F 3 · Volunteers
Numerous research reports over the past ten years have highlighted the importance of volunteering to the economy and to society, but only recently has research focused on volunteering within the historic environment.
Volunteers and the Historic Environment, by Christopher Catling, was funded by English Heritage and undertaken in 2003. A summary was published in Heritage Counts 2003.
Our dependence on volunteers
 The report reveals the sector’s dependence on volunteers for its survival
Volunteers working for the National Trust contribute 45% of the Trust’s total working hours
Many historic houses would be unable to open without the 9,440 unpaid volunteers who work for members of the Historic Houses Association.
The report also shows that volunteers do not just greet visitors and serve as room stewards: they perform over 150 different tasks within the historic environment. Many are skilled professionals, contributing expertise that would be very expensive to buy.
Volunteers are not just an optional extra – they are essential to the fabric of the historic environment, as they are to the social wellbeing and economy of this country. Any change in volunteer motivation could have serious consequences for the functioning of the sector. So what are the trends?
Volunteering statistics
The National Survey of Volunteering, carried out by Dr J Davis Smith for the Institute for Volunteering, compared voluntary activity between 1991 and 1997 and found that:
The number of people involved in volunteering declined by 1.4 million (3%)
Volunteering by young people aged 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 is low and falling fast (from 55% in 1991 to 43% in 1997, with a significant drop in the hours committed)
Volunteering among the active newly retired (aged 65 to 74) has increased. They spend more time in voluntary activity than any other age group (45% now spend an average of five hours a week volunteering, up significantly since the last survey in 1991).
The Institute’s report concludes that ‘the expanding third age is a rich new seam to mine for recruits’.
More recently, the Office for National Statistics has produced a report showing a 26% fall in the amount of voluntary work undertaken between 1995 and 2000.
New objectives in volunteering
This decline confirms that volunteering is not immune from other pressures eroding the philanthropy and altruism that once characterised western society. But that does not mean people are less willing to do voluntary work than in the past. What we are seeing is the decline of volunteering as a moral or social ‘duty’ and of the national service ethos, whereby volunteers, like unskilled infantry, were controlled and deployed in relatively menial tasks. Volunteers are now demanding more in return for their time, including a recognition of the skills they bring, and an expectation of meaningful work, creating a sense of achievement.
This often involves building on their desire to learn new skills, broaden their experience, and learn more about a subject. Volunteers who choose to work in the historic environment, often do so because of an existing interest in history, steam railways, canal boats, industrial archaeology, gardens, churches, firearms or embroidery. They volunteer to take their interests further.
Some organisations wrongly believe that volunteers are more trouble than they are worth because they take more than they give, and distract professional staff. This need not be the case if organisations invest in initial volunteer training, and then use volunteers to train new recruits. Volunteers need to be trained and managed to provide front line service.
The number of active volunteers in the sector is over 155,000. Whether they are relatively passive members of a heritage organisation or actively engaged in voluntary work, they are all involved in varying degrees in lifelong and informal learning.
The challenge is to continue to recruit new members and volunteers in an age in which individual goals are increasingly preferred to social goals. Heritage sector organisations need to rethink their volunteering strategies. There are many examples of good practice, but also many heritage bodies with no conscious policy on volunteering.
The following case studies illustrate how these goals may be achieved.
At Down House, the home of Charles Darwin, now an English Heritage property, volunteers are used for room stewarding, guiding and interpretation and they run the kitchen gardens. The volunteer guides were not simply given a script to learn: they all contributed to writing the script through involvement in a programme of research into the house’s history. As new facts are uncovered they are integrated into a continuously evolving story. The volunteers invite Darwin experts to lecture to them so that they learn more and can give more to visitors.
At Kenwood, English Heritage encouraged opposition to their new management regime for the grounds. Campaigners used to the estate’s lack of management protested against operations that included tree surgery and grass mowing which were thought to be destroying a semi-wild habitat. English Heritage invested considerable resources in explaining their plans to the local community and consulting them about the future, with the result that the protesters became friends, forming an organisation called Heath Hands which undertakes voluntary maintenance work on the estate.
The Society of Antiquaries runs a comprehensive programme of training, lectures and visits for the army of local volunteers who serve as ticket sellers, room stewards, shop assistants, gardeners and catering assistants at Kelmscott Manor. Coach trips are arranged for volunteers to visit exhibitions about William Morris and his circle and to make exchange visits to other Morris-related houses and museums. Talks are organised during the winter in Kelmscott village hall. One of the many benefits of involving volunteers in learning is that the Manor is never short of help: word has spread that volunteering at Kelmscott is enjoyable and life-enhancing.
At Eltham Palace, managed by English Heritage, the Head Gardener has provided volunteering opportunities for long-term unemployed people under the New Deal programme, allowing people to do voluntary work without loss of benefits, to help them gain social skills and practical experience, and ultimately find work. They have gone much further: bitten by a passion for gardening under the gardener’s encouragement, they have taken Royal Horticultural Society training courses and have all gone on to full-time employment in this field. Previously drifting and rootless people have found a purpose in life and their first proper job.
NADFAS
The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) provides a model of how to integrate lifelong learning and volunteering. NADFAS works towards promoting and preserving the arts primarily through lectures and visits organised by individual societies. It has a worldwide membership of 100,000, of whom 80,000 (over 330 societies) are in the UK. Of the UK membership, around 10% are engaged in practical conservation tasks. These include:
Recording churches and their contents (Church Recorders) and war memorials (a new joint project with the Friends of War Memorials)
Developing the arts for the young (there are currently 35 Young Arts groups across the UK)
In-situ conservation of books, manuscripts, archives and maps; cataloguing documents and archival listing; documentation of objects including listing and transcribing; conservation of metalwork; cleaning and cataloguing arms and armour, medals and military silver; preventative conservation of textiles; replica work, creation of period costumes and methods of storage; guiding for all types of groups; stewarding in museums, historic houses or gardens; garden research and recording.
NADFAS has always stressed the need for discipline and training for its volunteers. After many years of successful achievement, this may be the moment when the organisation could consider how to explore more and different ways of volunteering.
Learning and Skills Council
One important initiative in this field comes from a major public body, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which is the body with overall responsibilities for all learning institutions outside the formal higher and further education sector. The Council launched a document called Working Together in May 2004. This initiative addresses how and what is funded by the LSC to support skills development within the voluntary and community sector. Under headings such as ‘the sector as a provider’ and ‘the sector as an employer’ the LSC will consider supporting voluntary and community based organisations in skills development. Historic sites can engage in this either individually or as part of a network in raising the skills of volunteers, guides and staff employed on site.
British Association of Friends of Museums
An interesting means of creating a forum for discussion is provided by the British Association of Friends of Museums. Founded in 1973, the Association has around 335 groups as well as individuals and institutional members, including the British Library, the British Museum, cathedrals, archives and libraries. The Association holds an annual national meeting with regional meetings where issues such as volunteering and fund-raising are raised. They produce a newsletter and various publications, and a handbook for Friends’ organisations. The Association operates on a very small budget, receiving advice and support from museums but no financial assistance.
|
section start
On this page
|
