Volunteers Week 2025

Happy Volunteers Week 2025!

It is volunteers week this week and can only mean one thing... a huge celebration of volunteering in lots of different sectors and celebrating the work of volunteers themselves. It is not just charities, children's services, care homes and animal rescue centres where people volunteer, it also includes museums, arts and culture. I first started volunteering as a poppy collector with the Royal British Legion which was a heartwarming experience and considering going back when the time comes as I have done some individual fundraising for them since.

I am proud to share I have been involved with museums for 8 years which has been such an incredible journey. I'll start by sharing where it all began: my autism group set up a work experience project with the Museum of London in their archives and collections. The title itself is self explanatory; the Museum of London explores the history of London from the Roman settlements in Britain (whereby London was known as Londinium) up to our modern day city. 

The project was to catalogue its collection of John Dwight Pottery based in Fulham, West London. John Dwight was known for creating stoneware drinking vessels during the 1660's around the time of the Great Fire of London. His descendants kept the business going until the late Victorian era whereby they made more modern drinking vessels such as milk jugs and ceramic hot water bottles. Our tasks involved transferring information onto a new object identity card (displaying its catalogue number and archives location), entering information into the database, photographing objects and public engagement where the objects were taken to Museum of London Docklands for us to talk to visitors about. A couple of months later, I was invited back for public engagement project with the collection of John Dwight Pottery. 

One object I worked with at London Museum Archives: John Dwight Fulham Pottery bottle - Circa 1676-1685.

John Dwight Fulham Pottery in the Victoria and Albert Museum's ceramics collection: Bust of John Dwight himself  - Circa 1673-1675, Ceramics (Level 4), Room 143, The Timothy Sainsbury Gallery.

In the British Galleries on Level 1 in the birth, marriage and death room, there is a statuette of John Dwight's daughter Lydia who sadly died at 6 years old. In fact, there a two on display; Lydia Dwight in Death and Lydia Dwight Resurrected, both on display in the British Galleries, Room 58 (Birth, Marriage and Death). 

During the project, I was inspired to try volunteering at other museums and trying different roles. With my special interest being wartime living history, I applied to volunteer at the Imperial War Museum to support school groups. 

The volunteering team at Imperial War Museum were so welcoming, accepting and kind. There is a real community feel to the place where fellow volunteers are just so lovely to chat with, as well as sharing our skills and knowledge and giving back together as one. 

I chose to be a schools volunteer because of the nostalgia of experiencing childhood family days out and school trips which also involves the people involved with the visit, whether that would be someone from the museum's learning department, living historians or any visitor experience staff members or volunteers. My duties were to greet them as they entered the museum, take them up to the bag storage room where they can leave their belongings and then I entertain them for the first 10 minutes of their visit, where I take them up to an object (relevant to what they're learning about in class) and perform an insightful presentation on the said object, especially school groups that were learning about the home front in the Second World War. 

I would mostly pick the Morrison Shelter as a reference to the blitz, as well as linking the difference between an Anderson Shelter and a Morrison shelter, explaining how the general public may use a public shelter or London Underground, air raid sirens and perhaps a little on ARP's belting out "PUT THAT LIGHT OUT". I might sometimes talk to them about Tamzine the Dunkirk 'Little Ship' and link her with the Spitfire as the Battle of Britain happened soon after the Dunkirk evacuations as well as those historic events happening in the same year, 1940 - you can read my post on Tamzine here. 

For school groups learning about the First World War, I often chose the Nery Gun to give insight into artillery, technological advancement and the arms race. For older school groups (again, depending on what they're learning about), I might take them up to the post-war gallery to give a talk on an object relating to the Cold War such as The Nuclear Victim "Beach Girl" - (a burned mannequin also painted black to teach about the effects and consequences of nuclear weapons) or the Holocaust (which had to be a main gallery space object as those school groups would come for Holocaust learning sessions or self-guided visits of the Holocaust Gallery). 

One other amazing thing I would sometimes get to do was to sit in with the learning sessions which were Meet an Evacuee (mainly for primary schools learning about the WW2 home front), Documentary Challenge where schools create a vlog of their day at the museum and there were Holocaust sessions for older secondary groups (year 9 and above). With Meet an Evacuee, I got to experience the hard-hitting nostalgia of learning about WW2 in school history lessons, as well as reading and watching Goodnight Mr Tom, watching the CBBC reality series Evacuation presented by Matt Baker and visiting a living history farm and village where there were re-enactors involving a Home Guard officer, a Civil Defence air raid warden, a 1940's Women's Voluntary Service volunteer, a land girl, a spiv on the 'black market' and a billet officer (someone who assigns evacuees to households in the countryside - often from the Women's Voluntary Service or a schoolteacher).

