Volunteer Administrator

Who we are: 

We all want to know where we’re from, to solve the mysteries of our past, to connect with people whose lives lead to ours, to feel as they felt, and to wonder what we would have done in their place.

The Society of Genealogists is an educational charity founded in 1911, and is the custodian of an extensive and exciting collection of diverse historical and modern physical and digital records. We have a unique purpose: to help people discover their place in history. We preserve the records of everyday lives and make them available to anyone wanting to understand where they’ve come from - grassroots sources,rich data of unlikely origin, exceptional assets that capture the unfolding, unofficial history of us all.
 
Benefits: 

• Opportunity to work with a warm and friendly team of volunteers and staff 

• Twenty-five days of annual leave pro rata per annum, as well as Bank Holidays

• Contribution towards eyecare costs 

• Access to member benefits of the Society of Genealogists 

• Pension scheme 

Location: Based at our Research Hub in the heart of London, 40 Wharf Road, N1 7GS  The role requires on-site office work, although there is some flexibility for working from home. 

Purpose:  

You will be an integral part of our team, bringing together our professional staff with our immensely valuable and experienced volunteers. You will engage with our existing volunteer team, recruit new volunteers for various opportunities within the charity, and match people with volunteer activities as they arise, making sure that volunteers have fulfilling and purposeful projects to work on. 

Key accountabilities:

• Maintain register of volunteers in Outlook and One Drive in compliance with GDPR  

• Ensure that volunteers are engaged in meaningful duties directly related to the objectives of the Society 

• Respond to requests from staff for volunteer engagement in particular activities (e.g. poll books indexing, library inventory, magazine content)

• Organise occasional Zoom training sessions for projects and maintain organic resources and procedures 

• Liaise with proofreaders in the development and maintenance of indexing guidelines 

• Allocate, distribute and collect project work and arrange proofreading 

• Maintain volunteer page of our website and volunteer forms 

• Supply brief text to magazine and newsletter to encourage volunteering 

• Write and publish occasional articles for the website about particular categories of volunteer work 

• Monitor and maintain volunteer forum  

• Write and distribute volunteer e-newsletter 

• Write text for newsletter about volunteer achievements and engagement 

• Provide statistics and notes on volunteer achievements in the Dispatch e-newsletter 

Background and experience:

Essential 

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills 

• Good presentation and training skills 

• Good time management and organisational skills 

• Good multi-tasking skills with the ability to deal with and prioritise multiple requests. 

• Personable, with the ability to form different relationships and demonstrated ability to enthuse others 

• Preparedness to be flexible and a commitment to team work 

• Knowledge of issues affecting volunteers 

• Excellent computer skills; experience using dropbox and OneDrive

• Strength in problem solving and the ability to maximise limited resources

• Ability to resolve problems/issues tactfully and effectively 

• Experience of volunteer coordination  

Desirable 

• Experience writing newsletters and reports.

• Experience working and updating forums 

• Experience writing newsletters and reports