Do you want peer recognition for excellence? Do you need evidence to show your effective engagement with volunteers? If so, why not nominate your archive service for the ARA Archive Volunteering Award?
Winners will have a national platform to celebrate their volunteers’ contribution to the service and gain publicity for their archive’s role in supporting individuals and community through volunteering programmes.
2016 Award Winner was ‘Helping us to Achieve’, the National Library of Wales’s (NLW) scheme to expand access to Wales’ national archives by developing a cadre of skilled volunteers. The Judges said…
“’Helping us to Achieve’ was the stand-out nomination in a very strong field. In 2015-16 alone, 65 project volunteers took part in the scheme, volunteering the equivalent of over 1,000 days of their time. They completed 10 projects and tasks; another 10 are still in progress. 769 online volunteers also participated in ‘Cynefin’, a ground-breaking project to geo-reference Wales’s Tithe Maps. ‘Helping us to Achieve’ has involved wide community collaboration and support, a diverse range of volunteers, and benefitted from professional archive staff support at the National Library, as well as top-management backing. The scheme has also delivered at an individual level: around 20% of the volunteers have moved on to paid employment.”
The Archives and Records Association seeks to celebrate the role of volunteers in supporting archive services, and to collect good practice case studies to inform the wider sector. This award is a key strand of the work of ARA’s Volunteering in Archives, Action Plan, bringing to life the recommendations the ARA report Managing Volunteering in Archives. The award is also supported by The National Archives, the Welsh Government’s Museums Archives and Libraries Division, and the Scottish Council on Archives.
This award is open to archives across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Awards will be publicised widely throughout and beyond the sector.
We welcome nominations for the award. A short nomination form is available from the ARA website
www.archives.org.uk/careers/volunteering/volunteering-awards.html
and organisations may nominate projects, or ongoing volunteer programmes, that ran during 2016/2017.
Nominations will be assessed against three key outcomes:
- A) Impact on volunteers
- B) Impact on service
- C) Wider impact
Completed nomination forms need to be returned to volunteeringaward@archives.org.uk by the end of National Volunteers Week – 9 June 2017.
If you have any queries about the award please contact Sally Bevan, Volunteering Awards Administrator, (020 7332 3820) or via volunteeringaward@archives.org.uk.
