Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

Roles available at the Discovery Museum

What is the Late Shows?

The Late Shows is a free late-night culture crawl in NewcastleGateshead on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 May 2020. Last year The Late Shows included over 70 daytime arts, culture and heritage venues staying open late for our Late Show visitors. During The Late Shows, museums, galleries, studio collectives and landmark historical buildings come together to offer visitors one-off events including hands-on workshops, behind-the-scenes tours, performances and parties.

What's involved?

We are looking, initially, for volunteers to express an interest to work as Volunteer event stewards around and near the Late Shows venues. 

As a Late Show 2020 steward, you will represent The Late Shows by:

• Meeting and greeting visitors.
• Providing excellent customer service to The Late Shows visitors.
• Handing out programmes to visitors and an environmentally friendly alternative to the now obsolete late shows glow stick.
• Fielding questions from members of the public and knowing where to signpost them to, depending on their query.
• Giving directions to venues and bus stops (you'll be provided with a volunteer lanyard listing all the information you'll need)
• Chatting with visitors about other venues on the route that they may enjoy or even provide the information they need to plan their routes.
• Keeping the Late Shows event full of vitality and exciting for the public.

  Late Shows Stewards are the public face of this amazing event and we can't do it without you!

It's all about encouraging people to do something cultural with their evening in celebration of the national event Museums at Night

http://thelateshows.org.uk/

Next thing to do:

Decide if you like to be part of this ever growing and successful, public event?

When the venues have been finalised we will ask if you have a preference for where you would like to volunteer. This will be offered closer to the weekend itself.

After that:

Schedule yourself in for a briefing/training/equipment giving session on Fri 8th May (at Discovery Museum). Reminders will be sent to you 

There are 2 sessions on that day, choose which one suits you better.

At this briefing you will get to meet staff and Volunteers involved with the Late Shows, there will be a rundown of the Late Shows to date, a H&S talk, tips about public interaction and customer care plus the vital hand over of equipment and information packs.

Roles available at Great North Museum: Hancock

Volunteer opportunities at Laing Art Gallery

Volunteer roles at Segedunum Roman Fort

Volunteer roles at Stephenson Railway Museum

Volunteers are needed to help maintain and operate our heritage railway, the North Tyneside Steam Railway which runs passenger trains on selected days from Easter until early November.

We are always looking for interested people who can spare some time. There are a wide range of volunteering opportunities available, covering virtually every aspect of the Railway Museums activities. Whilst some roles require a significant time commitment and training, others do not. If you want to get your hands dirty, there are plenty of opportunities to do that, but if manual work is not for you, there are other voluntary opportunities to be involved with.

Volunteering presents you with the opportunity to meet new people, from all walks of life, gain worthwhile skills and results in a real sense of achievement. Working groups are usually held on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9.30am - 2.00pm with train operations and running days on Sundays,Bank Holidays and some Thursdays from Easter to November.

Tasks include:

Railway Operational staff including guards, operations controllers, ticket inspectors, footplate crew; steam and engineering maintenance, track maintenance; painting and gardening or, keeping the site tidy.

Personal qualities required/preferred:

Volunteers are constantly under the public gaze, so personal appearance is important. As well as having significant safety responsibilities, you must also have good communications and personal skills, both for dealing with colleagues and the general public.

Training of volunteer: Training is available for all of these jobs, some training may take hours, for others years are required.

To find out more, please contact volunteering@twmuseums.org.uk or call (0191) 277 2299

For Railway Operating volunteering, please call David Grindley, Engineering & Railway Operations Manager for an informal chat on 0191 200 7146 or email david.grindley@twmuseums.org.uk

This category is for volunteer opportunities that are not venue specific but are core to the entire Museum service.