Kids in Museums

Would you like to volunteer for Kids in Museums? We value our volunteers and the contribution they make to our organisation. If you would like to apply for a volunteer post, please email getintouch@kidsinmuseums.org.uk and include a CV. Thanks.

We’re very lucky at Kids In Museums to have several highly skilled and dedicated volunteers helping us run the organisation…

ELEE KIRK spent eight years working in science museum education, first at Thinktank, Birmingham science museum, and then at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. During this time she worked with tens of thousands of visitors and school children, designing and presenting workshops, science shows, lab sessions, and family activities. In September 2009 she began a PhD in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, looking at young children’s experience of Natural History in museums. She also carries out freelance education work for museums. She has wanted to work in museums since primary school, and so knows first hand how life changing museum visits can be.

MAY REDFERN has worked in the museum and heritage sector for the past twelve years. Since 2005 she has practiced as a independent consultant, providing management support to a variety of non profit organisations. Before that May worked at Harewood House Trust, Leeds, the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge and The Farmland Museum & Denny Abbey, Cambridgeshire. May trained as a curator at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere where in 1997 she was the first recipient of a Modern Apprenticeship in Museums, Galleries and Heritage. She went on to complete an MA in Museum Studies in 1998 and a Clore Fellowship in 2005-7.

SAMANTHA SELF volunteers for Kids in Museums in her spare time by assisting with bookkeeping, research and administration. She works part time as a museum consultant with particular focus on the research and evaluation of digital interactives in heritage specifically with young people. Her MA speciality was collections digitisation and 2D/3D interpretation evaluating a specially created video game as an interpretive tool for young people at a museum in Preston. Sam studied Ancient History and Archaeology at University of Birmingham where she realised her desire to work in heritage. She currently lives in Essex and enjoys visiting sites of historical and archaeological interest as often as possible as well as playing the violin.

ROSE SILVESTER is the Kids in Museums website moderator. Rose works part time in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol, providing technical support for the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Service. An Open University degree project led to her joining Bristol Magpies (now called the Friends of Bristol’s Museums, Galleries & Archives or FBMGA) and serving on the committees of this Friends group for several years. She has also edited the Newsletter and Annual Journal for the British Association of Friends of Museums (BAFM) and currently volunteers at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection. All her museum activities are voluntary and unpaid and she is a firm believer in the mutual benefits of volunteering. Rose is also a member of the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, the Friends of Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury, and a supporter of Farms for City Children..

JANE ALLNUTT taught in Primary and Secondary Schools for many years and has taken several thousand kids to museums during her teaching career, (plus her own two daughters!) Since leaving fulltime teaching she has volunteered with Children’s and Family Activities at her local museum where she is Newsletter Editor of the Friends of Chelmsford Museums. Jane has worked freelance for MLA, giving support and training in using the National Participation Database. She works as a freelance educator at an Essex Heritage Centre and for the Royal Collection.

POLLY CORRIGAN worked as an arts journalist on the website of the Telegraph for eight years. She is now a freelance writer and mother to one daughter, and is very happy that museum visits are a part of both of these sides of her life. Polly is a friend of the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. She studied History at the University of Liverpool and also has an MA in Russian Politics from UCL.

CLAIRE SANDERS looks after the sign ups to the Kids in Museums manifesto. Claire studied History at the University of Manchester but her interest was sparked from an early age through a course on Ancient Egypt. She is a huge fan of whiling a day away in museums and regularly uses her nephews as an excuse. After a hectic couple of years running international events, Claire worked for Make Your Mark encouraging youth enterprise and is now a freelance marketing and campaigns consultant specialising in youth and community projects.

JANE HARARI is a primary school teacher and also acts as a freelance educator, one half of Pathways to the Past, motivated by a love of spending time in museums and galleries. Jane has studied Jewish History at University College London, which was the start of many hours spent in the British Museum. This continued when she completed an MA in Museums & Galleries in Education from the Institute of Education, London. After relocating to Boston with her family for three years, Jane worked as a freelance educator in Jackson Homestead Museum, Newton Massachusetts and continues to enjoy spending spare time volunteering for Kids in Museums.

Kids in Museums logo and banner illustrations all © Quentin Blake.

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