Tom Parker, Collections Officer and Deputy Manager at Felixstowe Museum, previews the coming winter closed season: “Felixstowe Museum is reliant on our team of dedicated volunteers for all aspects of keeping the Museum going. As we move into our winter closed season, there is a huge variety of jobs to keep our team occupied before we’re ready to welcome visitors back to the Museum on 4 April 2025.”
“Our volunteers bring a broad range of skills to the Museum, gathered from a diverse array of backgrounds and careers. These skills range from finance and admin to woodworking and teaching. As a largely volunteer-focused organisation, there is no limit to what volunteers can get involved with if they wish to. When recently challenged by a volunteer to find them an off-the-wall winter job, they were left intrigued and surprised by the possibility of helping out with insect and pest monitoring! The ability to utilise people’s skills, as well as help them to develop new ones, is one of the greatest privileges of working with volunteers.”
“Some of the many jobs that volunteers will help with or lead over the winter are collections care and conservation, research and curation for multiple new displays, conducting a thorough deep clean of the Museum, IT maintenance, developing new children’s trails and activities, and an awful lot more.”
“One big job over the winter will be to establish a new collections volunteering team, which will assist our volunteer archivist with kickstarting a full collection audit. This will hopefully introduce many more volunteers in our team to collections work, and teach them new skills in the process.”
“Following all of this activity, it will be a relief when we reopen to the public in the spring, and can take some time to breathe!”
Find out more about volunteering opportunities on the Felixstowe Museum website.