For the holocaust sessions, I thought I could sit in as a mentor figure since I became an Anne Frank Ambassador when I was 18 in sixth form college. The session involves gathering in any of the conference rooms to discuss what the holocaust was, why it was happening and who was affected by it. We would then explore the holocaust gallery with an audio guide and finally gather back together and talk about what the group thought about it.

A few months into volunteering for IWM with visiting school groups, I was invited to support family activities on board HMS Belfast. The activity was called Ship Shape Saturdays (taking place on Saturdays during school holidays) which involves looking at the preservation of HMS Belfast, basic conservation techniques, learning about dealing with pests, trying on different garments of uniform and looking for evidence of pests, such as looking at holes eaten by moths in a rating’s trousers under a magnifying glass. We were supported by the IWM London branches learning team (the same people who provide the workshops for schools as well as host the Kip in a Ship sleepovers for scouts, youth groups and schools) and the expert conservator who served across all IWM sites who were such lovely supportive people!

My fellow volunteers (or should I say ‘mess mates’ which is Jackspeak) were pretty cool and got on really well with them; I even shared stories of my own family history with them which was mainly my grandparents wartime childhoods and my grandfather’s national service in the army.

When I began working at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it was a real struggle to carry on volunteering at IWM. I missed it greatly and had to accept I wouldn’t have time. I eventually applied to be a volunteer model for the commercial filming and photoshoot for the Blavatnik Galleries which was the new art and photography gallery at IWM which houses the painting Gassed by John Singer Sargent. Here is a shot taken that has been used for the promotion:

The day I modelled for the photoshoot and performed for the film promotion - that was when it hit me! The nostalgia hit really hard. I went through I very emotionally unstable phase where I was dying to have IWM back in my life; I felt so guilty for not visiting since starting at the V&A despite still keeping in touch to begin with and making some Zoom events during the Covid pandemic lockdown, I felt my special interest of wartime living history rekindling even though the V&A pulled me away from it and was still lucky enough for it to follow my interest in theatre and performance, vintage fashion and more primary school nostalgia with learning about the Victorians, including Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the Great Exhibition of 1851, I was missing IWM like it was a broken romance and struggled with a broken heart and with HMS Belfast, I once coped by singing the sea shanty Leave Her Johnny made famous by Assassin’s Creed and when my emotions ran high, I wanted to run down the Queen’s Walk in desperation and give her a hug (I’m not gonna lie - I really need a hug from a warship even though she’s an inanimate object). I ended up buying myself a plushie of Frankenstein (the ship’s cat who likely served alongside her hands during the Arctic Convoys and the Battle of North Cape where she sunk the Scharnhorst) and made him an Instagram page to help me cope.

Soon after, I applied for some ad-hoc behind the scenes support on the Belfast which turned out to be a technical error; they were actually asking for front of house volunteers. The volunteer team leader very kindly offered for me to join the team, but I had a lot of figuring out to do. I was put forward to the conservation team since Ship Shape Saturdays inspired me to be a warship conservation volunteer and when the time came (since I had volunteered with them before), I was kindly invited to meet the conservators and technicians on board.

It unfortunately wasn't what I thought it was; because of restructuring in recent years, the technicians on HMSB ask for volunteers who have some experience or have an interest in engineering or mechanics. I felt a bit guilty for going along and not getting anything out of it, although I would be quite happy to give some talks on subjects relevant to “Tiddly B” (as endearingly dubbed by Boy Seaman Brian Butler - Tiddly meaning ‘nice’, ‘tidy’ or ‘ship-shape’ in Jackspeak), but I have spent a lot of time in visitor experience that it can sometimes overwhelmingly feel like I’m stuck there for the rest of my life!

IWM opened applications for its War Memorials Register - a database of war memorials up and down the country. I gave my expression of interest for learning about other roles in heritage settings, as well as working on some technical skills.

The war memorials team are so welcoming. Because I mainly volunteer remotely, they have been so kind to have me involved in-person as well. It has been such an educational experience so far; it has motivated me to explore my local community’s history, hunt for hidden treasures and it gives me a reason to get outside when visiting memorials which is fantastic for wellbeing. You can browse IWM’s War Memorial Register here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials

I have been learning a bit about costumed interpretation recently that it gave me an idea! How about costumed interpretation performance can be something front of house, insight knowledge sharing and my original role with schools could be a part of? I could pitch this to the volunteering team!

Another voluntary role I partake in is being a board member at the National Museum of the Royal Navy which involves discussing branding and marketing, fundraising, research, learning, collections and inclusivity matters. It is really interesting experience as well as working with my passion for naval history.

I will finish by explaining what makes me proud to volunteer for museums - for the most part, I love to learn new skills, give back and share knowledge, but I also can serve in a similar manner to the military whereby you earn metaphorical badges of honour and offer service. Most importantly, it’s about community and trying new experiences. 😎

There will be some volunteering stories coming up in future posts, so watch this space! 😉