Seeing things inside a church with new eyes. Learning to appreciate fine art and craft.
Volunteering with The Arts Society
Our volunteers offer their time and energy to help us preserve and celebrate the arts and heritage. But you also get something back from volunteering – you’ll make new friends, learn new skills, and you can enjoy knowing you are making a huge difference.
Watch our short video below to learn more.
Our Societies are run entirely by volunteers; a massive achievement by our members. Many Societies also have teams of volunteers who focus on the following areas of work in their local community:
Arts projects benefit everyone and we encourage and support Societies to offer engaging projects in a wide range of arts to groups of all ages in their local communities.
Following the pandemic with isolation for schoolchildren and amongst older people and the impact on communities it has never been more important to support access to the arts.
Working with schools, museums, local charities and community groups, our volunteers support projects across a broad spectrum of arts. They are passionate about the benefits that creativity and arts education can bring to their community.
If heritage is your passion and you want to make a difference, this might be the role for you. Working closely with the curators and volunteering managers of museums, archives, gardens and historic houses, you will get to spend time behind the scenes in these wonderful places as part of the team.
From the conservation of books to research projects in historic parks and gardens, our volunteers are busy all over the UK helping to conserve and protect the nation’s heritage for future generations. They are trained by experts and work in many different roles including book conservators, stewards and archivists in heritage sites.
Discovering a place of worship, an historic building or town through art, artefacts and social history can be inspiring. Trails are for everyone and draw attention to the art, architecture, local history and culture within a historic site, a place of worship or an area.
Trails in churches have been designed for people living with dementia to evoke memories and prompt conversation with family or carers.
Volunteering stories
The Arts Society Chiltern & Chalfont celebrate the launch of their latest Children's Trail.
Find out how The Arts Society West Sussex used a grant from our Patricia Fay Memorial Fund to support poetry project with local school children.
The Arts Society Totnes use their Community Grant to support a garden based project with The Breakthrough Transformation Trust in South Devon.
The Arts Society North Bedfordshire used their Community Grant to support a climate change themed artwork at a local academy.
Thanks to a Community Grant The Arts Society Epsom have been able to install art at their local station.
The Arts Society Dukeries launch their 14th Trail in a 'young' church.
Volunteering Sound Bites
Listen to stories from our volunteers about how they offer their time and energy to deliver outstanding arts and heritage projects.
Volunteers Chris Hemming, Jan Tucker, Wendy Burdett, Gill Waller and Susan Merelie share their experiences of volunteering. Click play below to listen.
The Marsh Awards
Every year the Marsh Christian Trust recognises some of the outstanding contributions made by volunteers of The Arts Society in the field of heritage conservation and arts education.
Link to Marsh Awards page
Volunteer with The Arts Society
There are different ways in which you can take part in volunteering with us ranging from helping to run one of our Societies to taking part in projects involving arts and heritage in the local community.
In order to be covered by our insurance, our volunteers are required to become members of The Arts Society. This can either be a member of a local Arts Society or as a Supporter Member.
In order to find out where your nearest Society is please visit https://theartssociety.org/our-societies or if you do not want to join a Society, details of our Supporter Membership can be found at https://theartssociety.org/member-benefits
If you have any queries about volunteering please email volunteering@theartssociety.org