Volunteers

Lilydale & District Historical Society is a not-for-profit organisation operated by volunteers. As such, any money raised through sponsorship, research, merchandise sales and photo sales goes directly into the society’s bank account.

Without volunteers we would not have a society. Our volunteers do many things to ensure our society and premises operate smoothly. However, because we are all volunteers doesn’t mean we don’t have a professional approach to the work we do.

Every one has their own skills developed throughout their lives. When approached by people who want to join the society and become volunteers we firstly ask them about their interests and skills and see if they want to use the skills they already have or learn something new.

Then all volunteers undergo an orientation program so they understand what we do; why we do it and most importantly how we do it.

Through this our volunteers understand how important the job/s they do are important to everyone.
The work of the volunteers includes:

• Doing duty alongside an experienced volunteer on a regular monthly basis.
• Cataloguing our paper based objects -again working alongside one of our experienced catalogers. Cataloguing gives our volunteers a valuable insight into our collection and along they way they learn about the people, the places and history of our collecting area.
• Data entry. The society’s many collections are indexed and recorded on Excel so the information can be easily accessed. We are also indexing history books that don’t have their own index and adding them to our own databases.
• Scanning – the society has many negatives and images that are being scanned and indexed. This is an on-going project and one which again teaches people about the history of the area.
• Research – We receive many requests for information and volunteers learn what resources we have on hand and how to use them to complete research projects. With large projects, we may have several volunteers who may do various parts of the research.

If you would like to become a volunteer please contact Sue Thompson at [email protected]