House Experience Volunteer

Job details

Our House Experience Volunteers add the sparkle to any visit – giving everyone a warm welcome, bringing stories from Ickworth to life and helping people get the best out of their day.    We have an ever-changing offer of opportunities at Ickworth and regularly internally recruit for ad hoc volunteer roles through our weekly newsletter. We use an online booking system so that, once you are settled within a team, shifts can be flexible to suit you.

By getting involved you could:

Become part of a friendly and dedicated team

Spend time with us at Ickworth, learn about its history, stories and enjoy its beauty

Meet people from all walks of life

Find an opportunity to use your existing skills and develop new ones

Improve your communication skills

Gain experience for your CV and future career development

Get a warm glow by knowing you have made a difference to someone’s day out with us

You’d also be joining Europe’s largest conservation charity and the wider National Trust team proudly looking after 780 miles of coastline, over 250,000 hectares of land, over 500 historic houses, castles, ancient monuments, gardens, parks and nature reserves (including lighthouses, villages, pubs and a gold mine!). We are a unique charity welcoming millions of people each year and with a vision to open up places for the benefit of everyone, for ever.

What’s involved:

Creating a warm welcome for everyone who visits the house

Responding to the diverse needs of visitors, including people with additional access needs

Sharing inspirational stories, curious facts and practical information or simply the space for visitors to wander at their own pace

Helping visitors to discover more, answering questions and making suggestions so they can enjoy their day, their way

Being an ambassador for the whole property and the National Trust. Helping visitors understand the full scope of the offer at Ickworth beyond the house

Learning more about Ickworth, so you can share your knowledge and stories of the family and their collections with visitors

Responding to the changing needs of Ickworth – supporting ongoing interpretation strategies in the House

Supporting with health and safety and evacuation procedures if required

Being part of a team that may need to adapt and change in response to local needs, National Trust priorities or changes to government guidelines

We want all our volunteers to feel welcome and to have an equally positive experience when volunteering with us. So, volunteers will:

Be provided with the necessary induction, training, equipment and reasonable adjustments to do this role well and safely

Be offered expenses to cover agreed travel costs between home and place of volunteering

Have remote access to support, news and rotas via our volunteer website

This role will suit you if you are:

Warm and friendly

Someone with a curious and inquisitive nature, with an ability to engage our visitors, ask questions and facilitate conversations

Able to listen thoughtfully and actively

Someone with exceptional customer service standards- a desire to put visitors before everything else

A good storyteller, with a talent for reading body language and thinking on your feet

Sensitive to visitor and volunteer needs – working as an effective team member

Willing to develop your knowledge of Ickworth, its history and vast collections.

All National Trust volunteers will be asked to

· Respect and uphold the National Trust values whilst volunteering with us.

· Complete training required of all NT volunteers and any role specific training.

· Adhere to relevant policies and processes including safeguarding, health and safety, and equality and diversity