums in Reading can be inspiring and engaging for and relevant to the young people of Reading. 
• Working as curators for the Festival 50 exhibition project (2021). Panel members influenced the development of the exhibition marking the 1971 Reading Festival displayed at Reading Museum from August 2021. Panel members learned what is required to put on a public exhibition, researched, selected and interpreted items for display and worked with us in developing an exhibition which is appealing to the young people of Reading. 
• Designing ‘The Nook at The MERL’, the new social learning space as part of the Our Country Lives redevelopment project. Students worked with museum staff and designers to create a new, relaxing space where students and the public are welcome to study, relax and reflect. 
• Organising two successful Museums at Night events, the ‘1951 Vintage Night’ and ‘Chalk or Cheese?

“The Youth Panel is a small commitment for such a huge personal gain. Something I love is that the leaders of the panel and the people at the museums that we work with treat me like an adult, they value my opinion and I feel empowered to make changes that will engage youth in our local history.” (Youth Panel member)