Volunteer With Us
Make connections, meet interesting people, learn something new. Get involved and gain a wealth of experience.
I feel that my experience at the Holburne is really improving my chances of securing an assistant curatorship role. However, I know that, when I finally land that job, I will be very sad the leave the Holburne, its staff and volunteering team. I would be the first to recommend to anybody interested in museums and art to take up a volunteering post here.
Ben Hill
Volunteering at the Holburne is open to everyone who has a passion or interest in art, history and heritage. Our team is made up of wide demographic and everyone can learn and develop at their own pace.
The Holburne Volunteer programme offers a friendly environment in which to socialise and make new friends. We programme monthly social and learning events designed specifically for our volunteers. These ensure we maintain a high level of welcome and visitor satisfaction across the entire Museum.
Through an interview and informal discussion our volunteers can nominate other areas within the Museum in which to be involved. We encourage a greater involvement to ensure continued learning, enhancement of skills and personal development through engagement and commitment to the Museum and its collection.
If you are aged 18 – 25 and you are interested in the Holburne Future Collective please email s.hancock@holburne.org
Please note that the Holburne is unable to take week long work experience placements.
Types of Volunteer
Front of House Volunteers (Saturday and Sunday only)
The majority of volunteers work within galleries as Gallery Stewards. They assist with visitor questions and queries whilst keeping a watchful eye on our precious collection being aware that balancing their time between visitor service and collection security is vital to the role. It’s a great way to meet new people and make new friends.
Everyone learns at their own pace with training sessions each month which focus on our colelction and visiting exhbitions. There are also a number of social events each year. Each front of house shift is just 3.5 hours.
Learning Volunteers
As a Learning & Engagement volunteer at The Holburne Museum, you can help shape and inspire the next generation of makers and learners. Our programme targets primary, secondary and higher education groups, families, young people, adults, local community groups and more, promoting art and making at its core. Our volunteers are key to the success of our workshops and activities, on hand to offer support, guidance and a warm welcome to activity participants, working closely with learning staff and freelance artist team.
Holburne Future Collective
(Young Volunteers 18 – 26)
Volunteers can gain a wealth of experience to help with confidence, enhance their C.V’s and gain work experience essential to securing work in the sector. The Holburne Volunteer Collective meet once a month and contribute blog posts for our website and social media channels, as well as programming and running UP LATES throughout our season.
Find out more about the Collective here.
Reframed Volunteers
Once you are a Holburne Volunteer you can join our Re-Framed team.
Re-framed is a group of Volunteers who programme events and Up Lates with particular target audiences in mind. In January 2024 they produced the most attended event at the Museum since 2011. Through self run creative workshops, pop up talks, music and info stands they re engaged a huge number of local residents in the Museums collection, exhibitions and work.
Through Re-Framed you can offer skills to share, learn new ones, be creative and ambitious.
Work Experience
The Holburne Museum is unable to offer week long work experience placements due to the fast pace in which we work and our ever changing programme and priorities.
The Holburne believes that valid work experience comes from being involved in the Volunteer programme long term.
Through long term volunteering you build relationships with colleagues from all sorts of backgrounds, build new skills, learn time management and begin to take responsibility for you work load. These are all essential facets of good quality work experience that you simply can not attain in one week.
If you are aged 15 and over you can apply to the Volunteer programme. Working hours are flexible and volunteering can be carried out at weekends or around your studies.
Personally, I gain too much to put into words, but I enjoy every moment. From Collection cleaning to talking to visitors to leaning about the new exhibition.
John Green
Apply to be a Volunteer
What do I like best about volunteering at the Holburne ? Having the chance to share the Museum with the public, to share some of the knowledge I’ve acquired over the years, to have contact with the children who come with schools and families, to get closer to all these wonderful things on display, and learn about them – where does it end ? I just have a really lovely time
Trish Tassis