A new volunteering platform is in the works for some of Thames’ heritage organisations, and the groups involved say it will improve communication, collaboration and sharing of resources in the sector.
The project will allow volunteers to find roles of all kinds at one of the participating organisations, from public-facing roles like taking tickets and manning museum displays, to behind-the-scenes jobs like administration and marketing.
Organisations on board so far include Te Whare Pātaka | The Treasury Heritage Research Centre and Archive; Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s Thames School of Mines; the Thames Information Centre; the Bella Street Pumphouse; the Hauraki Prospectors Association, also known as the Thames Goldmine Experience; the Historic Kōpū Bridge Society; the Thames Small Gauge Railway Society; and St George’s Anglican Church.
The platform is still in the concept phase, but The Treasury trustee Jan Wright and School of Mines property manager Kay Kendall said they were aiming to be operational by the end of 2025.
“Our goal is by next summer season, this is embedded, up and running, operational,” Kay said. “
Anybody who wants to volunteer for those organisations can do so right away, [but] the good thing in the future is there’ll be a new set of support tools available to these volunteers.”
The pair said the platform would streamline volunteering in Thames, by allowing sharing of resources by organisations, as well as helping would-be volunteers to find opportunities they might not otherwise have discovered.
“[Volunteers] would obviously be trained in each of those facilities or any of those facilities that are of interest to them and the platform allows them to self-manage,” Jan said.
“We’re looking at growing that communication, growing the collaborations eventually between the sites and making it really easy for people to volunteer and be really stimulated by a variety of different opportunities in heritage.”
Jan and Kay also hoped the platform would make it easier to retain vital information and develop better succession planning for the organisations.
“Thames has got a beautiful, not just heritage, but a beautiful bunch of volunteers that run most of the entities here. However, we’ve got very limited succession planning. And an 80-year-old being replaced by a 70-year-old isn’t really particularly great succession,” Jan said.
“So the opportunity from this partnership … is for heritage and all heritage-related things to benefit from us working closely together.”
