Volunteers for Local heritage Charity

Tiger Bay and the World, The Heritage & Cultural Exchange is a community based organisation that aims to fully chronicle the heritage and cultural diversity of Tiger Bay and Cardiff Docklands and bring it to the world.

We are custodians of a substantial collection of historical material relating to this multi-cultural heritage, and we need volunteers to help us organise and catalogue this collection. Our aim for this collection is to make an accessible online resource that can be used by historians, researchers, and community members.

Archive volunteers

We need a number of volunteers who are willing to help us go through boxes and organise and sort out the material in it. This might involve beautiful photos sometimes, but could also be days of numbering cassette tapes! We are looking for people who are happy to work in an organised and careful way.

One of the first groups of items we are organising is the oral history tapes and transcripts. They need to be listed, numbered and connected to each other (where possible). We will then move on to other boxes and groups of items. This work involves sorting out larger amounts of material, not researching individual items.

For some groups of items we can move on to starting to catalogue them soon; see below for Cataloguing volunteers; however, there are also many boxes and groups that need sorting out first.

This will take place at Glamorgan Archives; guidance or training where necessary will be provided; as will be gloves and other material where needed.

Cataloguing volunteers

This role can overlap with Archive volunteers. For some of the groups of items in the collection, we can make a start at cataloguing them without needing much further research.

We will provide some training for Cataloguing volunteers to talk you through our catalogue programme and database; which fields to fill out; how to formulate; how to find the right information. This role does need a basic understanding of how to work with computers, but the system is easy to use and detailed guidance is available.

In general this work will take place at Glamorgan Archives, as the material is stored there. However, if you would be interested in this work but can’t travel there, let us know. You will work with members of staff and other volunteers.

Oral History Listening volunteers

We need a number of volunteers who are willing to listen to oral history interviews that have already been digitised. After checking whether transcripts already exist, we will start with listening to those tapes that have no records yet.

We can provide laptop, headphones etc in the Community Centre, or ask us about doing this remotely in the comfort of your own home. We will provide guidance on the way to record themes and subjects. We do not ask for a transcription, but a recording of key points.

Photo workshop volunteers

We hold ‘photo workshops’ in which we show the photographs from the archives to attendees, trying to get as much information as possible about the photos – who is on them? Where is it taken? What are they doing? What year/decade?

We could use some volunteers to be at these events and steer discussions and record information offered by attendees. If you like meeting people and are interested in hearing stories from the past, this might be a nice role for you!

Some of the workshops will be at the Butetown Community Centre, but we are also hoping to hold some at different locations with specific groups. Let us know even if you just want to be involved in one at your local church/ club!