General Job Description

Reports to: Director of Volition Community/Director of Fundraising and Development (DVC/DFD)
Cathedral contact: Canon Pastor and Acting Precentor as mentor
Salary: £29,000 plus a 10% employers pension contribution
Hours of work: 35 hours per week, including some evening and weekend work
Principal role: To recruit, train and manage the volunteers at Manchester Cathedral, ensuring maximum benefits are achieved for Volition Community, the institution and for the individual volunteers. To develop and enhance the employer partnerships with Volition Community

Location: Manchester Cathedral, its precinct, the Cathedral Visitor Centre including the Hanging Bridge, Manchester Central Library and the Cenotaph

Main tasks

1. To recruit volunteers of all ages, educational backgrounds and walks of life for the welcome, hospitality and community mission of the Cathedral, including target numbers of the long-term unemployed for Volition Community.
2. With the Director of Fundraising and Development, to ensure that each volunteer is given induction and training appropriate to their individual circumstances and are allotted tasks suitable for their individual targets and aspirations.
3. To manage the volunteers, including the setting and implementation of rotas for welcomers and guides, the day to day activities of the Volition Community volunteers, and reviews of performance.
4. To develop a forward-looking and flexible marketing and communications campaign for volunteering at Manchester Cathedral, with targets for year on year increases in visitor footfall and sustainable revenue generation.
5. To work with the Director of Fundraising and Development on raising the profile of the Cathedral as a visitor and heritage destination and a centre of volunteer excellence for the future
6. To work with the Director of Volition Community on the delivery of the visitor offer in partnership with the museum and galleries in Greater Manchester
7. To prepare regular and informative statistical and qualitative reports on all aspects of the progress of the volunteer team, including discussions about continual career progression and personal development of all volunteers in relation to their individual circumstances.
8. To nurture and implement a community team spirit and modes of operation amongst all Cathedral volunteers, including mentoring and role modelling, and to ensure this approach is integrated into the long-term development of the Cathedral.
9. To undertake such other tasks as are appropriate to the role as required by the Director of Fundraising and Development

Qualifications and experience

• Applicants need not necessarily be graduates, but should have professional qualifications suitable for the development and training of volunteers at all levels or none of competence and expertise, coupled with at least five years’ work experience in the field of volunteering. This may include consideration of applicants who have themselves been volunteers and who can give evidence of the skills they have acquired in the process. A qualification in tourism or guiding would be an advantage.
• A thorough knowledge of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority or evidence that the applicant is capable of quickly obtaining such knowledge
• A working knowledge of current legislation relating to volunteering and long-term unemployment
• Good literacy, numerical and i.t. skills
• Sound budget management

Personal qualities

• Leadership and empathy for others combined with strong management skills
• A commitment to the role and contribution of volunteers
• A willingness to work within the ethos of the Church of England
• Strong personal motivation, coupled with the ability to work on own initiative within a policy framework set by the Chapter
• Ability to work closely with Cathedral officers, including prompt identification and sharing of problems for individual volunteers or for the programme as a whole
• A cheerful and upbeat disposition

Details

• The role holder works from offices that are part of the Manchester Cathedral complex
• Working hours – Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, with flexibility for some weekend or late finish working
• 25 days Holiday, in addition to statutory provision
• The role will be for an initial period of one year fixed term, subject to review and consideration for a permanent post

Recruitment Process

• If you’re interested in the role and believe you have the required skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to Anthony O’Connor, Director, Volition Community, Manchester Cathedral, Victoria Street, Manchester M3 1SX or by email to anthony@volitioncommunity.org
• Applications will need to be received no later than Tuesday 9th April 2019
• All candidates will be contacted by Thursday 11th April to indicate the status of the application
• Interviews with take place on Monday 15th April 2019, candidates selected for interview should expect to give a 10 minute presentation on how they would develop and deliver this role
• Start date – ASAP; candidates’ notice periods will be accommodated

Volunteer Management at Manchester Cathedral – Overview

Volunteering is fundamental to Vision of Volition Community and Manchester Cathedral and will continue to be of key strategic importance in the future. To maximise the benefits to the individuals involved, there is a unified volunteer community consisting of welcomers and guides and of volition volunteers. This short paper sets out the framework for these arrangements.

The Cathedral’s volunteers are essential to its functioning. The full schedule of volunteer roles includes such activities as bell ringing, flower arranging, stewarding, and membership of the voluntary choir. The welcomers and guides and some of the Volition Community volunteers are the most public-facing of these groups and have a vital role in the outreach to the Cathedral’s local and regional community.

The Volition Community is an innovative programme that the Cathedral built up from 2012. Its objective is to assist the long-term unemployed to gain the skills and the confidence to make their way into employment, a model that has proved so successful that it is available for national rolling out by negotiation. As recruits to the programme over the period presented with more deep-seated problems, however, the emphasis shifted increasingly to the well-being aspects of the project, while keeping employment for programme graduates as a clear objective. The aims of the project are kept under constant review.

In 2013 a Visitor Services Manager was appointed as a front line manager, whose main role was to build up visitor numbers and donations, and make the Cathedral a desired destination for tourists, visitors and the local community. The postholder recruited welcomers and guides ensured their induction and training was sound, and managed their rotas and their personal development.

In 2018 there was an opportunity to bring these two functions together. The objective is to operate a seamless service for all volunteers at the Cathedral, and to enable volunteers, however diverse their backgrounds or reasons for participating in the life of the Cathedral, to learn from and support each other. The enduring principle is to enable volunteers to give according to their talents and experience and to receive support appropriate to their needs and individual situations. Their tasks are carried out in the Cathedral building and precinct, in the Cathedral Visitor Centre that includes the Hanging Bridge, and at the Cenotaph in the city centre.

Experience over the last twelve months has indicated that the unified approach offers a more coherent experience for visitors, gives better value for money and positions the Cathedral to develop long-term sustainable revenue streams. The postholder will therefore be required to enhance and embed the unified service and to position Manchester Cathedral as a national leader in the field of volunteering.