COMMUNITY LEARNING DIRECTOR

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Jersey Heritage

Information on the role of

COMMUNITY LEARNING DIRECTOR

We are committed to providing Jersey with a first-class museum, archives and heritage service and work to the highest professional standards. We aim to operate to UK national standards in everything we do and we benchmark ourselves against national standards to give our funders and our audience confidence in the quality of our work. We currently meet the following standards:

For museums: The Museums Libraries and Archives Council’s Museum Accreditation Scheme

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For visitor services: Visit Britain’s Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme;

For archives: The National Archive’s standard; For staff: Investors in People standard.

Community learning services & events

We hold an exciting array of events, exhibitions and living history demonstrations at each our sites throughout the year, which aim to bring the past to life by engaging our visitors.

Every year we meet most of the schools in Jersey and all the sites have curriculum links. Reaching out from the sites, Jersey Heritage curators and archivists support reminiscence programmes in care centres for around 600 elderly islanders every year.

We are looking to introduce step changes to the way in which we will engage with the public to deliver museum services through the development of more community partnerships.

We also work with advisory panels to give stakeholders a voice. Examples include the panels for historic building listing and for access to public archive records. Formal public consultation has become important in areas like the conservation policies for our historic buildings to ensure that our plans have wide public support.

Our visitor sites and commercial services

We are responsible for Mont Orgueil and Elizabeth Castles, the Jersey and Maritime Museums, La Hougue Bie and Hamptonne, the Jersey Archive and the Sir Francis Cook Gallery and Augrès Store. The Augrès Store houses the Trust’s reserve collections.

We currently have around 50 permanent staff and are joined by a number of additional staff during our main season (April to October inclusive). Our staff team is highly motivated, team-centred and has achieved remarkable results over the last few years. The organisation has a relatively low staff turnover and a good absence record.

We are also fortunate to have over 100 volunteers who give their time generously to help our work in all areas from family history enquiries at Jersey Archive, to guiding at visitor sites, from conservation of objects in museum stores, to historic boat restoration.

Our staff team is located throughout our sites, although the majority of permanent staff are based at the Jersey Museum and the Jersey Archive all year round. Seasonal sites are cared for by our team of Site Gardiens over the winter and are staffed by Site Gardiens during the season with support from seasonal staff including Visitor Services Assistants, Living History demonstrators and volunteers. Many of our seasonal staff have worked with us for a number of years, staying in touch over the winter and returning to work with us again when seasonal sites reopen to our visitors.

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The Jersey Museum is currently open to the public seven days a week from early April to 30 December annually.

The Seasonal sites, The Maritime Museum, Elizabeth Castle, La Hougue Bie and Mont Orgueil Castle are open seven days a week from early April to the end of October. Mont Orgueil is additionally open four days a week in the winter (Friday to Monday). Hamptonne has it own unique opening arrangements, currently mid May to mid September.

The Jersey Archive is open to the public three days a week (Tuesday – Thursday) throughout the year and one Thursday late night opening and one Saturday morning opening a month.

Our visitor sites are available for private and corporate hire for functions and wedding ceremonies.

We manage a collection of heritage properties and ‘coastal towers’ that are available for hire as self-catering holiday accommodation. Properties include: Radio Tower, Barge Aground, Elizabeth Castle, La Crête Fort, Fort Leicester, L’Etacquerel Fort, Archirondel Tower, Lewis’s Tower, Fisherman’s Cottage, La Tour Cârrée, La Rocco Tower and Kempt Tower.

After many years of outsourcing, Jersey Heritage are now managing the retail site shops internally with the aim of increasing income as a result of offering a better service and more focused product offering to our customers.

We work closely with third party partners to provide catering at the castle sites, Hamptonne and at the Jersey Museum.

We operate the Castle Ferries that run between West Park and Elizabeth Castle so that the ferry journey becomes an integral part of the visitor experience.

Income is generated through admissions, venue hire, retail and catering, fundraising and membership. Many of these activities bring new audiences to our sites as well as generating revenue and in each case we need to balance optimum value to the public against maximum commercial gain.

Our heritage partners

Nearly all Jersey Heritage work is done in partnership with other organisations. Most of the collections and sites in our care are managed on behalf of the Société Jersiaise, the National Trust and the States of Jersey for example. We also work closely with organisations like the Channel Islands Family History Society, the Friends of the Maritime Museum, the Duke’s Leopards and the 1781 Jersey Militia.

Our corporate supporters

Over 30 local businesses support Jersey Heritage each year as members, project partners or sponsors. Corporate members not only provide financial support, but also people to help with conservation projects.

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5 About the Role

Community Learning Director

The holder of this full time post is an integral member of the Senior Management Team and will work collaboratively and proactively with colleagues of all levels to deliver the organisation’s strategic objectives whilst providing an enjoyable and memorable visitor experience for all.

Learning and engagement is at the heart of Jersey Heritage. We strive through our unique stories to bring history to life for visitors of all ages and backgrounds. The Community Learning Director will play a key role in the research, creation and delivery of content, formal and informal, online and offline for both our education and learning and public programmes.

The post holder will have a team of 3 permanent direct reports; Curator of Art, Curator of Archaeology and Family Events Co-ordinator. In addition, the post holder will manage seasonal living history staff as well as outsourced curatorial provision and external academic specialists who work in partnership with Jersey Heritage. The post is available immediately as we prepare for the retirement of the current post holder at the end of 2014. We are looking to appoint a self-motivated professional with a proven track record of general and people management experience in a similar environment. The role requires strong collaborative leadership, excellent planning abilities and the ability to communicate effectively at all levels.

The post holder will be based at the Jersey Museum. Please see the full job description for full details.

Should you wish to discuss the role in more detail then please contact Jon Carter, Director on 633313, or by email [email protected].

Terms and Conditions

Hours of work

Jersey Heritage’s standard full time working hours are 1950 hours per annum (37.5 hours per week) worked from 8.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday, with an hour (unpaid) for lunch. Evening, weekend and bank holiday work may occasionally feature as part of the role due to the operational nature of our organisation.

Salary

The salary for this post is according to a scale approved by the Board of Trustees and will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience and skills.

Benefits

• Annual leave entitlement starting at 28 days per annum plus statutory public and bank holidays.

• Eligibility to join the States of Jersey Public Employees’ Contributory Retirement Scheme (‘PECRS’) on successful completion of the probationary period. Please note that PECRS is currently under review by the States of Jersey – full details are available from www.gov.je - pensions

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• The opportunity for self-development – Jersey Heritage encourages all staff to develop and undertake training relevant to their field of work.

• A supportive, team-working environment.

• Membership of an Employee Wellbeing Programme

• Free entry to all Jersey Heritage Trust sites. Selection and Recruitment Procedures How to Apply

To apply for this position, please forward the following: 1. a completed Recruitment Application Form

2. a comprehensive Curriculum Vitae including details of your academic and professional qualifications, current and previous employment history including accountabilities and achievements, relevant professional training and

memberships.

3. a supporting covering letter stating reasons for your application and describing how you consider your experience and competencies are relevant to the post to:

Allison Soulsby

Human Resources Director Jersey Heritage,

Jersey Museum, The Weighbridge, St Helier,

JE2 3NF

[email protected]

Applications without a covering letter will not be considered.

Recruitment Timetable

Closing date for receipt of applications: Friday 22 August 2014

Panel interviews Tuesday 09 September 2014

Please confirm in your application that you are available to attend interview on the date above and advise if you have any times that need to be avoided.

COMMUNITY LEARNING DIRECTOR

Jersey Heritage

Information on the role of

COMMUNITY LEARNING DIRECTOR

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