Volunteering

Cleaning

With so much space, most of it within hangars, everything gets dusty. Spiders are so much better at building cobwebs than humans are at removing them. We currently have several vacancies within this team.

Stewards

Or Docents as our American friends refer to them. This team engage our visitors and help them to better understand the exhibits. We especially need more volunteers for this on Sundays, especially event days. Hopefully this team will also assist on school/Scout visit days. If you enjoy talking to people, know a bit about our exhibits (or are prepared to learn) then this team has several vacancies. In addition we currently have three unmanned collections: Royal Observer Corps, Bomber Command and 446th Bomb Group. Someone to “own” these collections would be very useful. You would need to have knowledge of the area so that you could chat to visitors about the exhibits.

Groundforce

This team is invaluable in keeping the grass and surroundings up to scratch.  Includes, fence mending, tree/bush lopping, maintaining the Adair Walk and the memorial garden on the airfield, path clearing/repairs, etc.  They work with the weather so have to be flexible on which days to attend.  There are currently vacancies within this team.

Carpenters

Make items to order especially display cabinets, visitor seating and outdoor furniture, repairs and maintenance of buildings, various items for sale (e.g. bird/bug boxes). The chippies also do the maintenance around the site. Currently we have space for one person in this team. 

Engineers

The engineers are the ones who restore our major artefacts. Previous experience in a workshop environment is necessary. Due to the relatively small amount of work in this area we currently have no vacancies in this team.

Hands on/Education

Otherwise known as the Link team. This team build and restore items which visitors can climb into, try out and generally have fun with. They also look after our radio displays. During school visits this is the team that give rides in our two working Link Trainers and two Microsoft Flight Simulators. Knowing one end of a screwdriver from the other is useful, but not essential. We currently have a couple of vacancies within this team.

Electricians

As the title suggests this team look after our electrics. If someone has the relevant qualifications we could use another member in this team. 

Painters

This team’s main task is the repainting of the aircraft in the collection. For this there is a need for a certain amount of agility as some of the work is quite high. The team also paint buildings, cabinets, floors, or to put it another way just about everything. If you're good with a brush then we have a couple of vacancies within this team.

Archive/Interpretation

This team is responsible for ensuring that every artefact within the museum (and we have several tens of thousands of them) is catalogued and recorded. The artefacts also need interpretation and labelling, obviously with so many artefacts we constantly need to update old labels. The team also researches items in order to provide more information on them. We have several vacancies within this team.

Retail

This is the team that look after the shop, the bric-a-brac stall and NAAFI (cafe). This team tends to work in small groups to ensure that all three outlets are staffed whenever the museum is open. We have several vacancies within this team.

Events

Our special events require different types of people; car parking to arranging the days in the first place; catering to organising flypasts; hands-on, to washing up. This team works Sundays when we have special events (refer web-site for details). This would ideally suit people who still work, but also want to get involved. We have several vacancies.

Renewing volunteer membership