As an organisation, The Arts Society encourages its members to work as volunteers on heritage conservation projects.

In Kingston upon Thames, we have a Heritage Volunteers’ Representative who helps interested members to find  projects to which they can contribute.  Projects can be short or longer term and are in a wide variety of organisations. Activities currently include book and document conservation, cataloguing archives and stewarding or guiding in museums. Training and support from professional staff is usually provided for new volunteers. Our members report that their work is much appreciated, as well as being interesting and rewarding. Projects involving a group of volunteers also have a sociable element.

A new Volunteering Opportunity for TASK Members

Venue: The Kingston History Centre, Guildhall, Kingston KT1 1EU

The History Centre has a project to reorganise their photograph collection alongside their normal volunteer roles. The photo project involves removing viewing copies of images from the albums and sorting them into different categories, i.e. Market Place, River Thames, events, etc.  A full list of the categories will be given, and there will be support to help people who aren't too familiar with the area. Once the images have been sorted, you will need to identify any duplicates, of which there will be many. The images will then be given a new reference number and replaced in albums by subject.  The sessions will be on a Wednesday morning, and people can attend as and when they are available.  For this project there is no need for people to use the IT systems.

Dates and Times: Wednesdays at 10.30 – 13.00

It will not be every Wednesday;  dates to be announced:

Contact: Carolynne Cotton; local.history@kingston.gov.uk

If you are interested in joining this project, please contact Carolynne, mentioning that you are an Arts Society member, and please also let Gehane Tewfik know.

Click here for the latest Heritage Volunteer opportunities

Anyone interested in any of the volunteering opportunities listed contact Gehane Tewfik gehane@btinternet.com  for more details.

One project was on the transcribing of Red Cross VAD cards from WW1 online, a report on the work can be seen at: http://www.kingston.ac.uk/news/article/1657/17-may-2016-kingston-university-volunteers-help-historians-complete-landmark-digital-archive-project-of-british-red-cross-world/