Volunteer with us
We are lucky enough to have a team of fantastic volunteers who help with the running of the museum. Their dedication and support is invaluable and without their help, we couldn't do what we do.
To volunteer with us you need to be at least 18 years old and pass our police vetting process. This will be submitted as part of your application.
You don't need to have previous experience. We provide all the training you will need for the role. This will include collection care and general museum training delivered by SHARE Museum East.
Through a variety of roles, you'll be able to collect evidence of the skills you've gained through your voluntary work.
Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate work placements.
Volunteer opportunities
As a charity, we're always on the lookout for volunteers. Whether it's helping with museum visits or our collections, we have lots of exciting opportunities available. We have flexible hours to work around your commitments too. Or if you have a specialist skill that you think could help us further our work at the museum, we'd love to hear from you.
Our tour guide team look after groups when they come to visit our museum. We accommodate groups of all ages and types at the museum on weekdays. Visits usually last between 90 mins and two hours.
As well giving a short talk on the history of Essex Police, or a buildings tour, our tour guides will be asked to operate the till, serve refreshments and answer questions from our visitors.
When the museum is open to the public, our visitor experience team are on hand to welcome people in, answer their questions, run the gift shop and operate the till.
Volunteers can either help in the morning, the afternoon, or for the entire day. We ask that volunteers help for at least one day a month.
The visitor experience team will also have the opportunity to help us at community events like fetes and fun days.
Our collections team help to catalogue and maintain our collections.
The team either focus on one area, such as photographs, objects or archives, or mix it up and work across a whole collection.
The team will help to organise our collections by labelling artefacts, updating our database and digitising items. They'll also help to respond to research enquiries too.
Our collection volunteers will usually help us between three hours a week and a full day. The time they commit is dependant on their availability.
We have two roles in our engagement team.
Education volunteers
Our education volunteers assist our Curator with the delivery of our school and community group visits. These usually take place between 10am and 2pm, Tuesday to Friday.
Our education programme is designed for children aged two to 11. But we do have the occasional college visit too.
Social media and content creation volunteer
We are also on the lookout for someone to help us with our social media content. This is an ideal opportunity for someone who has an interest in social media and content creation and would like to more gain experience.
The role will focus around sourcing and creating content utilising artefacts in our collection and promoting the work we do.